Date:         Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:57:17 -0700
Reply-To:     Andrew Grebneff <goose1047@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Andrew Grebneff <goose1047@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: H4 Headlight aim, thanks and..
In-Reply-To:  <5ebe10a0811201141i4c6519c1sa0d54cde72e3024f@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

> The main difference, though, is that 7" round and
> 200mm rectangular Hellas have an irritating beam separation problem.
> Set the low beams where they belong, and the high beams are up in the
> trees without enough on-road light. Pull the high beams down where
> they can be useful, and the low beams are down on the bumper. I
> exaggerate for illustration, but the effect is to make you try to find
> a compromise setting where both beams are kinda OK. The Cibies do not
> have this problem; when the lows are correctly aimed, the highs are

H4s are always going to be a compromise. hellas are most certainly not
the best, but neither are Cibies (indeed, European lights lack
penetration on high beam; this will include the true HIDs). Supposedly
Australian H4s are the best by far of any headlights, but of course
these are model-specific and no use in a T3, and so far only the
Commodore lights are available in LHD (="Pontiac GTO" or "G8"). Unless
someone wants to butcher his van by modifying it to fit Commodore or
Falcon lights... which would look even worse then the one I've seen
images of with Volvo truck lights grafted in.

The best lights I have driven with were the factory H4s in my 88
Nissan Skyline HR31. Unlike any other light I've used (various H4s),
these had great penetration on high and a wide spread of light on both
beams; there were no holes or bright spots, which is most unusual, and
the light was bright white (yellow and blue make for poor lights, as
the human eye is not as sensitive to these frequencies... hence HIDs
blue-tinted H4s are less than optimal).

I had a mixed set of round H4s in my 74 Passat... one was a Lucas and
the other Hella. Combined, these gave very good illumination; I have
to suppose that the holes in one light's beams didn't match those in
the other's, so that they filled one another's holes in!

--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin, New Zealand
Fossil preparator
Mollusc, Toyota & VW van nut
Temporarily in Calgary, AB, Canada
<goose1047@gmail.com>

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