Eurolights Sealed Beam Hyperwhite Conversion Kit Installed
06-12-2003, 09:21 AM
#1
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Eurolights Sealed Beam Hyperwhite Conversion Kit Installed Last night, I had a chance to install my Eurolights sealed beam conversion kit into my Trans Am. For those of you who don't know, the Pontiac F-bodies were one of, if not THE last car to use the old sealed beam style headlights, where the whole light consisted of the glass housing and the light element. Even the Camaros stopped using these in 1998, and went to the component capsule style lighting. For Camaro guys, if you wanted a light upgrade, all you had to do was buy a new bulb, the Pontiac guys aren't so lucky, since theres no commercially available upgrade for our bulbs.
There are two companies (Autooptiks and Eurolights) that make sealed beam conversion kits for the Pontiac F-bodies. What a sealed beam conversion basically is, is a specially made empty light bulb housing that fits where our stock lights go, but instead of a permanent lighting element in the back, it has a removable socket where you can install a capsule light that you can buy from any auto parts store. In the case of the lights used on our cars, the replacement light is the H7.
I chose to go with the Eurolights because I heard less negative things about them (and they were cheaper). As a general whole, not too many people have these conversions simply because many people don't think its worth it. I decided to do it anyway, and here are some pictures and my thoughts on it.
The last thing I'll say before I get to the good stuff, is concerning the pictures. For any of you who are familiar with photography, specially digital cameras, you'll know, it is very difficult to take a picture of a light source, especially in a dark environment. Many of the pictures I took came out way oversaturated and don't accurately show a correct color representation of the actual light. I will try to give a disclaimer at any light picture so you have a better idea of what it looks like in real life, but no matter what I say, these lights look better in person than they will in these pictures.
Price
I got 2 low beam housings (I didnt want to do my hi-beams just yet) plus 2 Xenon Hyperwhite bulbs, for $74 including S&H. I think it would have been closer to $100 for the Autooptiks ones.
Service
Although you cant order these lights from Eurolight's webpage, you simply send them an email, and I got a response back from them within an hour. I paid them the same day through Paypal. They were very quick to answer questions, but it took them about a week and a half to get my shipment into the mail. Not that big of a deal, but just thought I'd let you all know in case you expect them a couple days after ordering.
Initial Impression
The lights were packaged well, and were preassembled. They installed the bulbs into the housing for me and put the gasket in place (to keep moisture out of the bulb). At least this eliminates the possibly of me screwing this part up!
The lights look about the same as a regular replacement light. The pattern of the glass lens is identical to the old ones on my car. The housing itself looks very well built. It doesnt feel or look chintsy in any way. It feels like its made of thick, durable glass. In all, I'd say, it looks like a well built unit.
Here are three pictures of the lights and the back of them before installation. You can clearly see the bulb itself is blue, but nothing else in. In the ones of the lights head-on, it makes the whole housing look blue, but thats just because of the angle the camera was at.
Installation
Installing these is pretty straight forward. You install these the same as any replacement bulb for our cars. The only real hurdle is adapting the plug for the wiring harness. The plug for the stock lights will not work with these bulbs. Some people have tried making adapters, but I didn't feel like taking that much time, so I just cut the old plugs off, stripped away about an inch of bare wire, got some new wire with some push on terminals and made up my own plugs. I have pictures of these at home, I didnt have time to get them online today. I will post these pictures later. Other than that, these lights fit exactly the same way the stock ones do. Installation was done in about an hour and a half.
Comparison
The bulbs are definitely much whiter. They literally make the stock lights look yellow. Take a look at these two pictures. One is the stock Sylvania 4703 low beam light, and the other is the Eurolight Hyperwhite bulb. As I said in my disclaimer above, its hard to get an accurate color representation in a camera, so these pictures are slightly doctored to show a little more contrast. These pictures do a pretty good job of showing the color temp of the replacement light as opposed to the stock one.
In this last picture, you'll see the lights aiming at my garage door. The light on the left is the Hyperwhite, the one on the right is the stock light. In this picture, the lighting is a bit oversaturated. The color temp is a bit off in the picture. Also, the beam pattern of the hyperwhite bulb looks bigger than it actually is. This is due to my camera really having a hard time with this type of photography. But you still get an idea of the color temp difference.
Test Drive
Let me just say this. Perhaps I had too high of expectations for these, so your impressions may vary, but I was a bit disappointed in the performance of the lights. Don't get me wrong, there is an improvement in overall brightness, but not a drastic one. The color temp difference is the most noticable change, but the beam pattern doesn't seem any different from the stock ones, and from what little scientific measurements my bare eyes could make, it doesnt appear to light up the road any better. I guess I was hoping I'd be able to see a little better at night, but I guess that this just truly shows the limitations of a sealed beam bulb. I put no blame on Eurolights for this. They really couldnt vary much from the OEM size and shape of the bulbs, so they did what they could.
The road test was the hardest thing to get a picture of. None of the pictures I took did a satisfactory job of showing what these look like. Here is the one picture I decided to show you. Even in this picture, the camera makes the beam pattern just disappear about 20 feet in front of the car. In reality, the light's reach extends much further than shown in this picture, I guess once a light gets below a certain brightness, the camera just drops off that light and doesnt pick it up at all.
Once again, the beam pattern and saturation is about the same as stock. The color difference is very noticable, and overall brightness is a bit better, but nothing drastic, i.e., don't expect HID level performance from these lights.
Conclusion
As a whole, I am pleased I ordered these lights. I think Eurolights did a good job at making this kit. The housing is well built. The color temp of the actual bulb is very nice. I wouldn't have a problem recommending their bulbs for someone who already uses a component style bulb and wants a Hyperwhite upgrade.
As for the conversion kit, if you decide to order this yourself, do it for the right reasons. A nice upgrade from stock with a whiter color is all you should expect from these. If you want HID or near-HID performance, or want to drastically improve your nighttime visibility, you will be disappointed.
Sorry for the long post, but if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
There are two companies (Autooptiks and Eurolights) that make sealed beam conversion kits for the Pontiac F-bodies. What a sealed beam conversion basically is, is a specially made empty light bulb housing that fits where our stock lights go, but instead of a permanent lighting element in the back, it has a removable socket where you can install a capsule light that you can buy from any auto parts store. In the case of the lights used on our cars, the replacement light is the H7.
I chose to go with the Eurolights because I heard less negative things about them (and they were cheaper). As a general whole, not too many people have these conversions simply because many people don't think its worth it. I decided to do it anyway, and here are some pictures and my thoughts on it.
The last thing I'll say before I get to the good stuff, is concerning the pictures. For any of you who are familiar with photography, specially digital cameras, you'll know, it is very difficult to take a picture of a light source, especially in a dark environment. Many of the pictures I took came out way oversaturated and don't accurately show a correct color representation of the actual light. I will try to give a disclaimer at any light picture so you have a better idea of what it looks like in real life, but no matter what I say, these lights look better in person than they will in these pictures.
Price
I got 2 low beam housings (I didnt want to do my hi-beams just yet) plus 2 Xenon Hyperwhite bulbs, for $74 including S&H. I think it would have been closer to $100 for the Autooptiks ones.
Service
Although you cant order these lights from Eurolight's webpage, you simply send them an email, and I got a response back from them within an hour. I paid them the same day through Paypal. They were very quick to answer questions, but it took them about a week and a half to get my shipment into the mail. Not that big of a deal, but just thought I'd let you all know in case you expect them a couple days after ordering.
Initial Impression
The lights were packaged well, and were preassembled. They installed the bulbs into the housing for me and put the gasket in place (to keep moisture out of the bulb). At least this eliminates the possibly of me screwing this part up!
The lights look about the same as a regular replacement light. The pattern of the glass lens is identical to the old ones on my car. The housing itself looks very well built. It doesnt feel or look chintsy in any way. It feels like its made of thick, durable glass. In all, I'd say, it looks like a well built unit.Here are three pictures of the lights and the back of them before installation. You can clearly see the bulb itself is blue, but nothing else in. In the ones of the lights head-on, it makes the whole housing look blue, but thats just because of the angle the camera was at.
Installation
Installing these is pretty straight forward. You install these the same as any replacement bulb for our cars. The only real hurdle is adapting the plug for the wiring harness. The plug for the stock lights will not work with these bulbs. Some people have tried making adapters, but I didn't feel like taking that much time, so I just cut the old plugs off, stripped away about an inch of bare wire, got some new wire with some push on terminals and made up my own plugs. I have pictures of these at home, I didnt have time to get them online today. I will post these pictures later. Other than that, these lights fit exactly the same way the stock ones do. Installation was done in about an hour and a half.
Comparison
The bulbs are definitely much whiter. They literally make the stock lights look yellow. Take a look at these two pictures. One is the stock Sylvania 4703 low beam light, and the other is the Eurolight Hyperwhite bulb. As I said in my disclaimer above, its hard to get an accurate color representation in a camera, so these pictures are slightly doctored to show a little more contrast. These pictures do a pretty good job of showing the color temp of the replacement light as opposed to the stock one.
In this last picture, you'll see the lights aiming at my garage door. The light on the left is the Hyperwhite, the one on the right is the stock light. In this picture, the lighting is a bit oversaturated. The color temp is a bit off in the picture. Also, the beam pattern of the hyperwhite bulb looks bigger than it actually is. This is due to my camera really having a hard time with this type of photography. But you still get an idea of the color temp difference.
Test Drive
Let me just say this. Perhaps I had too high of expectations for these, so your impressions may vary, but I was a bit disappointed in the performance of the lights. Don't get me wrong, there is an improvement in overall brightness, but not a drastic one. The color temp difference is the most noticable change, but the beam pattern doesn't seem any different from the stock ones, and from what little scientific measurements my bare eyes could make, it doesnt appear to light up the road any better. I guess I was hoping I'd be able to see a little better at night, but I guess that this just truly shows the limitations of a sealed beam bulb. I put no blame on Eurolights for this. They really couldnt vary much from the OEM size and shape of the bulbs, so they did what they could.
The road test was the hardest thing to get a picture of. None of the pictures I took did a satisfactory job of showing what these look like. Here is the one picture I decided to show you. Even in this picture, the camera makes the beam pattern just disappear about 20 feet in front of the car. In reality, the light's reach extends much further than shown in this picture, I guess once a light gets below a certain brightness, the camera just drops off that light and doesnt pick it up at all.
Once again, the beam pattern and saturation is about the same as stock. The color difference is very noticable, and overall brightness is a bit better, but nothing drastic, i.e., don't expect HID level performance from these lights.
Conclusion
As a whole, I am pleased I ordered these lights. I think Eurolights did a good job at making this kit. The housing is well built. The color temp of the actual bulb is very nice. I wouldn't have a problem recommending their bulbs for someone who already uses a component style bulb and wants a Hyperwhite upgrade.
As for the conversion kit, if you decide to order this yourself, do it for the right reasons. A nice upgrade from stock with a whiter color is all you should expect from these. If you want HID or near-HID performance, or want to drastically improve your nighttime visibility, you will be disappointed.
Sorry for the long post, but if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
06-12-2003, 09:47 AM
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Re: Eurolights Sealed Beam Hyperwhite Conversion Kit Installed Nice write up 
living in the (well lit) City of Chicago, I rarely use my headlights But it's nice to know that there is an option out there in case I want to modify them a bit.
.....Really, I am saving up for a non-pop up headlight conversion kit (very expensive
). But that is way down the road after I do more performance upgrades on my 'Bird
living in the (well lit) City of Chicago, I rarely use my headlights But it's nice to know that there is an option out there in case I want to modify them a bit. .....Really, I am saving up for a non-pop up headlight conversion kit (very expensive
). But that is way down the road after I do more performance upgrades on my 'Bird
06-12-2003, 10:24 AM
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Re: Eurolights Sealed Beam Hyperwhite Conversion Kit Installed they look a little brighter to me and much nicer and theyre simple to install, i might have to look into these with a set of blazertech or piaa foglights to upgrade the lighting. thanks for the writeup.
09-24-2003, 08:35 PM
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Re: Eurolights Sealed Beam Hyperwhite Conversion Kit Installed Great write up!
Sign me up for a pair..... They sell the same bulbs to upgrade the factory foglamps also! :p
Sign me up for a pair..... They sell the same bulbs to upgrade the factory foglamps also! :p
09-25-2003, 10:03 PM
#5
Re: Eurolights Sealed Beam Hyperwhite Conversion Kit Installed
They sell the same bulbs to upgrade the factory foglamps also! :p
