I just took delivery of the Holly retro bright LED headlights and the difference between them and halogen is unreal Image Unavailable, Please Login
Awesome! And great timing as I'm about to change mine. Anyone else with a suggestion? One online company suggested that I get LED's with a constant daytime LED strip, but I thought "my lights close when the lights are off".
I did a write-up, Aug 2018, on the 365 GTC/4 website but I don't think it's there after they moved. Had a 2 way narrow bridge pass that prompted the upgrade. Aligned them on the garage door.
Here is the website. They aren’t cheap, but look to be a significant improvement. https://www.holley.com/brands/holley_retrobright/products/exterior/lighting/headlight/round_headlights/
Looks like a great improvement for night driving! But I follow the old Lucas guidance that, "a gentleman does not motor about after dark." OK seriously, those lights would have been great on my three cross-country trips in my 328 where I was up/driving well before dawn and well after dark, struggling with the rather poor illumination. If I was making another of those trips, I'd fit a pair in a heartbeat! But normally the only time my 328's headlights are "up" is whenever I check them occasionally to see if they actually function!
I am thinking of doing these. I am torn between the yellow and the white. Glad to hear that they are plug and play.
Good day All, These look to be great lights. I wish Holley would have provided a bit more tech detail on the LED tech they used, as this would have allowed customers to make a better purchasing decision. From the specs that are provided, the LEDs Holley used are not the latest technology, as their efficiency is so, so... anywhere from 80 to 100 lumens/Watt. The result is that a greater portion of the energy lighting the LED will be lost do to the heat generated by the LEDs... and so more effort and/or a more sophisticated mechanical design will be needed to properly disperse or dissipate the heat otherwise LED longevity will be impacted. As a comparison to these lights, a LED lighting fixture I designed about four years ago provided about 2x the light output of these lights with about 1/2 the power consumption... however, I was using the latest LED tech at the time. Interestingly, I could not find any detail on the expected lifetime of the light... which is generally expressed in hours based upon some industry defined specs (LM80, etc). Given that these lights are not inexpensive it would be great knowing how many hours they are expected to last. Lastly, for those deciding which light temperature to select (3000K or 5700K), the higher the light temperature (e.g. the "colder the light color") will have better penetration through adverse weather conditions (rain, fog, etc) than the lower/warmer light temperatures. The negative to higher/colder light temperatures is glare. The human eye's iris is less responsive to higher/colder light temperatures and so more lumens enter the eye which makes these lights brighter and can increase glare resulting in reduced vision. Cheers, Sam
Thank you, Sam. That is very, uh, enlightening (sorry) for someone like me who has difficulty deciding which replacement tubes to buy for the garage! All those specs don’t mean much until someone like you explains what they actually mean. Jack
Thanks for that. Any recommendations on a different/better drop-in replacement? Even inefficient LEDs would be a better driving experience than the current lights.
Totally. It would be super great to know what’s the next plug and play solution for LED 308 headlights. I don’t know if any 7” will work so one be-all-end-all go to would be great to know.
Good day Jack, You are most welcome! LED lights are fantastic, but like most tech one must really understand all of the nuances and applicaiton in order to really benefit from the tech. In this case the human eye, etc has to also be taken into account, as the whole point of the LED light is to allow the person to see better. Not to bore you with too much tech info... But the LED Color temperature is not an absolute value. The Color temperature is an average of various light wavelengths (you can loosely associate light wavelengths as colors... blue, red, green, etc) that when combined generate an overall color temp. This is the reason that a 4000K LED light looks different than a 4000K Fluorescent. Although both are 4000K, LEDs lights tend to have more of the blue wavelength, whereas, the Fluorescent has more green and so explains the difference. Consequently, when shopping for LED lights one has to be careful if you are basing your comparisons on the color temperature. Complicating things further there is another spec called CRI (color rendering index) which sort of describes the "quality" of the resulting light. A higher CRI will render colors better at the expense of energy efficiency (higher CRI tend to be less energy efficient) and cost. Higher CRI lights tend to be used where color rendering is important...like paintings and other specialty artifacts. etc. All in all there is a lot going on behind the scenes with LED lights. It is too bad that the industry is pumping out so many crapping LED fixtures, as it tends to give LEDs a bad rap. Currently, there is a race to the bottom to see who can produce a cheaper LED fixture and as a result shortcuts are taken which reduces the LED fixture quality and reliability. I am very thankful that I have customers that are willing to pay a bit more and have me design up some LED fixtures for them, as the results are amazing (very high energy efficiencies and uber cool features/functionality) and the cost can actually be on par or even less than some of the mainstream offerings (as used in commercial buildings). If you or anyone has any tech questions on LED lights, etc by all means ask, as I am happy to share what I know. Cheers, Sam
Good day GrigioGuy, I wish I could, but there are few offerings on the market. I think the reason is two fold. The first is that the lights are required to be DOT approved and so meeting this standard is probably not easy and so is costly. The second is because of design constraints needed for compatibility. As mentioned, designing a properly LED fixture is quote involved and includes mechanical, thermodynamics, and electronics. For retro fit auto use, it is even more challenging because of the mechanical constraints needed so that the resulting fixture will fit properly. In this case, LED efficiency in itself is not the primary objective... but a lower efficiency means more heat will be generated by the LED itself and so more attention is needed on the thermodynamic elements of the mechanical design. If this is not done properly then you will have premature failure of the LED and/or excessive heat dissipation to surround areas which could cause issues (paint discoloration, adjacent wires melting, plastic shrouds melting/warping, etc). High lumen output LEDs generate a lot of localized heat. Depending upon the LED and its tech, the LED case temperature can reach 80-90C (194F) with a surface temp of 130C (266F) and it is these type of temps that the overall design has to take into account. I cannot comment on the internal design of these Holley LED lights and so they may have a great design or they may not. A higher efficiency LED will make the thermodynamic design easier with the added bones of consuming less power. As I said earlier, I suspect the reason why there are not too many LED headlight options is because of the design constraints. Cheers, Sam
Excellent information. Thank you, I guess the “payoff” question would be….What headlights have you used, or do you plan to use, in your Ferraris?
Good day Mike, Understood. However, there is no limit to how bright an LED can produce. One of my fixtures generates about 10x that of these Holley lights... however, the caveat is the mechanical design, as there is no way that my design could be retrofitted into a standard headlight assembly. Secondly, the DOT regs may dictate how much light can be generated, as oncoming traffic would be affected. HID lights tend to have mechanical requirements to ensure that the resulting beam is not directed into the oncoming traffic. There are some HID retrofits and these do not have the mechanical requirements and so cresting a hill could literally blind an oncoming driver. On my one fixture, the light output is so bright that I have to use welding glass when I am working in close proximity to it. Looking into the light will not permanently blind someone, but does stress out the eye's receptors along with reducing vision for a period of time. As for other auto lighting technologies... I know BMW and Mercedes have been working on Laser based headlights as well. I have not been following this too much, but it would be interesting to see the final results. Cheers, Sam
Good day Jack, I am still using the originals, as I was waiting for the big guys to produce a suitable LED replacement. Before these Holley lights, I think there was only one DOT approved retro fit. For me, it has not really been an issue to use the original lights, as my night time driving is limited and mostly within the City and so there is an abundant amount of (street) lights. However, I am definitely keen to go LED assuming I can find a suitable solution that I like. I will certainly not use the LED retrofit headlight bulbs that are offered all over, as to me they lack the proper thermodynamic, electronic, and optical design I think is necessary in head lights. I have tried some non headlight (fog, etc) LED replacements and as I expected, they crapped out in about a year of use, but it was worth a try/experiment. Dash and courtesy lights tend to be lower lumen output and so the electronic and thermal design requirements are minimal and so these could be used without too much concern. In fact I will be evaluating and testing various dash and courtesy LED options to see what I like best. Since I have decided to go LED for my dash lights, I am now designing up a retrofit dimmer module, as the Ferrari dimmers will not work properly with LED dash lights. Although dash light dimming is not that big a deal, the original Ferrari dimmers are plagued by age and design and so having a replacement will mean I will not have to worry about it in the future. Cheers, Sam
One issue with LED head lights is that they can freeze up in snow and Icy conditions. Many newer designs have heating elements installed to counter this condition. The design of the referenced units may depend on the less efficient design to provide adequate protection in these scenarios. Now the likelihood that this issue is a consideration on 308s is very minimal. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
I replaced mine with LEDs plug and play no problem at all $45.00/set the AMP draw went from 5.8amp each to 2.2 amp each The newLEDs have a small Fan build in and are very bright Image Unavailable, Please Login
