BRIGHT headlights!

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yoter100

yoter100

10 Year 15 Year
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Sep 19, 2007
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Location
Napa Valley, CA
I want some BRIGHT headlights. I thought I could get this by getting some PIAA's but it wasn't as bright as I would have hoped. What does everyone have or recommend for bright headlights?

Keeping stock headlights is ideal.
 
HID projectors in your ARB bumper. Maybe more ideal for road driving than HID's in your headlamps since your headlamps are now ~5" higher than they were originally.
 
My VisionX Solstice (15-unit array) are pretty damn bright.
 
IF you're not satisfied just with your low beams, then you can try HIR bulbs or maybe try your luck with quality hid conversion kits. If those don't work as desired then I would try either aux. fog or hid assist lights like Phillips' Xenarc's.

But if you're unhappy with your highbeam performance.... OK, I see that you have some IPF's...

G'luck!!
 
I purchased after market head-lights that have the projectors in them after someone took a baseball bat to both my headlights and one of my turn signals.... wish I had a good alarm... I purchased the same headlights slee has on his blueberry SAS... I miss the glass of the oem but they make the haze removing kits now a days for weathered plastic lenses.... Also, I upgraded my fogs, low-beams and high-beams all to 8,000k HID's. They are super bright. I got pulled my a trooper and he did some white sheet of paper test to the head light and he said "they're legal you can go sorry for the inconvenience" he explained quick if the white piece of paper appeared blue I would have gotten an expensive ticket.

* Pig being nice, tried to ticket me for my turn signals being white LED's but he let me off with a warning and recommend I get orange ASAP. I just thought they looked sweeet on my white cruiser!
 
Word on the street is that change is coming. May be good a time to save your money and see what the market brings.

sleeoffroad said:
Sorry, no cutouts at this time. There are some great new LED technology coming down the pipe that will change lights on bumpers a lot.
Click to expand...
 
NMuzj100 said:
Word on the street is that change is coming. May be good a time to save your money and see what the market brings.
Click to expand...

we've had change coming since Jan 20th and I'm STILL waiting.

I like my old school 100w halogen driving lights, they melt the snow right off them while my HIDs dont produce enough heat to melt the ice. With that said, I've been planning out some LED/HID lighting "up top".
 
Well I was running all 55w ballast and they got much hotter then the 35w but they would flicker when I ran all the lights at once (I bet those would melt the ice but I wouldn't know I'm a Floridian who visits Colorado in the snow for a few weeks a year)... I spent hours trying to figure it out then I swapped all 6 ballasts out for the 35w ballasts and it stopped the flicker problem. They are way brighter then my previous stock halogens. I have 6 external HID offroad lights with the ballasts built in all 8000k HID (whitish/blue) aka SEXY. I have a total of 12 HID ballasts on my cruiser all running 8000k. People ask why and I explain I'm afraid of the dark and vampires....

Definitely upgrading every single bulb on the interior of my Cruiser to LED's made it much brighter..... the ladies tell me it's like going to the Gyno.... makes them fell uncomfortable how bright the interior lights are!
 
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You may as well do this correctly the first time around. These guys will graft a projector in your housing. From what I have read the Honda S2000, and Acura TSX projector is best. It would also be interesting if the LS430 projector would fit.

Products & Services | LightWerkz.net
 
The LS430 has freakin awesome projectors. If I had it my way though, I'd put 07 911 bi-xenons in mine, those are even better!
 
I just put HIR high and low bulbs in my 4Runner, wow those are bright! 1700 Lumens to 2530 is huge. I paid $28.50 each for the HIR2 (9012) low-beams at a John Deere dealer, and about the same for the HIR1 (9011) high-beams from Candlepower. It's a lot simpler than doing an HID conversion, and plenty of light.

Daniel Stern, quoted from a 4R site:
Your high beams can also be significantly upgraded if you will Replace the existing 9005 bulbs with 9011. The new bulbs are not some tinted or
overwattage version of 9005, but rather employ a relatively new technology called HIR, Halogen Infrared Reflection. The mechanical dimensions of the bulb are all virtually identical to the 9005, but the bulb glass is spherical instead of tubular, with the sphere centered around the filament. There is a "Durable IR Reflective" coating on the spherical
glass. Infrared = heat, so the coating causes heat to be reflected back to the filament at the center of the sphere. This causes the filament to
become much hotter (producing more light) than it can by passing
electricity through it, *without* the shorter life or greater heat
production that comes with overwattage bulbs (to say nothing of
overwattage bulbs' incompatibility with stock wiring.)

Here's the comparison:

stock: 9005, 12.8V, 65W, 1700 lumens, 320 hours
compare: 9005+50, 12.8V, 55W, 1830 lumens, 175 hours
new: HIR1, 12.8V, 65W, 2530 lumens, 320 hours

These bulbs are costly as bulbs go - $23.95/ea - but their cost is worth
considering in context: Any number of companies will charge you more than this for a tarted-up 9005 with blue colored glass (PIAA and Sylvania
Silverstar come to mind) that doesn't produce more light and has a very
short lifespan.

The HIR bulbs have a double-wide top ear on the plastic bulb base, this is to comply with the law requiring different bulbs to have different bases. The extra-wide plastic top ear is easily trimmed or filed to make the bulb fit your headlamp's bulb receptacle. Once that's done, they go directly into the headlamp, and the existing sockets snap on. Please see
HIR bulb base modification for details.

The direct order link for these bulbs is
9011 (HIR1)
Click to expand...
 
Good to know. I just ordered some last night. I've been driving over one of the cascade mountain passes almost daily and need the light output. I tried a HID conversion and the light was scattered because of the OEM housing. Light output was awful in dark rainy conditions, blizzard conditions illuminated the snow coming at the windshield, yada yada. I hope these help me out.


scottm said:
I just put HIR high and low bulbs in my 4Runner, wow those are bright! 1700 Lumens to 2530 is huge. I paid $28.50 each for the HIR2 (9012) low-beams at a John Deere dealer, and about the same for the HIR1 (9011) high-beams from Candlepower. It's a lot simpler than doing an HID conversion, and plenty of light.

Daniel Stern, quoted from a 4R site:
Click to expand...
 
Scott, In your daily driving, did you get more bang from the low beams? or do you suggest switching both? Also, what's the color tone of the HIRs?
 
Both the lows and highs are very bright, I suppose the lows get the most time so they might be the priority, they really light up signs and reflectors and deer eyes. But when the brights come on, wow, definitely worth the time and $. I like a good cutoff on my lows, and with the stock bulbs I didn't see a sharp cutoff. But with the new bulbs, the cutoff seems sharp, possibly a trick of perception, but it sure is a lot better. This is an '03 4R. I put HIR lows in my 80 and don't remember seeing nearly this improvement, I think the newer reflectors take much better advantage of these bulbs. My wife isn't interested in new bulbs for the 100, I may sneak them in when the budget allows. I spend a lot of time on the highway in the 4R, she rarely leaves town.

My motivation is driving in snow and avoiding deer (I've hit five). I'll probably hit a blizzard on the way to Chicago soon enough, my route is blizzard conditions fairly often in the winter. Aux lights can be nice, but nobody turns off their headlights on the highway in a blizzard, so better headlights are much more important than quality aux lights to me. DOT requires headlight to illuminate overhead signs, which is terrible in snow, not much you can do about that. I used to have German spec headlights on my Audi, much better in snow.

The color of HIR is 3600k, slightly whiter than stock halogens at 3250k. I don't like the blue lights, either cosmetically or from a practical standpoint. I'm not a boy-racer, and I used to develop optical-thin-films. Blue is definitely not better optically in low-vis or in spotting deer, and in the dark I'd rather look like a minivan to a cop than a lowered Civic.
 
i just thought i'd post a couple of links for you.
Piranha Offroad have been dealing with this and a lot of other stuff for years. They offer a few products including a wiring loom upgrade. That link also has other options but check them out as i replaced my aux battery and bought my yellow Ultima battery and Solar panel battery charger from them.

lost my train of thought (my mind?) and the second link...i'll post again if i can remember it!
peter
 
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scottm said:
I just put HIR high and low bulbs in my 4Runner, wow those are bright! 1700 Lumens to 2530 is huge. I paid $28.50 each for the HIR2 (9012) low-beams at a John Deere dealer, and about the same for the HIR1 (9011) high-beams from Candlepower. It's a lot simpler than doing an HID conversion, and plenty of light.

Daniel Stern, quoted from a 4R site:
Click to expand...

Hmmm.... I like the idea of this. So, you just change out the bulbs only?

And I guess my dumb question.... You did this mod in you 4Runner...Is it the same bulb swap for the 100? Mine is a 2000.
 
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