Installed 80w/100w front bulbs

[jeober]

I've installed high wattage 9005/6 bulbs, ordered from JC Whitney. These were about $12 each. I went with the clear glass bulbs, not any blue tinted - I just want maximum light on the road.

I used relays for each high / low beam with 14 awg wiring fused from B+ and I totally bypass the OEM lamp wiring to minimize voltage drops. I bought separate 9005/9006 male sockets from the local autoparts store. The relay coils are controlled by the original lamp connections on one side - I did destroy one pair of bulbs to salvage the female sockets so the new harness plugs together and I could easily restore to OE if necessary. The two unused original lamp connections were plugged with dielectric grease to minimize corrosion in the terminals.

Lighting is nice as expected - Low beams are bright, white, and with good cut-offs. High beams are powerful - 360 watts!

 

[Bobby]

:worthless

 

[jeober]

I want to also add that I first tried the 9005 bulb conversion to a 9006 low beam. This is easy to do with a Dremel and by adding a larger O-ring to the smaller 9005 for proper sealing. One can find instructions to do this on web. Theoretically, there is a 1000 to 1700 lumens increase, although with a bulb life reduction also.

I could see some brightness difference by comparing one side to the other but it wasn't what I expected so I went to the higher wattage approach plus adding relay to reduce voltage drop - fyi, measured 0.5 volt total drop from the battery when using a 65 watt bulb on the right side.

Bobby,
Apologize for lack of pictures. Are you interested in lighting comparison or the fabrication information?

 

[AlexJet]

PIctures pls. How is your lighting works?

 

[jeober]

Here is the schematic. Very basic...

 

[jeober]

And here is the harness I fabricated. Pic might be a bit large....

 

[<<<<]

Have you noticed exessive heat from the headlight if you touch it, cause those 80W will glow lot hoter than stock 51W.

 

[Koz]

I think you may have gone through a lot of trouble for nothing. If I'm not mistaken a couple members have used 80w bulbs with the stock wiring with no problems.

Koz

 

[jeober]

We'll have towatch the heat issue. I avoided the blue tint bulbs as I feel these retain more heat by filtering the light.

I did the harness to improve voltage to the lamps. A little voltage goes a long way with increasing lamp brightness and color.

And together with the 100 W highs I didn't want to get into a circuit breaker issue with overall lamp current.

 

[<<<<]

I've 80W fog bulbs and those get hot. I use them only in rain or fog, unlike most drivers that leave them on all the time. I'm not sure what all that extra heat may do, but sure as hell I don't want to find out.