Hella FF75s installed!

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Well as anyone with an early 4th gen Camaro knows, the stock lighting is just terrible. I tried many different bulbs and conversions always to come to the conclusion that the headlights suck. The hella 90mm projectors with the HID kit gave me BA low beams, but when I flipped on the high beams, no one was the wiser. So I finally decided to combat the situation in the only proven way! Throw out the sealed beams!!
(Yeah, camera phone pictures, I can't find my camera!)

Comparison:








Looks like next up is doing something about the color! They just don't sit right with the 6000k HIDs.




To anyone considering the conversion, there is simply no question. Don't think about it. Do it. When I turn my brights on now, I can actually see! It's like nothing I've ever experienced in this car before. I'll get some night shots up if requested. Again, forgive the phone pictures.

[RadRacer]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

I've been tossing this idea around for a few months now. Where'd you get the housings? I was thinking of getting some fogs for my low beams as they're supposed to keep the light low, making them perfect for HIDs IMO.

[Mr. Logger]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

They look good!

[nascar24jd]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

Wow, functional and they look great too.

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

I've been tossing this idea around for a few months now. Where'd you get the housings? I was thinking of getting some fogs for my low beams as they're supposed to keep the light low, making them perfect for HIDs IMO.

I got them on eBay from the seller performanceoffroadcenter.

I decided on driving lights for all 4 because I already have the HID projectors to get the sides and fill in up front very well. Looking at the spectrum from the fog lights that I found on a site, the light is fading to almost nil at about 30 ft in front, which really isn't too far. However, with brighter bulbs such as HIDs, that should be extended a good amount, and could serve as good low beams. No question though, the driving lights are the way to go for brights, the graph showed them fading off at about 350 ft IIRC.

[RadRacer]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

How much did you pay? I'm seriously thinking of some 8K HIDs in my low beams in fog lights; I'll check out the driving lights for high beams. They definitely look better than the stockers, and they perform better, so I don't see why anyone wouldn't want to go with them.

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

I believe it was around 70-80 a set. I should remember this but I don't. Somewhere in there. Fogs are the same price.

[nascar24jd]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

I believe it was around 70-80 a set. I should remember this but I don't. Somewhere in there. Fogs are the same price.

I was just looking at these on ebay based on your write up. I am thinking of mounting them on my 1993 Firebird in the area where the stock fog lights would be located (if I had them).

What do you think? It should make a significant difference right? It looks like the kit comes with everything (wiring, switch, relay), did you need anything else to mount them?

Thanks...

[nascar24jd]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

Hey Troy, just one more question. Should I get the driving lights or the fog lights? I am thinking the driving lights, but I am not really sure what the difference is between the two. On the ebay pages, they look the same.

In the end it would be great if I could drive my car with the parking lights on, headlights closed, and the driving lights on.

Thanks...

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

Originally my plan was to get fog lights for the low beams and driving lights for the high beams, but after some more in depth studying and measuring, I decided the fog lights probably wouldn't be the best bet for low beams. Here's why:

The nature of a fog light is to have a fairly precise cutoff with a very wide angle to provide a "base" for the headlights in the fog. If the fog is thick enough, sometimes the fog lights alone work better because all the glare of the fog isn't right in your eyes, but lighted mostly out of your line of sight, providing light for the road without blinding you. The disadvantage to this comes with the limited straight forward distance. As mentioned before, for fog lights, this is perfect, and is not a disadvantage, but functioning as low beams, it simply doesn't project far enough. The graphs I was looking at showed the width as being about 12 ft at around 6 ft out, but the light was gone almost entirely at 30 ft, the brightest area fading off around 20 ft. This doesn't necessarily sound so bad, but when I pulled out a tape measure and saw where this was in relationship to the driver seat, I couldn't even see my mark on the ground until about 23 ft. I'm 6'3", so it's not a matter of sitting low in the seat.

Now, as I mentioned to RadRacer, this disadvantage may be overcome with a set of HIDs or brighter bulbs like silverstar ultras and the like, but on the other hand, they are not projectors, so HIDs may still be very annoying to the oncoming driver. Since I don't have any direct experience with the FF75 fog style, I can't say anything about the cutoff nor the extra escaping light from different angles.

Driving lights are essentially the opposite of fog lights. The graphs showed the beam at the widest to be about 6 ft, but the brightest area of the light didn't start dissipating until nearly 250ft.

The driving lights aren't going to get you very much side to side visibility, but will get you much further straight forward range. Since they are set up more light spot lights, I can see with proper aiming, because of how low to the ground the fog light area is, that they will function even better than they do on my car, because for the most part, I have a large area of bright x ft away from my car, with less light closer to my car, mainly because they are aimed down more than mounting in the fog light area would require. However, this is not a disadvantage for me, because the projectors fill in all the up close and to the side problems, and these pick up right where the projectors leave off.

So it's up to you. I think the FF75 fog lights would work just great as fog lights, complimenting the weak points of the headlights, but if all you want is the hella's on, the driving lights will probably yield better results as far as taking the place of the headlights.

The only thing I used for mounting outside of the package was the washers seen in the second picture for spacing.

[nascar24jd]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

Thanks for the very detailed explaination. I really appreciate it.

[HeadyFirebird'00]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

That looks really really good! I really like it. if i had a maro i would do that. good show man!

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

Alright guys here are the pictures! I found the camera so they don't completely suck.

All taken on 5 second exposure for uniformity, first is a control, with only the running lights:



and with just the fogs (90mm projectors, 6000k)



add in the headlights (you can see the color difference, like I said, new bulbs on the way!



and with the brights (this wasn't a very noticeable difference in the situation because the road curved too soon, so you can't see how truly far they project)

[t-topV6]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

looks nice...

[cantrip]

Re: Hella FF75s installed!

sweet road