cibie 7" e code vs hella 90mm's (weird situation... read on)

[old_]

I have a 89 honda crx. The car is 100% stock, I don't care about making it go fast or making it look "mad tite jdm yo!" I bought it because it gets 40mpg and is as reliable as the sun rises. That said, the lights are terrible. I recently removed the headlights and opened them up to clean out the built up condensation that was clearly visible behind the (pitted) glass lens. After opening I was able to see that the internal reflectors on both headlights are mostly burned up. Something like 75% of the reflective material that is applied to the internal plastic is just gone.
So I could get new OEM lights. They are right at $110 per housing. I won't be keeping the car much longer (probably less than a year) so I really don't want to dump in $200+ that I won't get back out of the thing. My next car will be a NA mazda miata. The miata just happens to have standard 7" round sealed beams. So I was thinking about going with a set of Cibie e-codes and putting them in some bucket mount housings (the kind used on dune buggys, 30's hot rods, etc) and mounting them on the bumper of the CRX (think rally car). Then when I ditch the CRX I can swap the Cibie's over to the miata. It will probably look dumb but I don't really care.
Or I could get some 90mm hella projectors ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000CSWB4S/?tag=cpf0b6-20 ). I'd have to get 4 of them, 2 high, 2 low. I'd be looking at $250+ just for the housings. I'd fab up some kind of mounting and put them in place of the stock headlights. When I dump the CRX I could probably sell the hella's to recoup some of my investment.

So, dumb idea? Anyone have any other ideas?

I'm leaning toward the e-codes as they would be cheaper, easier to setup and aim, plus I could transfer them to the miata.

thoughts?

 

[Qship1996]

spend the $220 for new factory lamps for the crx. $220 even for only a years use is worth it if it prevents an accident,which is way more expensive. If you want, you could always put the old lamps back in when you finally sell/junk the car and ebay the newish lamps to recoup some of your initial investment, or list them on one of the Honda enthusiast web forums.....should be quite easy to unload them when the time comes.Not worth the time and hassle to try to create a homemade solution using buckets or projectors,and the results will most likely be inferior to just swapping out the old oem lights with new ones.

 

[-Virgil-]

I have to agree with Qship; seems to me you'd spend a great deal more time and effort cobbling up an acceptably rigid, aim-stable mount for 7" lights on your CRX than is worthwhile. $220 for a year's worth of safe, comfortable night driving seems like a fairly good bargain to me.

 

[LeanBurn]

$220 for less than a year? How much of that will be driving at night?

So you get new OEMs for a 89 CRX, put them on ebay when you are done. Not many of these cars around anymore, so anyone that is going to be restoring a car like this will want new ones or used ones at a deal, so you will be lucky to get half your money back on ebay. In addition, is your OEM wiring all top notch to take advantage of the new OEM lamps, do you need a rewire/relays there as well?

If you are certain that you are getting the maita that you hope and keep it for a bit and these Cibie's will fit, the $$ you spend now will follow you and your return on investment will be better. Like you said you don't care what it looks like in the fabbed buckets for the CRX and you aren't going to go fast anyways if you are hoping for continued good mpgs. You have been driving already with the original CRX lamps in pretty bad shape, so any additional light to what you already had will be welcomed. Plus the wiring will all be new for the new Cibie's, so you will know you are getting everything out of them that you had hoped for.

I am all for good lighting, but how good are new OEM '89 CRX headlamps anyways? Not all OEM stuff is good, at least that's what I have learned from experience and reading on here. The Cibie's have a good reputation anywhere you look or ask. I'd rather buy good stuff that I can use for years rather than buy unknown to me beam quality (and construction apparently since the OEMs were leaking and junk) for less than 12 months IMO.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

The problem with getting the Cibié lamps, as Scheinwerfermann has pointed out, is that one must mount them to the vehicle in such a way as will allow the lamps to be aimed properly and stay aimed. This takes a considerable amount of effort to do correctly.

Those "junk" OEM lamps are 22+ years old-- I have a feeling they didn't start out as junk, rather it was time, sun, vibration, and whatnot that led to their demise.

I'd go for the new factory lamps.

 

[-Virgil-]

how good are new OEM '89 CRX headlamps anyways?

Not the world's finest, but fairly good. Throw a set of HIR1/2 bulbs in them and they rise to very good.

 

[LeanBurn]

...at least as good as the wiring the at feeds them....and the original mounting...right?

Schein you should post up that reference sheet noting which OEM headlamp housings were good/bad/ok and get it set as a sticky for this forum. That data would be extremely handy and quite encompassing as it goes back more than 20 years. I know it would be referred to often on this forum as a lot of questions on here center around OEM lamps vs aftermarket. It would be nice to know as new cars come out their headlamp performance as well. Where do you find this data?

 

[-Virgil-]

...at least as good as the wiring the at feeds them

That's an important point, of course.

Schein you should post up that reference sheet noting which OEM headlamp housings were good/bad/ok and get it set as a sticky for this forum.

I'm afraid there's no "reference sheet"; that data takes up most of two walls in my office building, and is not in the public domain.

 

[iroc409]

I don't know if it's worth considering, but I've seen several forum threads where people have put 4 of the 90mm Hella modules in Miata pop-up headlights. There's even a couple companies making mounting kits (some come with the light modules, and are pretty expensive). Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

I'm not a fan of popup headlights-- there's the potential that the aim can change if the lamps themselves actually move (rather than doors opening and closing over fixed lamps), or that the doors will fail to actuate.

In the case of replacing the sealed beam with the 90mm modules in a moving assembly, the balance changes, which could make the movement sloppy or cause additional aim problems.

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

Pop-up headlights are designed to open and maintain aim despite wind, rain, snow, ice, leaves, bugs, and anything else any other headlight that is out in the open all the time would have to deal with. I do not see securely mounted modules being a problem.

I personally am not in favor of pop-up headlights or headlight covers simply because they add complexity and a failure point where none needs to exist.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

Pop-up headlights are designed to open and maintain aim despite wind, rain, snow, ice, leaves, bugs, and anything else any other headlight that is out in the open all the time would have to deal with. I do not see securely mounted modules being a problem.

*Designed to*; but do not always do it reliably:

Hidden lamps (Miata, Corvette prior to '05, etc.) are very heavy and complex and when they get some years on them they either stop lifting or stop lifting reliably into the correct position. Headlamp aim consistency, what's that?

Again, if the modules are mounted in a moving assembly, I think it would be prone to problems, particularly if the lamps are mounted in a swiveling part rather than on a piston that moves straight up and down. A very small amount of play in any direction will result in a very large motion of the beam out farther from the headlight.

I personally am not in favor of pop-up headlights or headlight covers simply because they add complexity and a failure point where none needs to exist.

Agreed there.

 

[old_]

thanks for the info guys. I appreciate the input from everyone. I found a place selling slightly cheaper OEM (not reproduction) headlights so I think I might just go with that. I ordered some HIR bulbs before I knew the original headlight housings were bad. So I'll use those and wire up a relayed harness. Hopefully that should bring things up to an acceptable level. I'm also going to purchase a set of good 7" H4 housings just to keep on hand for when I do get the miata. It seem like they are becoming more rare and prices are always going up. If I don't end up using them I should be able to at least get my money back out of them without too much trouble.

 

[-Virgil-]

Getting rare...? What indication have you seen of it? Every time I need a set of Cibie 7" H4 housings, I pick up the phone and call Stern and they're on my loading dock in a week or so.

 

[irsa76]

Must be an American thing, no offense intended. My local autoparts shop has a shelf full of 7" and 5 3/4", and the various rectangle, lights in both sealed beam and replaceable inserts. On the other hand they don't carry HB3 or HB4 bulbs, which alot of new cars use.