Holley Retrobright Price Match
- Thread starter Car Nut
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Those look like the ones my brother has in his SS454 Chevelle, they work well.
mopowers
Well-Known Member
Maybe @slantsixdan can share what he thinks of these headlights.
slantsixdan
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These LED headlamps sold by Holley are sourced through an intermediary company out of China, and promoted along the lines of modern performance with vintage looks. I had high hopes for them, but they turned out as a complete let-down. If you drive your car at night at all, you're wise to steer clear, no matter what price you might find them at. There are legitimate (effective, safe, legal) LED headlamps to fit any sealed-beam car, but the RetroBrights are not on that list.
scatpackbee
Well-Known Member
Which LED headlights lwould you recommend for a ‘69 Dart Dan?
slantsixdan
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First make sure you're asking the question you mean to ask. LED headlamps aren't necessarily good headlamps, and good headlamps aren't necessarily LED headlamps. There are some excellent halogens available, and some hyperpremium (and hyper-expensive) BiXenons.
If you want LEDs, be careful; there's a mountain of fraudulent/unsafe junk on the market, including all "LED bulbs" that fit in halogen headlamps (see here) and a whole lot of toys shaped like whole sealed beam headlamps. But there are some good-to-excellent ones on the market, too. the Peterson 701C is pretty good, and so is the Truck-Lite 27270C. By a big, big margin the king daddy of them all is the JW Speaker 8700, which comes in black or chrome. All three of these are well made in America. There's a lot of lookalike copycat junk "recommended" when you look at these; ignore them. Super-shіtty junk from NAPA, too; avoid it.
Whatever headlamps you wind up using, the most important thing about them is how they're aimed.
If you want LEDs, be careful; there's a mountain of fraudulent/unsafe junk on the market, including all "LED bulbs" that fit in halogen headlamps (see here) and a whole lot of toys shaped like whole sealed beam headlamps. But there are some good-to-excellent ones on the market, too. the Peterson 701C is pretty good, and so is the Truck-Lite 27270C. By a big, big margin the king daddy of them all is the JW Speaker 8700, which comes in black or chrome. All three of these are well made in America. There's a lot of lookalike copycat junk "recommended" when you look at these; ignore them. Super-shіtty junk from NAPA, too; avoid it.
Whatever headlamps you wind up using, the most important thing about them is how they're aimed.
slantsixdan
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That's exactly what I'm talking about: a pathetic Chinese trinket shaped like an H4 halogen headlamp, with a not-even-close-to-grownup-reality "LED bulb". These give a random spray of light; not capable of providing even minimally adequate safety performance.
People swear by them? Yep, that's a completely different question than whether they're effective and safe (they're not). The difficulty is, what we feel like we're seeing isn't what we're actually seeing. The human visual system is a lousy judge of how well it's doing. "I know what I can see!" seems reasonable, but it doesn't square up with reality because we humans are just not well equipped to accurately evaluate how well or poorly we can see (or how well a headlamp works). Our subjective impressions tend to be very far out of line with objective, real measurements of how well we can (or can't) see.
Seriously, you are far better off with a 20-year-old pair of sealed beams than with this junk. Do not buy.
autoxcuda
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Which ones of those look as stock-like or more stock-lite than the Holley Retrofit's?
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The original 4001’s and 4002’s on my Charger are working fine.
I’m sharp on some things and completely ignorant on others.
I’m following @slantsixdan ’s recommendation.
Thanks Dan, I’m glad your here.
I’m following @slantsixdan ’s recommendation.
Thanks Dan, I’m glad your here.
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slantsixdan
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None. The Truck-Lite and Peterson don't look as space-shippy as the JW Speaker, but there is no effective or safe LED headlamp that looks like an olde-tyme sealed beam or H4. Which kind of sucks, but on the other hand…seems to me if it needs to look damn near showroom-stock, it's probably not being driven much at night.
And on the other-other hand, if what's needed is better-than-OE headlamps with close-to-original appearance, that can certainly be done. Just not with LEDs.
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