I recently installed LED headlights in my yellow Fiero. I got the idea to do this while looking at the Black Top Racing (formelly TLG) websight, but I actually bought the kit from
MyLED.com. Before you can install the kit, you need to replace your sealed beam headlights with housings that let you use H4 bulbs. You can get these housings from many sources, including Black Top Racing, the Fiero Store, and Ebay.
Before I got though the steps to install the kit, let's take a close look at the H4 bulb.
In the bulb are two filaments (they look like little springs). The one closest to the tip is the low beam filament. You can see that there is a little shield that blocks half the light from it. When the bulb is installed, the shield is on the bottom, so that the light only shines up, where it strikes the housing's reflector, and bounces down to the road. That's why the low beam primarily lights the road right in front of you.
The other filament (high beam) is not shielded, so it's light hits all the reflector surfaces, and shines straight ahead.
Below is the LED assembly that replaces the H4 bulb.
The two little round bumps are the LED's. The one on the bottom in the picture is the low beam LED, and it is actually on top when the bulb is mounted. It shines up, just like the H4 low beam filament. But this means that the high beam LED, which will be on the bottom, will only shine down. The LED system makes up for this by leaving the low beam LED on when you are switched to high beam. (You can't do this with the incandescent bulb -- leave both filaments on -- or you'd blow a fuse.)
You'll notice a little threaded stub on the back end of the assembly. That's to hold a small fan, meant to cool the assembly
The kit also comes with a little power box for each bulb. There's a connector that plugs into your existing light socket, and two smaller connectors that plug into the LED bulb and the little fan.
I mounted the power box on a flat place behind the headlight that seemed to be just made for it.
With everything installed, and the wires connected, it looks like this:
I turned it on, and it worked fine. But I don't like the idea of a little fan, which could ingest junk,or fail. And if you put the rubber dust boot on, the fan is blocked, and can't move any air. So I thought of a better way.
First, I turned on the lights, and left them on for a while, to see how warm they got. I noticed that the fan doesn't spin very fast, so not much cooling is needed.
So I drilled and tapped a small heat sink, and put it on instead of the fan. And now I am able to put the rubber boot on.
The lights don't seem that much brighter (LED on the driver's side in this picture), but the whiter light makes it easier to see at night.
If you want to do this mod, I bought 10 of those little heat sinks, and can provide you with drilled and tapped ones.
