Hella 4000's...kinda dissapointed

[airlaird]

Well I'm shocked... all the rage about the Hellas and I guess I expected daylight..
I have the eurobeams and I guess I wanted more light in front...not the front and sides. Has anyone bought the Pencil beams and been happy with the results?
airlaird

 

[IdahoDoug]

I've never owned pencils, but have driven behind a couple sets and did not like them - good only as fill ins with euros on as well, and then only for straight sections as they blind you with blow back on curves. The euro beams are an excellent blend. I suggest you sit behind a set of pencil beams if you can find anyone with them - they'll make you appreciate the euro beams.

Drive 'em for a while and you'll come to appreciate their function and versatility in real world driving on the roads. Slap a set of 100w bulbs in if they're not punchy enough - they can easily handle overpowering.

DougM

 

[spressomon]

Well I'm shocked... all the rage about the Hellas and I guess I expected daylight..
I have the eurobeams and I guess I wanted more light in front...not the front and sides. Has anyone bought the Pencil beams and been happy with the results?
airlaird

I have the Lightforce 170's...after vacillating WAY too long about which lights to get...and absolutely love 'em. Bright as heck and adjustable beam.

 

[airlaird]

Well, I'll experiment with them..give them a few days. I just thought they would blow me away..I'm thinking the pencils might be too much
airlaird

 

[2badfjs]

HOW DID YOU ADJUST THEM?(sorry not yelling,caps)
i love my 4000's
i drive out to a dark country road
adjust,sit,adjust,sit. untill i get it to where i like them
it's night and day on my 60

 

[Snook]

I am happy with Hella 4000.

During the Death Valley trip, I was trying to catch up our group at "assigned" camping spot in the middle of nowhere around 1:00am. I was able to drive very comfortable at somewhat high speed on offroad & washboard whether it is straight or not without blind spots.

The only problem is that two of the hex screws did came off due to constant vibration on the washboard road. Just dip of lockrite helps.

(a perfect excuse to put my 100 on 80 forum )

Regards,

 

[IdahoDoug]

Snook, why'd ya chop a perfectly good ARB bumper??

The adjustment comment is a good one, as it can take several trips and adjustments to get any light where you want them. I do a rough adjustment on the garage door, then bring any tools needed on subsequent trips and observe the light pattern as I drive to make final adjustments.

DougM

 

[bigbrowndog]

http://www.vandre.nl/_private/COMPAROWEBVERSION1.pdf
you can check the comparisons here.

 

[LICruiser]

......

On my heep I had a set of 4000 and I used one pencil beam lense and one Euro beam lense - that seemed to do the trick because I too as initially disappointed with the Euro beam. I currently run 3000 with the Euro beam and I am pleased with the width and the length of the beam. Good luck.

 

[cruiser88]

dude my 4000 bring night to day

 

[airlaird]

OK, I'll "tune" them and see...I'm sure I'll be buying the 4000's HID's next )
airlaird

 

[Boston Mangler]

Unless they are HID,s aix lights are very overrated IMHO.

A good headlight upgrade will outperform "aux lights" at a portion of the price!

 

[SUMOTOY]

My problem with the 4000's is that the high beams on the 80 stockers are pretty good. A couple suggestions. First, try putting in higher wattage bulbs. IIRC, the 4000 uses a 55w bulb, try the 100w. If that doesn't help, I'd go pencil beam.

As a rule the driving/euro beam will give good filll to the stock lights, but IME (and I have a few posts here on this already as an ex rally guy) the inner highs on the 80 are pretty darn good, the low beams could use some help tho.

What might also help a bit is aiming them out. The inner highs are aimed pretty straight forward, so if you also aimed the 4k's that way, you will just create a more intense, or just overlapped hot spots.

I'd suggest moving them outbound of the high beam hot spots. The best way to do this is with a couple pieces of cardboard to cover the stock lights (esp if you have the 4k's wired to the high beam switch) and aim at the side of a building in a industrial park. Put the hot spots of the 4k's just outbound of the hot spots for the stock highs, and you should get a good beam spread. If you are after lighting further down the road, or to make the direct in front lighting hotter, then get the pencil beams.

IME with pencil beams, they are a high speed light with limited on time. #1 is traffic, you'll get flashed a mile back. #2 is they are highly reflective of humidity and road signs both. You buy the HID 4k's, make sure you mount them really well. We lost a couple at a rally, those are expensive and highly desired. Even the riff raff knows a good light when they steal it!

SJ

 

[Elijah]

HIR high bulbs in the low lamp is the way to go. Been running them for a couple weeks without a single flash back to me. Slight modification required but easy. Extremely surprised at the awesome light output.

 

[LoneStar]

Are you runnig 55w or 100w bulbs? The Australian 4WD comparison used 100w bulbs, so if you have the 55w get some 100w.

 

[Snook]

Snook, why'd ya chop a perfectly good ARB bumper??
DougM

My wife asked me to lose wieght so I shaved 50 lbs off.

 

[airlaird]

I have the 100 Watt bulbs on. Again, I just expected flood of light...anyway, Thankyou guys for the tips...i just think they are overated a bit.
airlaird

 

[SR.GRINGO]

I run the lightforce 240's--they have an adjustable beam and different filters for light patterns and colors. Right now I have blue, and clear--I had 170's with the yellow and really liked that color. If you do go HID get the light force--same as the 240 but in HID. You could also consider adding a 3rd light in the middle--you would have to change the weld tabs around on the arb. I did this with the lightforce--I added a 12" aux fan--everything is nice and cool still and I'm in Mexico. I used to have a heep and had the hella 3000 Eurobeam--I like the lightforce better. You could also do fog lights for close up and aim the Eurobeams further out--I have IPF's to light up to where the headlight beam starts--if you haven't already add HIR's in your head lights.

 

[cary]

I will just throw in my two cents. Often times people get confused between lights that have a really bright hotspot, but don't have much coverage, and a really good beam that provides great light distribution but doesn't look as bright because it doesn't hotspot. The Hella's have great coverage. Keep in mind, they are, and have been the choice of rally and night racers for decades.

I would not with the HID lamps. A 35 watt HID lamp is going to put out 3000 lumens, while a 100 watt H1 is 2600 lumens. Even though it puts out 10% less light, the Halegon light has a far better color rendering index which IMHO more than makes up for its slight decrease in power over the HID.

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

I drive 280 miles of backroads 1-2 times a month at a minimum. I have the stock bulbs for highs and the John Deere HIR bulbs for low beams. I was pleased with the stock lighting for in town and divided highway use, but needed more for the windy mountain roads.

I aimed them a bit higher and wider than my high beams and I can see EVERYTHING at night. I feel more comfortable driving fast at night than I do during the day. The lights let you see the eyes of animals and make picking up motion in the trees very easy. They also light up the reflectors on the coppers' cars .

To me, the 4000's were night and day. Without them I can drive at 50-55mph relatively comfortably on back roads. With the 4000's I can bump it up to 70-75 (truck allowing).

BTW, tieing them into the high beams was the best thing I've done, makes killing them for oncoming traffic VERY easy.