LED headlights

[Helirich]

I was reading the "Ironman Delorean" thread and noted that the stock wires going to the headlights (amount other places) were not really of a heavy enough Gage. Rather than rewire them, I was thinking of changing to LED headlights. I'm sure the wires are sufficient to run them. I'm not a fan of some of the LED lights available. Frankly, they look kind of weird sometimes. But they do have some that look more conventional. Some include daytime running lights. (Although that would include some additional wires.)

In any case, I would appreciate pics with LED headlights and brand info if you guys have it.

[Timeless]

I have 20+ years experience in car building/tuning/fabrication/etc. and lots of experience with LED lighting. Long story short: JW speaker will be your best bet for performance. The cost is high but so is the cost of great DMC-12. There are other OE looking options like the United Pacific units but I have no experience with those. Watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATr3AnfcMZE

[FABombjoy]

I have a set of JW Speaker headlights w/ heaters & black bezels waiting to install. The look will not be for everyone but I like it :D It also took 8 months of patience to assemble a set for reasonably less than retail.

It might be some time but I will post installed pictures later this spring.

65681

[Timeless]

I see you got the heated units - nice. The aesthetics may not be 100% for some but they'll see the "light" when driving at night with JW. It's fantastic to have modern headlights on these cars.

[Helirich]

I have 20+ years experience in car building/tuning/fabrication/etc. and lots of experience with LED lighting. Long story short: JW speaker will be your best bet for performance. The cost is high but so is the cost of great DMC-12. There are other OE looking options like the United Pacific units but I have no experience with those. Watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATr3AnfcMZE

I've heard that JW is amoung the best, but I wasn't really doing it for better lighting. I just wanted to take the load off the wires. I have a truck that had halogens and kept melting the headlight switch plug. I got a conversion bulb and it draws lots less power. I can't tell the differnce in light and I didn't have a name brand like a JW.

In that case, I just changed the bulb. Obviously, here the whole housing must be changed. It would be nice if it was just plug and play, but I'm not above doing some modifications.

[David T]

It's not the wiring so much as the headlight switch that melts. There is a relay upgrade being sold to fix that. LED's would also help but not for the side markers if they short out.

[Christian Dietrich]

Been running leds headlights in my car for 7 years and is a daily driver car. 6000K at 7200lms and never a single issue. All from Amazon. Second picture is just the low beams.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210225/a7494e97a4ab6cd375d09e085fd10aef.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210225/a5dc2d1cce8b29c795ce70ecbe3bf81e.jpg

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Chris4099]

I did a conversion 5 years ago and documented it here:
http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?13455-LED-Headlight-Conversion

Basically any H4 conversion housing and some H4 LED bulbs should work, but I had to modify to get a good beam pattern. Toby at DPNW has a kit as well that's fully tested and works great if you want an easier option.

I've never heard of the factory wiring melting from stock halogen lights. While not thick AWG, it's enough to handle the current of US spec bulbs. Both high/low beams are also switched via relays, so there's no problem with the switch either. The switch does handle the full load of the marker lights, so a relay/fuse addition should be done (or at least a fuse and LED upgrade for those marker/plate lights). Still, plenty of benefit to upgrading the lights to LED on their own, so I still recommend it.

[Helirich]

Been running leds headlights in my car for 7 years and is a daily driver car. 6000K at 7200lms and never a single issue. All from Amazon. Second picture is just the low beams.

Cool pics, reqardless of the lights. Thanks for posting.


I did a conversion 5 years ago and documented it here:
http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?13455-LED-Headlight-Conversion

Basically any H4 conversion housing and some H4 LED bulbs should work, but I had to modify to get a good beam pattern. Toby at DPNW has a kit as well that's fully tested and works great if you want an easier option.

I've never heard of the factory wiring melting from stock halogen lights. While not thick AWG, it's enough to handle the current of US spec bulbs. Both high/low beams are also switched via relays, so there's no problem with the switch either. The switch does handle the full load of the marker lights, so a relay/fuse addition should be done (or at least a fuse and LED upgrade for those marker/plate lights). Still, plenty of benefit to upgrading the lights to LED on their own, so I still recommend it.

Thanks for the link. That was a very interesting thread. It was very interesting how you focused the lights. I have a custom truck I'm building and I installed LED's in the big 5x7 halogen housings. They appear to work in my back yard. But now you have me questioning if they need focusing. (I haven't driven it at night at all.)

I find it funny how other people were telling you they won't work when you are already driving it. Are the colors perfect, maybe not, but you are driving and obviously it hasn't been a big issue.

These are the lights I'm considering. I think the thin daytime lights will look good on the Delorean without looking completely alien.

https://www.carid.com/lumen/lumen-4x6-rectangular-led-headlights-547467711.html

[Timebender]

Do you know if these need to have the wire switched on the plug to get low beams working?

[Chris4099]

Do you know if these need to have the wire switched on the plug to get low beams working?

The specs say they have an H4 plug, so you most certainly will need to switch the wires around. Easy enough to do as you can just unclick the wires in the receptacle and move them around. Good time to give the contacts a good clean too while they are out.

[Helirich]

Anybody got this kit from Deloreango?

https://www.deloreango.com/us/complete-led-light-bulb-kit.html

I hate their website. It jumps around when I scroll and they don't list a price for the complete kit. Also, no pic of the lights installed.

[Chris 16409]

These are high Quality Hella H4 housings:

https://www.rockauto.com/en/parts/hella,003177001,headlamp+assembly,10762

I really like these.

[Rich]

A. I haven't used that kit from DeloreanGo
B. The webpage looks fine on my Firefox browser. Nice magnifying tool floats around for a closer look at the main photo.
C. Yes, I'm not seeing a price listed clearly for the kit, either. Workaround: Press the Add To Cart button at the bottom of the page. After that my cart held 123 parts for a total price of ~$590.

It's not clear to me what the headlight/bulb situation is in this kit. At least one item looks like the Hella H4 upgrade Chris mentions in the previous post. They do say the main HLs are not LEDs.

Use their Contact Us button and ask Arran your questions. His email response time is normally 1 day or even same day.


Anybody got this kit from Deloreango?

https://www.deloreango.com/us/complete-led-light-bulb-kit.html

I hate their website. It jumps around when I scroll and they don't list a price for the complete kit. Also, no pic of the lights installed.

[Midnight Specialist]

I have Toby's LEDs from DeLorean Parts Northwest and they were a stupid simple install.

[jangell]

I just did this the other day. My car had previously been converted to H4 halogens with Hella lenses. I also already had the wire swapping adaptor installed. The harness was not modified -- it's just an adaptor that swaps the relevant wires. I don't actually know where I got that from, but I remember it coming with some halogens at some point. They're readily available on Amazon if you don't want to pop the pins out of your existing connectors, like this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KC13WVL/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_D97F5Q8MYNBH4KD7EZYS .

I just checked the reviews on Amazon and bought some decent-sounding self-contained LED bulbs that were specifically designed to replace H4 bulbs. I think it was $40 for a pair, so I got two packs so I could use the same bulbs for the low beams and high beams. LED headlights seem to be soled in cooler color temperatures (6500k, in my case), but I like cooler lights, so that was a plus for me.

Installation was basically trivial (well, once you get by the annoyance of the fascia covering all the screws you need to get access to), and was no different than replacing a normal H4 bulb. The new bulbs are much brighter, sit in exactly the right place H4 housings, and focus light the same way the halogens did.

In fact, the hardest part was aiming the lights, since I don't have a 25' flat run to a wall that I could use. I wound up backing the car into the garage, then placing a folding table on the sloped driveway and sticking a board under it to make sure it was vertical, which worked just fine. These new bulbs are definitely brighter than the old halogens were. My lights were way out of adjustment, so I'm glad I went through the trouble to aim them so I wouldn't blind other drivers.

-- Joe

[dmcerik]

I was looking to do this conversion to my Delorean very soon. All the parts are here. I just need to get in the garage and start doing it.

https://www.dmc10515.com/delorean-led-headlights/

[Timeless]

Update: Installed the new to market Holley Retro Bright headlights in 5700K. Holy crap - amazing. Perfect beam pattern and as bright as my '21 Porsche Taycan headlights. High beams are ridiculously great. For less $ than the JW Speaker units + the period correct look these are the way to go. No cheap eBay garbage just fantastic headlights that plug-n-play. 20 minute installation. This should be the standard for Deloreans today.

https://youtu.be/Luync7UYwsI

[iflights]

Update: Installed the new to market Holley Retro Bright headlights in 5700K. Holy crap - amazing. Perfect beam pattern and as bright as my '21 Porsche Taycan headlights. High beams are ridiculously great. For less $ than the JW Speaker units + the period correct look these are the way to go. No cheap eBay garbage just fantastic headlights that plug-n-play. 20 minute installation. This should be the standard for Deloreans today.

https://youtu.be/Luync7UYwsI

These look really nice. Of course, I just installed Toby's.

[ssdelorean]

Update: Installed the new to market Holley Retro Bright headlights in 5700K. Holy crap - amazing. Perfect beam pattern and as bright as my '21 Porsche Taycan headlights. High beams are ridiculously great. For less $ than the JW Speaker units + the period correct look these are the way to go. No cheap eBay garbage just fantastic headlights that plug-n-play. 20 minute installation. This should be the standard for Deloreans today.

https://youtu.be/Luync7UYwsI

Are housings glass or plastic?

[Bitsyncmaster]

Are housings glass or plastic?

Good question. I found this on the Holley web site.

UV Treated Polycarbonate Lens won't shatter and is 10x stronger than glass or standard plastic

[Helirich]

Good question. I found this on the Holley web site.

UV Treated Polycarbonate Lens won't shatter and is 10x stronger than glass or standard plastic

I agree they may be ten times stronger, but I’m not worried about breaking them. I’m worried about them getting cloudy or yellow or scratched.

[Timeless]

I agree they may be ten times stronger, but I’m not worried about breaking them. I’m worried about them getting cloudy or yellow or scratched.
They're very robust. I'm not worried about breakage or fading and can always install PPF on them.