QuadLights, a Shadetree alternative to the SA Grille

[Steve M.]

[Terry Kay]

Time for TK to sound off on this headlamp deal--

Quite the nice operation, pretty neat--finished product looks good on kodak film-- from there to here.

Labor of Love on this project which will pay off in spades--


Bravo--
_________________
T.K.

[Zeitgeist 13]

Somebody's obviously hacked your account.

[Jake de Villiers]

[Jake de Villiers]

[Zeitgeist 13]

[Terry Kay]

Creativity, as well as a shot of ingenuity, plus the process of a laborious act and coming up with a neat product deserves a thumbs up here.

Neat idea, neat update, looks good.
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T.K.

[chojinchef]

Aliens took TK

Great work Shadetree. Always liked the double large round look of the Taifun grille, but was always a day late in procuring one. This is a cool project that looks very similar.
_________________
Its a mistress; an expensive, whiney, needy bitch of a mistress. She is a chunky, dirty girl with bad skin, little motivation and yet she always makes me smile. She sure has been around before shacking up with me. She has a direct line to my wallet, plays with my emotions, is consistantly jovial yet with a sarcastic and sardonic side, is consistant in her inconsistancy, and every once in a while gives me a great ride and a fantastic memory.

[shadetreetim]

Thanks for all the kind words about my project grille. And for posting pictures of the Taifun grille. I remember having seen that Taifun grille a long time ago, but couldn’t remember what thread. I really like the look of it. But the modifications required to fit four 7” bulbs in a stock square grille would be far more work than I did. For that matter, the work to fit two 7”s, and two 5.75”s to build a SA style grille out of a square one would be more work than mine too. If you look closely, the inner bulbs on a stock SA grille cut into the middle grille area further than the squares do.

I have to admit, I find the concern over downgrading to a 5.75” bulb interesting. The implication being the 5.75” bulb may be an unsafe choice due to its slightly inferior performance when evaluated side by side against the gold standard, a Cibie 7” e-code housing. The reality is, to call the 5.75” e-codes inferior or unsafe is misleading. I think sometimes we get so caught up in chasing the absolute best in upgrades we forget that there are some viable options that are still damn good.

It kind of reminds me of the suggestions that I must chip my AEB to get good performance. With its stock 150HP it is undeniably inferior to the 200HP available with the chip. But that 150HP it does have is still pretty amazing to drive.

I just spent the past week driving across I-40 from Cali to Oklahoma and back in Lady Shadetree's 2012 Tiguan. (last minute AC Compressor failure dissuaded us from driving the Vanagon across the desert in the summer) I don't drive her Tiguan very often, so I was eager to analyze its lighting performance through the vast desert darkness. The Tiguan has headlights that allow you to forget about them. They just do their job very well.

After being away from my Vanagon for a solid week, it was telling to get back in it and drive 60 miles through the dark of the night this weekend. I found there were no excuses needed for these 5.75” headlights, even with the inferior 60/55W Hella bulbs. I did find myself missing the aesthetic of the whiter light output of the Tiguan bulbs. But that familiar frustration of out driving the lighting was gone, without making any allowances for the bulbs. Wanting to get this project 100% completed, and partially to get that whiter light, I returned home and ordered the Osram 70/65W H4’s. I anticipate that with the new bulbs installed I will quickly forget about the headlights, just like in the Tiguan.
_________________
Tim Potts

Doing my best every time I drive it to dispel the myth these Vanagons have to be slow!


'89 Vanagon Bluestar/Country Homes 1.8T & .77 4th
'74 Jeep CJ5

[Steve M.]

It's good to get a project done and move on! Thanks for your informative postings about it.

[silverbulletuk]

[stockypeasant]

[tjet]

I actually found one on German Ebay a few months ago. I put a bid on it, but it shot up over 200 euros.

I prefer the rectangular headlights anyway. I picked up a pair of Rover Maestro headlamps (a'la Syncro Dai) to install later on...

[svenakela]

[shadetreetim]

As the weeks go by, I couldn’t seem to get this thread out of my head. The problem for me is the unresolved questions and automatic assumptions based on the unsubstantiated comment that a 7” light housing MUST be better than a 5.75” light housing. Bigger is always better, right?

The only data we have been presented is the side by side comparison of a Cibie 7” housing to a 5.75” Hella housing, graciously offered by thatvwbusguy. But how do we interpret that data? It leaves me to wonder what a side by side comparison of the Cibie 7” and a Hella 7” housing would reveal? By all accounts I’ve read the 7” Cibie outperforms the 7” Hella. Not surprising then that the Cibie outperformed the 5.75" as well. What really intrigues me, how would the Hella 7” and 5.75” housings compare? Either of those comparisons would be more conclusive.

Then I wondered why the 4 bulb system was invented in the first place? Was it only for aesthetics? Why did many high performance vehicles of the 60s-70s incorporate the 4 bulb array into their design? Corvettes, BMW’s, Audi, American Luxury vehicles, etc. of that era ran a 4 bulb headlight design. What I suspect is they didn’t see any penalty for their choice. And I go back to all the 60s cars I’ve owned through the years, where nobody I knew had a preference, other than how their vehicle looked. I certainly never felt like there was any difference, and that was living in rural Oklahoma back then, where you really relied on good lighting. But that was only my subjective opinion the matter. I had no data either way. I don’t pretend to know the answer, and I’m NOT proposing to be any more knowledgeable than the next guy. I just got curious and wanted to see some data supporting or disproving the assumptions. So I did a little research on the internet. Not surprisingly, it is hard to find definitive data for an older technology lighting system, with HID and LED taking up the most bandwidth. I did skim through some interesting articles.

HEADLAMP HISTORY AND HARMONIZATION David W. Moore
The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2150 U.S.A. Report No. UMTRI-98-21 June 1998
Although there had been some limited earlier installations of four headlamps on a vehicle, most vehicles only had two headlamps. When the low beam and high beam are obtained from the same lens area, there is a compromise in the optical prescription. In 1957 the 5 3/4 inch (146 mm) round four-headlamp system was developed in the U.S. (Roper, 1957). There was a high-beam headlamp, and a separate headlamp primarily designed for the low beam, but with a secondary filament to provide some fill light on high beam. Thus, the lens optics compromise was eliminated, because each headlamp had a single primary function.

What this article suggests is low beam in a 4 bulb system should outperform a 2 bulb low beam. At the very least, the low bean 5.75" may perform as well as a compromised 7" low beam. Better design making up for smaller size. High beam specific bulbs should perform better as well. And from this I come to the conclusion I should have purchased high beam only housings for my dedicated high beam bulbs, instead of merely not wiring the low beams for those two. But that change would only improve high beam performance.

The light output of 2-bulb and 4-bulb systems didn’t seem to demand a study, except perhaps where it interferes with oncoming traffic, measured as glare. With its low beam cutoff, glare is managed pretty well for a correctly adjusted H$ E-Code light, so I looked for US data. The only study I could find discounted headlight reflector size as a factor in glare. But as it was in a study comparing Halogen to HID, I doubt the size of the Halogens were what they were comparing as HID are typically considerably smaller than Halogen.

So I am still left to wonder. No definitive answer found. I had to hoped to come across an analysis of the 4 bulb vs 2 bulb. I am still inclined to think it is less about size and more about design. Cibie vs Hella.

All data aside, anecdotally, in action these Hella 5.75s with Osram 70/65W H4’s do an excellent job. For Labor Day weekend we camped at Lake Havasu. The route I prefer from my house includes about 150 miles through the desert, much of it on deserted Highway 62. It was pitch dark as we drove across it Friday night. There was another car about ½ a mile ahead of me for much of the way, which meant low beams. Occasionally as we were separated by hills or curves I was able to hit the high beams. Both levels of lighting were excellent. The E-Codes really are good at lighting up the side of the road and upcoming signage without washing into oncoming traffic. Wasn't flashed once while enjoying more than adequate lighting. And on high beam, everything left to right was illuminated nicely to a good distance.

I’m sure, based on thatvwbusguy’s comparison, that those Cibie 7” E-Codes would perform better. What I am left to wonder is if I should source some Cibie 5.75” housings? I would wager they would be better than the Hella’s, but the reality is these Hella’s are pretty frickin’ good. Anyway, whatever the answer is, thanks for bring up the question. It has been a fun riddle to explore and I’ve learned a little more about lighting in the process.
_________________
Tim Potts

Doing my best every time I drive it to dispel the myth these Vanagons have to be slow!


'89 Vanagon Bluestar/Country Homes 1.8T & .77 4th
'74 Jeep CJ5

[dkoesyncro]

You and me both Tim, I 've always been volkswagen guy and have always done the h4 Hellas. What a difference between the Sylvanias and others.

I have now found a set of ecodes that have a unique fluting to them. I ordered them from a Danish company. They couldn't tell me much about them. Although they suggested I use osram or hella h4 bulbs and this led into a long understanding that not all bulbs are created equal. My fluted lens favors more of a Hellas ecode over a cibie ecode. I read/understand that a bulb design is to compliment the housing/lenses that it's going into.
Not fact but for instance. Hellas with Hellas and osram with cibie and Philips with ?. This being said a lower wattage bulb paired with correct lenses will light better than higher watts with bad lense/unmatched. Less hot spots or scattered light.

[ALIKA T3]

[silverbulletuk]

I have sold my RHD UK square lamps now, so there;s no going back. I have a set of square frames to hold the grille up, so thank you Tim for the drawing of the bracket, I will get some folded up and take my pick of BMW E30 lamps or somesuch!
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1986 syncro twin-slider rhd, 3.2S Oettinger wbx6
1990 SA Microbus - Supercharged wbx going in with UN-1 trans.
www.025motorsport.com

[nemobuscaptain]

[djkeev]

Yep, sadly another photo hosting site bites the dust and photo links die.

All that hard work and great write up become worthless to those who follow.

Please please please, host your photos on this site!

Sad really...... it was a great modification,

Dave
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Stop Dead Photo Links how to post photos

Ghia
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=392473

Vanagon
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6315537#6315537

Beetle
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=482968&highlight=74+super+vert