HIgh Beam LED upgrade for OEM Xenons

With LEDs, this is a pretty straightforward bulb swap. Maybe 10-15 minutes per side?

The original owner of my roadster had the factory Xenon upgrade done. This has a shuttered projector for the HID bulb to use for both low and high beams, but still also uses a halogen bulb for high beam as well.

Brighter is better, right?

I got this Sealight H9/H11 bulb based on the recommendation in this HID upgrade thread

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Use the marked jacking points to raise the car and remove the upper panel in wheel well with a 10mm socket for the bolts. The high beam is behind the inboard rubber cover. Just grab the tab on top and pull; I was surprised it didn't have any kind of latch since the low beams have a screwed on cover.

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Turn the bulb CLOCKWISE to loosen and remove. Interestingly, the high beam bulb in the Xenon housing is H8, not the H9 in the halogen housing.

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After cursing these inconsistent specs, I found out that H8, H9, & H11 bulbs are identical in size and differ only by the locking tabs. The Amazon description was incomplete and the Sealights are compatible with H8 too!

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You can see that the bottom tab in the picture is slightly narrower on the Sealight vs. the H8 halogen and I had no fiddling to get it to fit into the housing socket (while researching I found reviews for other brand upgrade bulbs where people had issues fitting them to H8 sockets)

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When installing the bulbs, make sure you feel a "click" of the base locking with the socket. This was harder than I expected with the awkwardness of just using my fingertips (weak hands). It may be hard to determine using the "verticality" of the bulb, looking from the front of the car.

Tuck the controller box thing into the headlight housing and replace the rubber cover. In the HID upgrade thread MPT said they had to do something with the wires, but they fit OK for me. Maybe another difference between the halogen & xenon housings? Or remnants of their previous HID high beam conversion?

Just make sure it's not interfering with the cooling fan . . . hmmm, maybe I should have removed that blue tag . . .

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You can see the brightness and color temp differences in this picture. Flashing the high beams (pulling on the stalk) only fires the halogen socket.

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This picture shows the high beams on with the HID bulbs . . . oh [email protected], the factory HID color temp is typically 3500K . . . maybe I need to change those too, to match the LED color temp of 6500K

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Halogen low beams are 9005/HB3 (not H8) and that's what you linked to. Those are the right high-beam.

I didn't do resistor, but haven't driven for any extended period with the high-beams (on ramps for JdeMO install). With the resistor, you may need to run the wiring out of the housing and back in?

 

Also, Sealight looks like they have a newer design with the driver built into the bulb base? might make things easier to fit?

https://smile.amazon.com/Headlight-SEALIGHT-Design-Upgraded-Warranty/dp/B07HCZ7RZ6/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=sealight+scoparc+s2+h11&qid=1577816571&s=automotive&sr=1-4

 

I like Morimoto lighting and have their 55w HID upgrade in my 2001 Audi S4 (ICE ). I did look at them, but I went with the Sealight for a couple reasons

• It was tested and known to work with our cars electronics. I've since used these more and haven't gotten any Light Warnings requiring a resistor to be added.

• I'm cheap and since the high beams are lower usage than the lows, the significantly higher price of Morimotos was a strike against them.

If you decide to go Morimoto, you should do the H8 version as the H11 one specifically states: H11 Only (May fit some H9 or H8 with trimming)

This goes to the fiddling I saw on internet posts about using other brand upgrade bulbs in their H8 housings.