Any hands-on experience with Holley Retrobright LED headlights?

I did have a quick look via the search and it doesn't look like they've been discussed here.

They seem to have various sizes that correspond to typical sealed beam headlights, but the housings are designed for LED bulbs while looking like regular sealed beam headlights: https://www.holley.com/products/restoration/lamps_and_lighting/retrobright/

They seem to get fairly decent reviews from what I can tell, and at least Summit Racing labels them as being DOT approved, which would nice.

I think they'd make a great replacement headlight for Miatas, Minis and lots of other classic cars, not to mention our LJ Jeep and the Rollerskate so I'd be interested if anybody had any first hand experience with them.

No experience here but looks like  a really cool product. 

I think there's a sale going on for Holley stuff as well? Holley Days or some crap?

Review from MT

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/holley-retrobright-led-headlight-test-review/

I've had my eye on them but the prices are high...oh crap, they're on sale. Hurgh. Gonna have to think about this.

These are the only way to do an LED retrofit that I've seen that both doesn't look super modern and is supposed to actually work properly.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

That's one of the few reviews I had seen from "reputable" main stream sources that got me interested in these headlights.

obsolete said:

These are the only way to do an LED retrofit that I've seen that both doesn't look super modern and is supposed to actually work properly.

Agreed, and that's exactly why I'm curious about them.

I'm pretty sure it's got nothing to do with me starting to bookmark NA Miatas on FB marketplace again, oh no.

You're right, they would be good for Miatas :)

https://flyinmiata.com/products/holley-retrobright-led-headlights-7-round

I wasn't involved in the testing, but we benchmarked them against a whole bunch of lights including the Trucklites I use and they won. So they've got our stamp of approval. 

Dad's headlights in his Toyota Pick'em'up have been yellowing badly for a couple years.  I might grab a set of these for him.

Might have to install them for him as well.

Thanks Keith!

I just ordered a set for a customers elan+2 and am looking forward to trying them out. The reviews are good and they don't look terrible in a vintage car like the trucklites and various projector/halo varieties do

I looked at some of the aftermarket retrofits when I had my 944, but they all looked to modern and projector-y. These look perfect.

We have honestly had the best luck with these, as well as modifying the stuff ourselves, even compared to those. 

 https://vintagecarleds.com/

Looks are the only reason I went with regular sealed beam headlights on our 72 bronco.  I can't stomach any of the "led array" or speaker style lights.  Wish these were avail when I built it.  

My brother put these (the Holley's) on his TR6 and really likes them.  I may go this route, especially since they're on sale.  Mule deer are all over the place around here at night, and the old halogens just don't light up the road enough.

Following this thread. The sealed beams in my first gen rx7 are really weak.

Had shopped a little and had seen the quite pricey Holleys vs several cheaper "spider eye" offerings on Amazon. Had not really seen much commentary on if the Holley's performed much better.

Is it weird that I hate the idea of using ugly modern spider eye lights even though my car has pop up headlights.  

These look great! I can't stand the modern projector style housing retrofits. They look terrible on older vehicles. I wish they made housing assemblies that fit the older chrome 6 1/4" KC-style spot lights. I have a pair of Blazer halogen off-road lights that I bought about 20 years ago that I would love to update.

These look so good I want to retrofit my OBS to the work truck grill and lights so I can get modern lighting.  

And I no longer have any cars with sealed beams.

Well you guys just made me spend some money on a set for our Jeep XJ.  I had previously put a decent retrofit set on a YJ but don't love the light they produce. Bright, but all over the place.  Hopefully the Holley version does better.

If so it will be an expensive proposition with 2-3 other sealed beam cars to upgrade. 

In reply to GaryC83 :

Looked at these, the problem for me is that they all seem to be 6000-6500K color temperature, which is pretty blue.

In reply to GhiaMonster :

Please let us know how you like them as the headlights on my wife's LJ really could do with some improvement.

I've got a 7" RetroBright on the motorcycle, and love it! WAY better than the sealed beam, good light pattern without having the ultra sharp cutoff of a projector.  I believe the youtube channel HeadlightRevolution does b2b testing/review of the different sizes and color temperatures available.

The Holley LED sealed beams showed up pretty quickly and I got them installed and adjusted on our XJ.

 Some background.  A few years ago I installed a set of LED retrofit headlights on our YJ Wrangler, the square headlight one. Those were a replacement housing that accepted stand alone bulbs.  The LED bulbs were plug and play, built with a small fan on the back of each for cooling.  Light output is great but too white / blue for an old vehicle in my mind. Driving towards the Jeep it doesn’t blind you, but it does throw some light everywhere. In the rain or fog this is really annoying.  The LEDs also interfere with the radio, but I’ll blame that on the Jeep.

My wife has complained about the headlights in her XJ and I agree they left a lot to be desired.  She was driving back from our camp one night and almost hit a moose running across the road. That incident upped the push for better headlights.  I had been putting off going to LEDs due to my complaints with the YJ set.  When this Holley offering came up I jumped on them. 

Pulling them out of the box I was happy with how robust they seemed until I tapped on the lenses.  I was expecting glass but they are plastic.  This is likely on me for not reading.  Hopefully they hold up over time. 

Install was easy as most of the XJ can be disassembled with a Phillips head screwdriver and a Torx set. 

I went with the 3000K classic white since it’s an older vehicle.  The color really impressed me. In the picture the passenger side is LED and the driver's side still has the old halogen, just what I was looking for. 

I won’t attempt any other headlight pictures because it’s cold out and they always just look brighter.  The first thing I noticed was how low the headlights were pointed.  In the fall I replaced the sagging rear springs and suspect the headlights had been aimed with the nose up stance.  The old halogens threw enough light everywhere to mask the issue. With a better horizontal cutoff the LEDs were almost useless on low beams.  Back to the garage for an adjustment and just as expected, they do throw a lot more light down the road.  They also don’t scatter it all over like the other set of LED retrofit lights.

The complaint I have is that there are multiple dark spots in the beam pattern.  It’s most noticeable when shining them on a wall but also appears as small shadows when driving.  Overall light output is great, but I was expecting better clarity from a reasonably expensive set of lights.   If the lens was better quality I would be buying a set for my ’78 F150 but at this point will keep looking for another option.  I thought about sending them back but the better light output outweighs the clarity issue for my wife. 

I will mention another issue with the install, although I doubt it’s limited to the Holley offering.  With the Jeep running but the headlight switch off, the driver’s side light was illuminating slightly. I would say half of a low beam.  In this case there is a headlight off delay module that must backfeed just enough power for a LED to glow.   Removing this module solved the issue and since we didn’t like that feature it’s no loss.  

2 week update: I'm happy with the lights. The best review is that I forgot I installed them and had to remember back to when the headlights sucked. I don't notice the black spots in the beams anymore, not sure if they're gone or my brain just stopped caring.  With the headlights on the radio reception is degraded some.