Opinion Needed - Halo Light Kits

1978 NYB

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Has anyone done anything to mod the Halo lights on metric Challengers? Same question for Chargers and Rams if anyone has done any type of upgrades?

I just don't know which manufacturer is the go to to product or if it's more trouble than it's worth.

Thanks in advance......
 
Brighter lights and a little customization.
I can understand the customization aspect, but the "brighter light" I would take issue with.

If the current beam pattern for a light that is aimed pretty much horizontal does not have the "brightness" you might like, it means the beam isn't covering the areas desired. By observation, USA beam patterns tend to give a false sense of security as they put so much light on the ground in front of the vehicle and less down the road and to the rh side, from my observations and comparison to the old E-code lights. That's from looking at them behind the steering wheel.

On the OTHER side of the steering wheel, so many of the newer, smaller HID or "white bulb" lights, due to their brightness AND compactness (meaning intensity of the light) can be blinding to oncoming drivers in a way that old high-beams were not. The "high contrast" lighting situation, where you have a very bright light against a black background. Then possibly magnify that for pickup trucks where the level of the headdlghts are basically at the same level as the car in front of you's inside rear view mirror. Which is another bad situation, which the other driver probalby has not every considered being a problem for others, I suspect.

Once I found some supplements to help with such bright light/dark background situations, things got better, but now it seems that every car on the road has these brighter/smaller lights on them. Might not be as bad in a metro area with a good bit of ambient light (street lights and buildings), but on a dark 2-lane country road it's a different situation. Not to mention the number of "lifted" pickups, or even the HD2500 that aren't lifted, that seem to desire these upgraded headlights.

By observation, it seems that whomever is designing the newer headlights is doing it more for styling reasons than performance (effective beam pattern). Projector beams are better without the "desirable" HIDs, but their beam pattern's only good thing is the sharp cut-off of the top of their beams. Which is a desirable attribute, which the old E-code lights were very good at.

Sorry if that might offend some of y'all, but it can be a pretty serious situation for some, by observation.

Just my own experiences and observations,
CBODY67
 
CBODY67,
I tend to Agree with You.
Some of the Newer H/Lights can be Blinding & the Number of Wood ducks who won't Dim their Hi-Beams is Incredible.
As far as the "New" Designs of H/Lights I'm a Little Cynical from the Point of view that in the Days of "Old" when most vehicles had either 5 3/4 or 7 Inch headlights they used to Cost New approx $28.00 of today's Dollars.
A New "Modern" H/Light Assembly can be $1,400.00 a side.
I often feel like I'm being Taken for a Ride without actually going Anywhere.
Tony.M
 
The beam patterns on all my vehicles are aimed correctly....two 2019's and a 2018. I have seen custom lighting on Challengers, Chargers, and Rams that are enhanced but not blinding.

I had a 2017 300C Platinum that had all of that annoying safety stuff.... lane monitoring, active braking, lighting, enhanced cruise control, rain sense wipers, front camera and other crap I didn't care for. That car had HID lighting but it was one of the those cars that had the blinding lights. I traded that in on the Scat Pack Charger.
 
In modern cars, with "integrated" lights (all in one housing/casting), there is no choice for "better lights" than with "brighter" bulbs in the daylight light spectrum. But with the older lights (as Tony mentions), changing from the USA-spec sealed beams to the (usually non-sealed beams, with replaceable bulbs) to E-code (usually Cibie or SEV-Marchall) lights resulted in less light in the 30" in front of the car and more "down-road", which took a bit to get used to AND required aiming the lights "more up" from the prior sealed beam lights (from my experience). I did that on my '77 Camaro. I then would reference the beam "up and down" aim on known horizontal reference points, as bridge railings which were on flat bridges and also lane dividers on flat roadways. Then do the lateral aim so that the lh beam did not stray past the lh pavement markings (into the eyes of on-coming drivers). This was all easy to do with the more-defined E-code beam, but less so with the more "soft" USA/current non-projector beams, by observation.

On some of the first composite headlight housings, there were little scales by the adjustment screws. Lateral and horizontal. But those vanished after the next re-design, it seemed. Only way to put more light "down road" is to vary the focal point of the bulb, I suspect, which is not something the owner can do.

Rain Sense wipers can take some getting use to, by observation.

Just some thoughts,
CBODY67
 
I'm going to get some for all my cars, Every new vehicle blinds me and my brights aren't 1/10th of a new fog light. I stopped flashing brights after my eyeballs had seared from the airplane search lights they install today.
 
Long story but hopefully this will help you make a decision.

My 2012 Ram SLT did not have the quad beam headlights. The beam of the dual beam of the 2012s were terrible. They had what I described as a halo effect. There was a spot in the center of the beam that no light was projected to and gave the appearance of a black spot but had light all around it. I blamed it on the globe design of the dual beam.

Long story short, after going to the dealer with no satisfaction, I tried aftermarket HID lights with LED's around them. The result was the lights didn't draw enough power so the lighting control module sensed that the headlights were burned out. The result was the turn signals would blink fast, this drove me nuts. The research I did at the time said I would have to mount a transformer before the headlights and to mount it on the inner fender because they got hot over time and would take the paint off the surface. Again, not a solution I could accept.

I wrote an angry letter to Chrysler and they paid to replace my dual beams with quad beams which also required the re-flashing of the lighting control module. At that time, the dealers couldn't do that themselves and it required, I was told, for Chrysler to send the flash code to the dealer to reflash my lighting control module.

I don’t know if re-flashing lighting control modules is a standard practice now but I would check into it before any purchase.
 
There is an entity called "Elite Electronics" that have a mobil vans that can come to you and reflash modules/computers and such so that you (or possibly an independent repair shop) does not have to go to the dealer for such re-flashes. Not sure if that would have halped, but it might be an option in the future. FWIW

CBODY67
 
Long story but hopefully this will help you make a decision.

My 2012 Ram SLT did not have the quad beam headlights. The beam of the dual beam of the 2012s were terrible. They had what I described as a halo effect. There was a spot in the center of the beam that no light was projected to and gave the appearance of a black spot but had light all around it. I blamed it on the globe design of the dual beam.

Long story short, after going to the dealer with no satisfaction, I tried aftermarket HID lights with LED's around them. The result was the lights didn't draw enough power so the lighting control module sensed that the headlights were burned out. The result was the turn signals would blink fast, this drove me nuts. The research I did at the time said I would have to mount a transformer before the headlights and to mount it on the inner fender because they got hot over time and would take the paint off the surface. Again, not a solution I could accept.

I wrote an angry letter to Chrysler and they paid to replace my dual beams with quad beams which also required the re-flashing of the lighting control module. At that time, the dealers couldn't do that themselves and it required, I was told, for Chrysler to send the flash code to the dealer to reflash my lighting control module.

I don’t know if re-flashing lighting control modules is a standard practice now but I would check into it before any purchase.
That's insane.
Absolutely mind boggling. To get better headlights, you need to reflash the ECM and a dealer can't do it.
 
That's insane.
Absolutely mind boggling. To get better headlights, you need to reflash the ECM and a dealer can't do it.

Most kits come with a CanBus wiring harness that fools the BCM into thinking that all is ok. I run Halos on my magnum and I like them Bob
 
Perfect......

Screenshot_20210222-193348_Chrome.jpg
 
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