H4 Headlight bulbs

[AJz]

This has sort of been covered before but im curious as to currently what people use?

Im using a set of Takata H4 5250k bulbs (silvery blue tinge)

they look the part from the front, but dont quite light up the area the stock ones used to, partly because the blue filter in them.....and of course the high temp as i think stock are round the 3000ish K mark. (sorry phil)

Anybody found a really good set of just plain white bulbs? i know people in US and UK recommend Raybrig and Silverstars.

I know replacing the casings with diamond cut ones will help further but im looking for the best replacement to go in standard semi-sealed h4 casings.

So yea, anybody found a good set of lights that they swear by???

[no_8wire]

Well I replaced my lights with the diamond lights+ replaced the bulbs with XENON SUPER WHITE off trademme...seem to do the job!

[AJz]

what rating are the lights, like mine are 5250k, some dont mention tho.

[Mr Revhead]

i just went and got some xenon bulbs by hella from the local auto sparky shop.

[JT]

Assuming you have 60/55W's, just get some standard 100/90Ws.

Much better than those Artic blues or other hyped up crap for the same price

[AJz]

Assuming you have 60/55W's, just get some standard 100/90Ws.

Much better than those Artic blues or other hyped up crap for the same price

yea, the stock ones that came with my car are just "narva" bulbs. What sort of things happen when putting 100/90's in stock casings, do you need uprated wiring harnesses? different casings. Fill me in peeps

[Mr Revhead]

you cant run them in plastic lenses... thats why i got the xenon, brighter lights for no extra heat.

[ROBODISCO_20v]

I have 100/90W blue bulbs in my Levin, similar to the action below. I do long night driving trips like AK to Whangarei & haven't had a problem. Hella do similar ones but they're only 60/55W. You need the extra grunt to make up for the blue coating.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motor ... 398432.htm

[MasCam]

If you want to remain legal check this out.

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/vehicles/get-your-lights-right.html

I tried the takata lamps and used a light meter to measure them against a standard lamp (I put one in and did back to back tests) the results...

The takata 5250K lamp output a massive 39% of the light of a normal lamp...
On road testing gave the same impression. I parked down the road from a lot of roadsigns and disconnected one lamp then the other and they definetly had a lot less range.

That being said the colour was a perfect match for my HID low beams which looked very good from the front of the car but probably wouldn't impress the cow you are about to hit cos you can't see it.

After this I did a lot of checking and finally decided that the Hella ultra's were the go.

They claim up to 50% more light but if you reasearch a bit then you will find that this is only for low beam. On high beam they only claim about 20%. The light meter says 23% better on my car (they are HB3's only high beam) but this seems better than that on the road and I put that down to the much tighter wound filament that gives a better focus for the majority of the light, also the colour is much better on the road than the standard lamps but nowhere near the blue colour of the HID's

If you read the link above you will find that HID conversions are illegal in this coutry which sucks. For me the best compromise was the Hella ultra's but if you were goiing for the look I would say the hella cool blue or blue vision, as they are changing the name to, would probably be your best bet even though hella only claims SIMILAR light output to standard lamps, if it were the same or better don't you think that they would say so?

Higher wattages are Illegal acording to the document but I doubt that you would get caught. I considered doing a stealth HID upgrade but if you do get caught out there goes a cool grand which is just a bit much of a risk.

Through general obsevation the narva version of the various lamps don't seem to be as good as the hella ones. I have no data to back it up but I tried both and stuck with the hella, I know several others who have done the same.

Since you are in dunedin I would reckomend going to TWL (opposite corner to the new bond&bond on the one way) As they had by far the best prices that I found, about half some other places.

Chris

[Stealer Of Souls]

I tried Narva artic blues once... Never again. For the type/style of bulb the Hella Cool Blues are better. I stick with them.

You can get HID conversions... But you have to replace the whole headlight unit with a proper HID setup... Can you say $1500 +++++ per side...

[sergei]

Don't use painted light bulbs.
Use clear ones with better technology in them (xenon whatever).
Blue light is actually very bad for illumination, it creates lots of glare, decreases eye responce to change in brightness (blinded by oncoming traffic).
Even the blue lights might register brighter (becuase they use "ovverdriven" filaments in them), that does not mean they illuminate better.
Best light for illumination is rich in yelllows.
Becuase of nature of human eye, yellow component of the unfiltered light bulb is actually very good for illumination as eye adapts faster to changes in lightness, also reduce glare due to different cells are used to see the yellow component etc, our suns light is very rich in yellows and due to evolution we see best in that sort of light.

[ROBODISCO_20v]

Yellow light suck for driving. White is the best. Why do you think all the high end cars like merc, bmw & lexus use them? Not just coz they look cool.

I've tryd the narva artic blues as well in my 101 trueno & yes never again! I also tryed their plus 50 & they where good.
As for the 100/90W being illegal I've never failed a WOF with them in. Only the wankers a VTNZ would fail you on something like that.

[Pelo]

I use Narva Arctic Blues with new semi sealed units and upgraded wiring and relays, I like them and are far nicer to drive with than normal bulbs.
Haven't tried any other brands, Ring make some super blue ones that are like watching the road through cellophane :s

[sergei]

please define "white"?
In a sence white is not colour.
If you consider sun's light white - well it has lots of yellow in it.
I'm not saying pure yellow is good, but actually wide broad spectrum of colours, but having too much blue-violet is not good.
High end cars have blue hue lights, because it the best they can do with HID, why they use HID is a completely differen story.
Actually HID is the reason why there are blue colour incandescent lights, it is all in bling, rice, hype and marketing, blue colour lights are actually worse then OEM lights. And if you are going to argue that you see better with blue lights, please don't, but do some research on the subject and physiology of human eye.

[ROBODISCO_20v]

Yes that why most of the blue bulb out there market themselves as HID imitations.
There are also quite a few different ratings you can get to give you different shades of blue/white. I think mine are only about 4000K. The artic blues are quite a bit less & those 5200K would be to blue I'd say. The higher quality bulbs will also combine the blue tint with Xenon gas to give more light.
Guess at the end of the day it all comes down to personal taste & what your eyes likes. Personally I'd never have standard "yellow" bulbs in my car again. The 4000k are so much easier/softer on the eye

[barryogen]

Assuming you have 60/55W's, just get some standard 100/90Ws.

and watch the wires melt?
I know I did last time I tried this(95 Curren), not all cars have wiring thick enough to cope with supplying 100/90W bulbs.

[Alex B]

YOu could also possibly melt the lense, which would be rather costly id think.

[barryogen]

YOu could also possibly melt the lense, which would be rather costly id think.

nah, simple fix, just drill a hole through to add extra cooling...

[4ageman]

if you have trouble seeing on the open road with factory bulbs just get some driving lights. Its a pain in the ass driving a truck at night on the open road and some young fella comes towards me with wank blue headlights. way up in the cab the blue really blinds more then it does down in a car.

[AJz]

went and got a set of Hella Xenon ultras, man they are good, not wank blue like your trademe special lights (no offense to people who sell em)

And quite alot brighter compared to the stock. They are more of a crisp white light, cheers MasCam for the recommendation, TWL are good guys.