Lotus Elan Central

Been looking at the options for headlight upgrades, I was thinking the PNM kit appears to be quite nice, if overpriced.

If I could get a plug & play LED headlight kit manufactured for under £250 including looms, 4 LED light units, and adaptor plates would there be any interest?

These would be the same DOT approved units that PNM use, with any hardware required.



1. CallMeLegend

1. CallMeLegend
2. Denny

Is there any evidence of the difference between these and the light output of the original ones with good quality bulbs? Either led or halogen.

Tuga2112 wrote:Is there any evidence of the difference between these and the light output of the original ones with good quality bulbs? Either led or halogen.

I should have some units here in the next few days, so can do a direct comparison then.

CallMeLegend wrote:
I should have some units here in the next few days, so can do a direct comparison then.

I look forward to seeing that, currently my financial position wont allow me to join the group buy, but i think it would be of value to everyone to see the difference before commiting to buy

one thing to note is that an LED kit shold in theory extend the lifetime of the alternator, under the assumption that those will draw considerably less current for the same light output

The LED units have arrived, and to my surprise they are a 100% perfect fit in the Lotus housings.







Now to wait until it stops raining an plug a couple in, see if the resistance is high enough to trigger the lift motors.

The advantage of this is that the cost of the kit has most likely reduced considerably.

Hi there, I've just returned to Elan ownership with J232PEL a Norfolk Mustard SE. I'd be interested I joining an LED group buy please. Are there any further pics showing all four units installed?

Pompeydave wrote:Hi there, I've just returned to Elan ownership with J232PEL a Norfolk Mustard SE. I'd be interested I joining an LED group buy please. Are there any further pics showing all four units installed?

Ditto....has there been any progress on this? Cheers Martin

Dear all,
A few quetions
The idea of LED headlights is an improvement,
Will it be possible to have them dipping LH and RH so that we can use them on LHD cars ?
Also where do they stand with respect to MOT in the UK or Europe? This could be complicated unless CE approved.
Thanks,
Neil

I have the first test fit of all four complete. there's only on f in Geof Smith was great help with resistor sizing.



They are bloody bright, these still need adjusting but I'm impressed.

There is a minor clash with the heatsink on the back on the headlight & the pod operating rod, I'm going to attend to this at the weekend.





As far as a group buy goes, I'm not sure it's worth it, literally a set of 4 lamp using, a resistor, a little wiring & some grinding is all that's required, they fit with all of the standard mounting hardware, one of the lights units had a keyway on the back that required a small cutout to the plasting headlight mounting ring, or you could grind the lug off, it was pretty small.

Having said all of that, if people want a "ready to go" kit of parts I'd be happy to look at something & put some funds into LEC funds whilst at it.

Neil D. wrote:Dear all,
A few quetions
The idea of LED headlights is an improvement,
Will it be possible to have them dipping LH and RH so that we can use them on LHD cars ?
Also where do they stand with respect to MOT in the UK or Europe? This could be complicated unless CE approved.
Thanks,
Neil

Neil, check out the first post, I think this should answer your questions.

FYI that I have a couple of sets of these, new and in boxes, that I can make available for sale.

Elanlover wrote:FYI that I have a couple of sets of these, new and in boxes, that I can make available for sale.

I would be interested...pm me some details please

I too am interested please.

1. CallMeLegend
2.

I drove the car for the first time in dark (only had this one since February) and was more than happy with the full beam on dark roads so I'm going to keep original.
Very rare I take her out in the dark.

Soooo...............I may have spoken a bit too soon.


I have 3 headlights of that style. They were my first attempt at an LED headlight upgrade and they work quite well. I then installed a slightly uprated version which are on the car now. Both types require a load resister to be wired inline for them to work or the pods won't activate properly.



One will do for all the lights but I used two, one for each side, because I like to over-engineer everything. One of the lights was installed and tested but never used on the road so they are all as new as it gets. I'm pretty sure they are marked DOT and suitable in North America - not sure about European use. I'm in Canada so shipping overseas would be more expensive than to somewhere in North America. I'm not sure what people's intentions are regarding replacing all 4 lights so if the idea is to do the dips/low beam then I have 1 and a half sets. If you want to do all 4 (that's what I did) then I have almost a complete set.

No need to burn the fibreglass and require an alternator upgrade Blair - it only needs one 100 ohm resistor.

Fortunately I mounted it to the metal bracketing at the back of the pod but I hear you. I have a bunch of resistors like this of varying size and I might very well replace it with a smaller one. Good suggestion Geoff.

Imagine the damage you could do to your eardrums with an extra 100W!

Just wondering if someone who has placed the resistors in-line could explain what the process is to attach. Which wire is it attached to? My LEDs are already installed but need the resistor to make the lights stay down. They currently want to stay up all the time.