Looking to replace the headlight bulb whether it's halogen or LED that has good beam pattern and longevity. Been reading that some of the brighter halogen bulbs from Sylvania and Philips have short life. Also read that it is recommended to change the housing if replacing with LED although not sure if that is needed? So would be great to hear from those who has had positive experience with either type. TIA.

 

I had great success with Morimoto 2-Stroke 3.0 H11 bulbs until I replaced them with M-LED 2.0 projectors.

I wrote about it here:

https://www.ct200hforum.com/threads/...it-diy.150385/

 

Thanks TobiasSing, looks like they are on version 4.0. It's a little pricey, looking for something cheaper for a quick swap to see if I like LED's. Nice write up on your projector project build.

 

Thanks! I've seen others have success with cheaper LEDs. I think as long as it looks like the Morimoto bulb with the same LEDs in the same orientation and fits properly, it should work.

 

At the moment i have warm light on high beam. And i would like to upgrade it. Do you have a recommendation for cold light (LED)?

 

I ended up using the Morimoto LED bulbs in my high beams after replacing the low beam projectors. Generally though, I have found that the warm halogen high beam bulb works best. It uses a 65 watt bulb, which is much brighter than the 55 watt low beam. LED bulbs are made to compare to low beams, not high beams. So, while LED bulbs are brighter for low beams, they are about the same or less bright than high beams. And, LED bulbs tend to have a harder time focusing the light as well as halogen, so while it might work okay in a low beam to point light closer to the road, I found that LED bulbs don't have the focus as well as halogen in high beams to throw the light down the road as far. But if you simply want the cold LED light look, any bulb should work for that. But a bulb like Morimoto will do best to perform as well.

 

Not sure where you got this idea. The best halogen bulb is ~1500 lumens LEDs easily 3,000+. The limiting factor for a high beam LED bulb may be the particular housing but you'll still get way better light output versus halogen.

 

I had a 2014 CT200H F Sport and I had installed the brand SEALIGHT. They were super bright. And cover most of the road in front of me.

You can buy them on Amazon.cheaper.
And lasted several years til I had traded in my CT.

 

thanks a lot pal. this is what i wanted to know. i will stay on warm light for high beam.

 

I got the idea from personal experience with various LED bulbs in various high beams in various vehicles. Maybe I just prefer the warmer light and find it brighter and easier to see with, so that could be a bias.

For example, a standard H11 low beam bulb is about 1350 lumens, and a standard H9 high beam bulb is about 2100 lumens. The Morimoto 2-stroke 3.0 I last tried use the same exact LEDs for H9 and H11. Their initial startup lumen value is 2600, which stabilizes to 2100, the same as the halogen H9 bulb. Of course, who knows how we can trust the lumen values on LED bulbs, as the trend is to overexaggerate the lumens. Or at best, the lumens are listed for the LED chip itself, but that doesn't mean that the bulb drives it at that power. Plus, there are usually additional losses in output via halogen reflectors from an LED bulb more than halogen. So, the LED bulb may clearly outshine the low beam halogen, but not clearly outshine the high beam halogen. Like I said, all LED bulbs I've seen are designed to be better than low beam halogen bulbs, not high beam bulbs. I've never seen an LED bulb lineup that produced brighter bulbs for the high beam replacements than the low beam replacements.

I would be very interested in you sharing your actual experience with LED bulbs that are brighter than halogens when used in place of a high beam.

Great choice!

 

I've tried many, settled on Auxbeam as a brand I trust. Sealight makes some extremely bright LED bulbs but beam pattern may not be as good as Auxbeam. No halogen comes close to a good LED bulb. I completely ignore all lumens claims they are wildly exaggerated. As for Morimoto, some of their products are downright excellent (like fog lights) but their LED headlight bulbs are not a substantial improvement over halogen from what I've seen.

A major downside to halogen is 100% of the heat stays in the headlight housing, LED bulbs wick the heat away via fans or passive heatsinks.

 

Thanks for the recommendation! I have the latest Morimoto fogs with the yellow and white, and they are decent. I wonder if the limitation of the Morimoto 2-stroke bulb was purposely keeping lumens within a reasonable range in an attempt at legality along the way. But I recently took charge of a second vehicle via marriage and was going to put LEDs in that at some point. I'll give Auxbeam a look!

 

Maybe? But it's my understanding that LED headlight bulbs are simply not street legal in most locales. Morimoto may be going for reliability instead of high brightness.

 

Yeah, I'm reading that dropping in LED in halogen housing are illegal and not DOT compliant but rarely enforced. The key is that it doesn't blind on coming traffic so beam pattern needs to be precise.

 

I did purchase a new set of Fahren Termitor LED bulbs, easy plug and play same size bulbs so fit is perfect. It has 82% 5 star review on Amazon so went with these. They claim perfect beam pattern:

"after undergoing an upgrade, feature an optimal beam pattern with a clear cut-off line, preventing glare for oncoming vehicles. The 0.03-inch ultra-thin profile makes the chips much closer, creating a super-focused beam with no dark spots, no shadows."

The brightness and clarity is a nice step up from the stock halogen. They also claim 60,000 hour life span, that's 2,500 years, what kind of test do you run to prove that? LOL!
Bought it on Amazon:

Amazon

Amazon