Rampage H4 conversion kit
Part number: 5089925Rampage Products is new to the headlight game, and the company claims a simple 10-minute installation and 60 percent more luminescence than the stock headlights.
Pattern: 8 (high beam), 6 (low beam)
Light output: 6
Ease of installation: 10
Installation notes: Installation was really easy. In fact, these housings are perhaps a little (1/8-inch or so) smaller than the stock bulbs. When we went to bolt them in, there was some slop between the headlight housing and the metal cage that retains it in the Jeep. Once it was tightened down, we didn't have any problems with it.
DOT compliance: There are DOT and SAE markings on the lens of the housing, however, the bulb doesn't have any DOT stampings.
Testing notes: The rubber seal on the back of this bulb is very supple, almost more like a silicone dive mask than a rubber seal. Also, it somehow seems to click on the back of the housing. However, it has only a round hole for the bulb and some kind of sticker over a hole in the back of the reflector [Editor's note: The company says it's for moisture to escape], both of which could cause moisture intrusion. This is a very stout unit, with more mass than any of the other lights we tested.
Stout as they may be-partly due to the aluminum reflector and glass lens combination-while adjusting these lights, we noticed a goofy offset rectangle pattern on the low beam. We set the brighter part of the rectangle at our nominal 40-inch measurement for our lifted TJ and ran them.
After we dialed them in and noted the odd bright rectangles in the upper-right corner of the pattern, there were really no other quirks to mention. The low beam isn't nearly seven lanes wide, it's more like four lanes or so, which was kind of a bummer because we liked the wider coverage of some of the other lights.
High beam is where these lights really shine. With the narrower pattern, a lot of light is put down the road, and these lights end up lighting things up at a great distance. Also, the transition between low and high beams has an adequate amount of overlap, so while the highs shine far down the road, you can still see what's right in front of the Jeep just fine.
IPF headlamp inserts
Part number: 920These are the only lights we tested that don't include the bulbs in the price. We tested them with some of the normal H4 bulbs from some of the other kits, but also ordered a set of the IPF X51 Fatboys for the high-end IPF setup (see "Look at Those Bulbs!" sidebar).
Pattern: 8 (high beam), 7 (low beam)
Light output: 7
Ease of installation: 9
Installation notes: The installation of the actual headlight housings went off without a hitch. Just like changing a stock headlight, any monkey could do this.
However, the part where our ham-fistedness came into play was loading the bulbs into the housings. Let's just say if it wasn't for computers, this author would be out of a job. Apparently, some of us lack the hand-eye coordination to install bulbs and not paw the glass, leaving oil on the glass and possibly causing premature failure.
DOT compliance: Neither the IPF housing nor the Fatboy bulbs are stamped with DOT or SAE markings. They're not DOT.
Testing notes: There's a remarkable seal on the back of the light that should keep moisture out quite well. It fits tightly to the glass and the base of the bulb. With stock-wattage bulbs, they were almost indistinguishable from the stock lights, save for the horizontal cutoff.
The high beam was decent, but there were two areas left to be desired. It kicked out light in the pattern of Saturn. Picture the planet with its ring, or rings, from the side. The planet is the conical-shaped beam of light. The ring is the horizontal beam of light we got right at the horizon. What we didn't like was that immediately under the ring was dark, with almost no light output to that area, sometimes leaving the edge and shoulder of the road in the dark.
We liked the low-beam pattern on these lights. It shined just as deep as the Hellas did, but with 80 watts, we would've expected better distance than we got out of them. We took the liberty of beating up on these lights more than the others. In the past, it has been our experience that the higher wattage the bulb, the more susceptible it is to burnout caused by vibrations. We weren't able to kill the Fatboys in the week we had them in the Jeep.