The stock headlights do not provide nearly enough lighting output to effectively drive at night. Swapping to LED units is a common upgrade.
Standard incandescent headlights were replaced with the Octane Lighting 7" Stock Style H4 glass headlights. These are LED replacements, 4000LM 20/40W. These were direct, drop-in, plug-and-place replacements. Removal of the headlight buckets was a bit of a pain. In order to swap the light, you can remove the three retainer screws on the front ring and they will come out. No need to remove anything else.
Before swapping the headlights, we measured the output of the stock lights at 4' from the front of the bumper. The following measurements were recorded:
Stock Lights Low Beam: 41 lux High Beam: 51 lux
LED Headlights Low Beam: 319 lux High Beam: 416 lux
The brake lights, backup lights, and reverse lenses have never really been cleaned. They were removed and cleaned using the rice method. Gaskets were in decent shape. Getting the lights in and out is a bit of an issue, as over-tightening from the PO has loosed the posts.
The before/after is an incredible increase in visibility and clarity. The front blinkers and driving lights were also disassembled, cleaned, and reinstalled.
LED bulbs were installed. Huge upgrade.
An LED-compatible relay was installed in the fuse box to power the blinkers and flashers.
A future modification will be to turn the driving lights into always-on, daytime running lights.
Bulb List from SuperbrightLEDs.com
.jpg)
Dash Light Update