Thanks for sharing, but most important are the lights compared shining down the road (reach) & on a wall (pattern).

Can you show us some of those??

 

I closed the garage door to aim them. I don't have any "before" photos of that, but here is what they looked like when I was aiming them:

I can tell you, after using them for a few days, that the difference is *huge* compared to the halogen bulbs. I can see much, much, better when driving at night. If you are on the fence about upgrading, definitely do the low beams as soon as you can find that kit again, it's worth every penny.

The high beams are also great, they really light up road signs, I am just not sure they'll last because I had to chop off the heat sinks. No problems so far, but I will follow up in a couple months if I have to replace them or if they burn themselves up. The high beams are really a game changer, it is night and day, but I don't know if they'll last.

If anyone in the Austin area has another 2005 with the original halogens I’d be happy to take some side by side photos. I mostly wanted to share what it took to fit them in, in case someone else wants to do the same thing.

 

Any news on how well the high beam LEDs are surviving without the heat sink and fan?

 

There isn’t even enough heat dissipation for the low beams. One failed after six weeks for me, I have the same bulbs. The only way to make it work reliably is to modify the clam to allow the bulbs to exhaust heat.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, I really wanted this too.

 

BUMP! Can you update this further with results Kwinkles?

 

Hey, It has been a while and my lights are still working reliably. I live in a pretty dense area so I rarwly get to turn on the high beams, that might reduce to the overall heat my bulbs are exposed to. I also only put about ~3000 miles a year on the car.

I’ll update again when they eventually burn out, but as of today they’re still working.

 

I have been running a similar set of H1 LED bulbs in my Elise since August of 2015 without any problems. They are JDM ASTAR 6TH Generation Cree LED Headlights (2800 Lumens each) that I got off of Amazon (no longer available). I had previously been running a set of 35W HIDs, but one of the ballasts died after several years so switched over to these LEDs. While not quite as bright as my HIDs, they are definitely an improvement over the original halogens.

 

I just looked on eBay, and found a few matches, but I am unfamiliar with the nomenclature. @Baysailor specifies H1: can I use an H7? What do the H designations mean? Size? Light intensity? Electrical plug compatibility? And can one use a "low beam" LED in a "high beam" position?

Thanks!

 

H1 and H7 are physically different styles of the bulbs and are not interchangeable. The 2005 and 2006 Elise and 2006 Exige used H1 bulbs for the low beam and H7 bulbs for the high beam. Lotus then redesigned the headlights starting in 2007 and used H7 bulbs for both the low and high beams.