Thread: LED Headlights
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Old 03-28-2017, 10:28 AM
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cycleguy55 cycleguy55 is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: White City, SK
Cobra Make, Engine: West Coast, 460 CID
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Originally Posted by x96535 View Post
I've had my Cobra for about six months now and finally got around to fixing my night driving situation. The headlights that came on the car were downright dangerous to drive with at night. They were made to look like projector style lights but didn't act like a projector and had halogen bulbs.

I was quoted $350 by a local guy to add HID lighting, which he has done to several Cobras. I thought that was high priced and hated the idea of running HIDs in a non-projector headlight. After doing some searching online, including getting quoted $600+ for custom LED headlights, I settled on some Sunpie 7" LED headlights made primarily for Jeep Wranglers.

I read several of the customer reviews for them on Amazon and was pretty satisfied. I also watched several YouTube videos to see what the light output looked like (cutoff, flood, distance, etc.). After all of that, I was set. Through Amazon Prime, it cost me $150 shipped. Cheap enough that I wouldn't be terribly pissed if they ended up not being to par.

I was a little hesitant to start the install since I was afraid they wouldn't fit in the buckets. To my surprise, the wiring for the headlight had the exact same female connector as the headlight I was pulling out. The install for just the headlight took all of five minutes for each side! And to top it off, the lenses are dome shaped as opposed to the flat face of the pre-existing headlights.

I didn't wire in the half-moon LED running lights or blinkers initially. I just wanted to test out the headlights. The cutoff is very nice, especially for a LED headlight. The brightness is incredible! I can actually drive at night now! I had my wife drive in front of me after adjusting the headlights up enough to my liking to make sure they were blinding anyone. She said there wasn't any issue with blinding her or oncoming traffic.

For the negative, I couldn't get the front blinkers (the ones originally on the car) to work, neither with 1157 halogen nor LED bulbs, when the headlights were on. I decided to try wiring the LED blinker in the headlight to see if it could suffice. Turns out it works. No need to add a resistor in line.

Anyways, I highly suggest anyone looking to upgrade their lighting consider these Sunpie headlights (no affiliation on my end other than being an end user). Btw, I know my blinkers are white. You can wire them to blink yellow, but I like the white better despite the legality of it. No need to harp on it; I'll just ignore you.

And here are the pics. If for some reason they don't show up, feel free to check them out on my Instagram under my handle x96535.
I'd be curious how they stand up long term. LEDs typically have a much shorter life when they're not properly cooled. The LED headlights I've looked at have heat sinks and some have fans to draw away the heat. The headlight buckets on my Cobra are sealed in back, so nowhere for the heat to go. Are your headlight buckets open? If not, how do you get rid of the heat?
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