My suggestion: get or make a new headlight harness that runs your lights directly off the battery with a relay from your old headlight harness/switch, then upgrade your old sealed beams to H4 conversion housings (they swap right in place of your sealed beams but accept a standard H4 bulb) and get some H4 Sylvania Silverstar bulbs. I did this with my old XJ and it was freakin' awesome how much better the light was at night.
Check on eBay for the H4 conversion housings, usually you can get some for under 50 for the pair with some cheesy blue bulbs. Open the package on these "HID blah blah bullshit" bulbs, smash and throw the pieces away... they're just standard bulbs with blue tint and will suck worse than what you have now. Replace with Silverstars or some other higher wattage bulb.
Also, there's probably somebody on eBay making a plug-n-play upgraded harness for your rig too I would imagine.
And can save your switch. We run the 130 watt H4's, and they ate a switch before I put relays in. Nice and bright.what he said - swapping the harnesses to run right off the battery makes a huge difference itself.
Thank you for your inquiry, and please accept my apologies for any inconvenience the failure of these SilverStars may have caused you. Due to the performance of the SilverStar, it does have the shortest life of any of our product upgrades. The shorter life span is directly related to the performance nature of the lamps. The blue absorption coating on the glass contributes to the crisp white light emitted, but also traps heat inside the capsule, causing the filament to burn out more quickly, thus decreasing the life. As with most high performance products, there is a trade-off between the higher performance and the life hours, unfortunately. The SilverStar product works harder (not burns hotter, however) to give the whiter, brighter light and this impacts the life hours. The life expectancy of a SilverStar halogen light source is dependent on the driver's use of the lights, which vary by season, time of day and number of miles driven. We estimate the SilverStar halogen light! s to have a life span of up to one year under average driving conditions. The life of the SilverStar is further decreased if being used in a day-time running light application.
i have a 85 k5 and cant see worth crap at night. so i was wondering what are the brightest street legal headlights you guys know of?
thanks
edwin song
I like Silverstars, but hate the bulb life. Ive heard nothing but bad things about it, but ended up getting some for a 4Runner myself. They BOTH burnt out after only three months, no wheeling, just street driving. Ive gone through about three in my bike now too. I hope the Silverstar Ultra has a better life. Oh, and before anyone asks, yes, I know not to touch the bulb.
Heres an email response from them about it
~T.J.
That's what I just got for my tow rig. Hope they work out better than the silverstars.I have GE nighthawks. Bright like the silverstars, cheaper, and I now have 6 trouble free months on them in my DD.
Yup, you can get away with a lot of wattage with the H4's if you aim them right. I would say our 100 watt low beams are a fair bit easier on oncoming traffic than a typical stock 50 watter.I use hella 7" rounds in my cruiser with 110/60 but aim them down. They have that abrupt cutoff type line in the middle so if you aim them down no one gets bothered by them...till you turn on the brights
High beams OTOH... Uh, sorry about your retinas dude :haha:
Isn't there a WAC or RCW stating 55/65W? Just make sure you have them aimed properly and they're not blue, nobody will notice.