Hello all,
Kevin here with a 1992 corvette base. Can anyone advise me on a good LED headlight replacement for my 1992 Corvette base. Nothing spectacular just something where I will be able to see better lol. Drove at night last night and the headlights were not as bright as most cars on the road.

Thanks for any advice.

Kevin

 

I tried a led headlight assembly and while it was a bit better than standard halogen, It would not fit the headight bucket without cutting the metal housing. I did go back to a standard headlight, used LED H4 HI/lo globes.
You have to research into led globes for their light output rated in Lumen, be wary as many are just cheap and quite dim. But there are great led lights that are bright and work amazingly well, in standard non sealed beam headlights that accept H4 globes.
Look for mid to upper price range to get good quality LED H4 Hilo globes, remember you get what you pay for some promise a lot and will be worse than halogen globes...... LED lights are now getting better and brighter than HID globes 😎👍

Good bright white LED light globes with further reach than standard halogen globes, do cost a little more look closely at the feedback before buying. To ensure you get great LED globes that will astonish you how much clearer it will be to drive at night, you will wonder how you ever put up with standard halogen lights. Of course aim your headlights correctly, you don't want to startle and blind other drivers... 👍

 

Thank you very much for the quick reply. I will check into your suggestions and do more research.

Kevin

 

​​​​​​The LED light assemblys I had here is a pic of them, the body did not fit into the bucket needing a section cut out to fit them. They were slightly better in light output to standard, however nothing compared to the H4 hi lo LED globes in the normal headlights.
The LED hi lo globes in standard headlight housings reach further, because they are much brighter than the LED lights I tried.

And a few from my dash cam, be warned we drive on other side of the road here in OZ so don't be too startled
But its a good real world example of LED globes in standard semi sealed H4 lights on low beam, with other light sources and other cars headlights for comparison..

 

Amazon, HW Star 2022 $89

Many have used them after I slapped them in my '84 back in '21 and recommended them here and on a Ford forum I'm on

Excellent cutoff, fit the stock housings, plug and play, very bright, not a annoying yellow or blue hue.

I work 12 hr shifts 50% day, 50% nights. In the winter months it's always dark driving to and from work regardless of the shift worked. I live around a lot of wildlife.

 

I bought these HWStar LED projector headlights, they come as a pair:

https://a.co/d/c4hQsKw

They're just as bright as my 2018 Volkswagen GTI's OEM LED headlights. Significantly better than the old halogen lights. Installation was easy, plug-and-play.

 

What about fog light compatibility with these? I've heard stories of them not working with LED headlamps.

 

Simple mod to fix this.

 

I used these LED decoder harnesses when I installed my LED headlights, they fix the foglight issue:

https://a.co/d/05cpgOza

 

I had no issues at all with my 84

 

I also used these on my '84. Zip tied inside the bucket and they corrected the high beam indicator not being on all the time. HWStar LED's are great, love the reach of the high beams.

 

​​​​​​Pretty sure there is a led fog light ground issue, caused high beams to come on when fog lights were activated. Something with factory wiring of fog lights, grounding through high beams ..... will let you know when I can check or remember what I did a year ago .... 🤔
​​​​Below is a link to this issue and how to resolve it 🙂👍


https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c4-tech-performance/3594678-led-headlights-foglight-solution.html

​​​

The Hella H4 light housings had a park globe (see pic above) which I used on my 91, connected that across the black and green drivers headlight wiring. That did the job of grounding the fog light through that small park lamp, which would otherwise not have been used.
👍
​​​​​​

 

I replaced my fog lights with Novasite 881 LED's, per another thread on here. The fog lights are now noticeably brighter than the stock headlights. So here we go again!

So the 2022 lights in Post 5 will fit my '92 without modification. And am I correct that if there is a high-beam issue due to the fog lights, the harness shown in Post 9 will eliminate the work described in Post 12's link?

And I still have the tail lights on the "to do" list as well.

 

That is correct.

 

Thanks! Ordered the LED's, once they are in I'll see whether it needs the jumpers or not.

 

I have had 4 C4s and one C5. Currently have a 1996 base. I have upgraded fogs and head lights and modified turn signals to running lights. I see you have ordered LEDs, I started with trying LEDs on fog lights. I found they were not much brighter than stock. After reading user comments on LEDs for headlights you will find many comments of very poor performance from those drivers. LEDs are useless unless they are designed like the OEM focused lenses. I had upgraded to halogens many years ago and they are a great improvement to stock. A few years ago I upgraded to HID 8000K ice blue Fog Lights - 896 - Full Xenon HID Fog Kit. For the headlights look at 9005 HID Xenon Headlight Conversion Kit. You will need the Headlamp Housings replacements for the old standard sealed headlamp. They come as a kit with the bulbs with some kits. The HID kit less the housings run under $100. Be careful where you buy, I have seen one well known “LED” site with a price of $600 for the same thing being sold for $89. I have had my HID kit in for 5 years. Be sure and buy the spare bulbs. Not readily available at your local auto parts store. I have had one bulb go out in 5 years. Bulbs run less around $13 on line. Be careful, I have seen the same bulbs listed at $110 each at this on line well know “LED” site.

 

Thanks Wade, that's good info. I especially agree with the crazy pricing, LED's for a given application whose price at one seller is 10 times that of another.

As I said above, the fog lights were suggested on this forum in a different thread, and they are an incredible improvement. (I tried taking a pic showing how much brighter they are than my headlights but didn't get far enough away. the fog lights just washed out the whole photo)

I ordered the headlights flannel_man suggested in post #5, they arrived the next day. This past weekend was shot with non-Corvette stuff. I've got a mower that won't start to do first, and also trying to prepare to pull motor and tranny from the C-2. Hoping to get the LED's in the '92 soon and will certainly report here, but it might be a few days before it happens.

 

I was just looking about 2 weeks ago to see if there were any improvements on LEDs since I looked at them a few years ago when I went with the HIDs. There are many "sealed" units now that look like they have a focused beam but if you look at the comments of the few guys that actually know what they are talking about you see these are not good. The beams are not focused but have a blocking piece inside the housing that keeps the light from being emitted high into oncoming traffic. The reason I was looking at the LEDs was when I had a HID bulb burn out I was thinking the LED bulb might be a direct replacement and would be easy to carry a spare bulb in the car and easier to replace than the HID bulb. But that is not the case. You would have to carry a whole headlamp unit. OK, and I do like the ice blue color of the lights also. BTW when you need to change out the optispark I highly recommend PETRIS OPTISPARK DISTRIBUTORS & KITS. Put it in last year, spoke with the PETRIS owner, great guy, long time Vet repair shop.

 

Mine was replaced 16 years, and 38,000 miles ago. I'm HOPING it's got some more miles in it, but good info to file away. That day will no doubt come at some point.

 

My schedule changed and had time to put those in tonight after all. Words fail me! Thought I had searchlights on the car - and then I hit the high beams! It's more than impressive. I do have the issue mentioned above of high beam indicator coming on with fog lights but I'll get to that soon enough.

My thanks to OP and to all those who added advice. If anybody is on the fence, my 2 cents is go for it. Less than $100 for the bulbs themselves and even after buying the jumpers it's still reasonable.