Vintage Cibie H4

[tdbeasley]

Hi there! New to vintage lighting. Purchased for my Datsun and will be putting in a couple relays to power these to take some strain off the switch.

Anyone know anything about dating these? Also I've heard whispers of so called "z-beams" is that the one on the left?

Left side is three prong right side is two prong. Low/high beam vs only high I imagine.

Cheers!

 

[aznsx]

Hi there! New to vintage lighting. Purchased for my Datsun and will be putting in a couple relays to power these to take some strain off the switch.

Anyone know anything about dating these? Also I've heard whispers of so called "z-beams" is that the one on the left?

Left side is three prong right side is two prong. Low/high beam vs only high I imagine.

Cheers!

Those sound much like the Cibies I ran in the 70s, which were great, but not DOT approved at the time. Yeah, I got pulled over in several states; not because I was blinding anyone, but they were suspect purely because of their brightness and CT. That pattern really helped me spot deer on the right shoulder or area who might be about to jump in front of my car and cause me to have a bad night, so between the pattern / brightness (and the hi-beam of course), it was a safety thing. ICBW, but I don't recall actually getting a 'fixit' ticket, but I think they just pulled me over to get a better look;-) I'm pretty sure I sold the car with them still installed. They were great lights in their day.

 

[crdiscoverer]

I've never had the pleasure of experiencing the Cibies, but I've had everything from actual sealed beams, Hella eCode H4s, several types of LEDs and now Koito H4s.

My Hella eCodes were fine but they had a tendency to darken the low beam when switching to high beam, essentially turning off all light just in front of the car. I was eating potholes left and right with them. Following Daniel Stern's advice I got the Koitos and they are by far the best halogen headlights I've ever seen in any car. The only downside (which you might not like for a classic car) is that the glass lens is completely flat. The Cibies have curved lenses just like sealed beams.

I strongly recommend you to take a serious look at the Koitos. There's nothing like them in the halogen reflector world.

 

[yellow]

Wondering...
🤔
When turning on high, then normal goes dim, or goes off...
... could that not be an issue of the car electronic (going dim), or the light System itself (off, when high is on) ?

Till now i drove
1987 Peugeot 205: low/high w. single pair lights
2001 Citroen Xantia break: Single pair low/high + additional pair of high beam lights.
On high all 6 on.. crazy good lights
2013 Alfa Romeo Giulietta: low/high HID beam lights, + additional pair of H7 halogens on high
... extremely crazy good light

On none of these the low got turned off, or got "dimmer", when switched on high.
?

 

[crdiscoverer]

Wondering...
🤔
When turning on high, then normal goes dim, or goes off...
... could that not be an issue of the car electronic (going dim), or the light System itself (off, when high is on) ?

Till now i drove
1987 Peugeot 205: low/high w. single pair lights
2001 Citroen Xantia break: Single pair low/high + additional pair of high beam lights.
On high all 6 on.. crazy good lights
2013 Alfa Romeo Giulietta: low/high HID beam lights, + additional pair of H7 halogens on high
... extremely crazy good light

On none of these the low got turned off, or got "dimmer", when switched on high.
?

And what's your current car that has this problem?

 

[yellow]

Sorry,
You typed that,
in the 2nd paragraphe, at Start.
Maybe i understood wrong?

I have, yet, never seen/noticed such light switching

 

[crdiscoverer]

Oh, I get you now.

It's not an issue with the car. Hella eCodes are notorious for having that quirk/defect. If you Google it you'll see a lot of people complaining about the same thing. It's the nature of the H4 bulb plus how Hella designed their reflector.

The H4 bulb has two filaments, placed slightly offset from one another. One filament is for low beam, the other for high. Both filaments are never on at the same time. When you turn on the high beams, the low beam filament turns off, otherwise amps would be too much for the car's electrical system to handle.

This causes the low beam to essentially disappear from view because the low beam part of the reflector bowl is not designed to focus on the high beam filament (remember it's in a slightly different location).

The Koitos have better designed reflectors and they can use that high beam filament to still focus some of its light as a low beam so you have no dark spots as with the Hellas.

I'm strictly talking about 7" round H4 reflectors for cars that originally came with sealed beams. More modern cars have either dedicated high beams with separate bulbs, or H4 multi-reflectors (non-fluted, transparent lenses). Those range from terrible to great, depending on the car.

 

[theastronaut]

Those are standard e-code versions with the usual ~15 degree upward angled passenger side cut off, not the Z-Beam version with the flattened passenger side cut off.

I've had Z-beams, normal Cibie e-codes (7" and 5x7), Hella H4s (e-code), a couple of LED headlights, and 7" Koitos from the Toyota dealer and much prefer the Z-Beams. Z-Beams low beam spread needs to be studied and duplicated, they're magic. The Koito high beams are great but the low beams have too much foreground illumination. I am curious if Stern is selling a different version of Koito H4 than the Toyota dealer is selling, Stern says the Koitos are the best of any of them but the two sets I've had have disappointing low beams.

 

[crdiscoverer]

Those are standard e-code versions with the usual ~15 degree upward angled passenger side cut off, not the Z-Beam version with the flattened passenger side cut off.

You are correct, my eCodes had the angled cutoff, not the flat z-beam. Back then I wasn't that informed. In fact, even though I know they both exist, I still don't know how to tell the two versions apart.

I get what you mean about the Koitos, but honestly, with halogens is there such thing as too much light, foreground or otherwise? It's true their low beam is not a perfect gradient but to me they are still the best H4 reflectors I've driven with.

I am curious about the flat cutoff Hellas now.

 

[theastronaut]

Yes, too much foreground light makes your eyes adjust to the intensity of the light right in front of the car, and anything farther away (out at the cut-off) appears dimmer because your pupils are closed up more. If you were going 5 mph always then this isn't an issue, but at speed you need to see as far out as possible as well as possible so you have time to see and react to anything ahead.

You can test this by holding your hand flat in front of your face under your eyes, then move your hand up to block just the lower/brighter portion of the beam pattern from your eyes- if your eyes readjust to the dimmer light intensity farther out and you can see distance better, then there is too much foreground lighting. This is another reason you shouldn't drive around with your fog lights on, unless its actually foggy and you're going slow enough to need to see the lane markings right in front of you... they hurt your vision in any other situation.

Cibie got this absolutely perfect with the Z-Beams, there are no unevenly bright "hot spots' on low beam when you're on the road, just an even distribution of light intensity to distance when they're aimed correctly- the hot spot in the pattern is dead ahead so the farthest part of the low beam is just as bright as everywhere else so your eyes don't have to "pick" a spot to adjust to, as far as brightness/intensity goes.

The Toyota dealer Koito H4s have this backwards, the hot spot is right in front of the car and the cut off is inadequately illuminated. As highly as everyone praises the Koitos, I'm wondering if the dealership sells a different version?

Here's a link to one of my old ads for NOS Z Beams to see the details of the lens fluting.

NOS Cibie Z-Beam H4 Headlights - Pelican Parts Forums

Edit- sold Pair of hard to find NOS Z-Beams, one opened and one still sealed in plastic wrap. Lights are in excellent/new condition. $300 shipped

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