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Silvar stars and cool blue headlights

ZPD

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Modesto Ca.
I have IPF's in my XJ right now. I was looking briefly at those Sylvania Silver star headlights and their Cool Blue headlights while in Autozone for my other ride. Are they any good? I know that they won't be as good as my IPF's but are they close?
 
I work at a lumber mill that is 30 miles out of town, so you can imagine I see a lot of deer,elk, possums, raccoons,skunks,porcupines, etc... A couple months ago I bought a little pos 94 Toyota Tercel for the commute. The first thing I did was put some silverstar headlights in it. They are the best upgrade I have done to a vehicle. The other day I drove my XJ to work for the hell of it, I couldn't see crap. If I wasn't going to sell my XJ soon I would have upgraded the headlights the next day.
 
ZPD said:
I have IPF's in my XJ right now. I was looking briefly at those Sylvania Silver star headlights and their Cool Blue headlights while in Autozone for my other ride. Are they any good? I know that they won't be as good as my IPF's but are they close?

Ya, I would like to know also, if the Silverstars are any good. I guess anything is better than my Wagners (stock) :)
 
I put the Silver Stars in my wife’s Suburban. I left one set of factory hi/low light in and replaced the other set just to see what it looked like. When I turned them on there was a drastic difference. The wife really likes them. With that said, I by passed the whole sealed beam thing and went straight to H4 style bulbs in my XJ. I’m using Eagle Eye glass housings and xenon 130/90 bulbs. Officially they are for “off road use only”, but they conveniently fit into the standard headlight housings. These things are bright; they put the Silver Stars to shame.
 
Wiley Coyote said:
I put the Silver Stars in my wife’s Suburban. I left one set of factory hi/low light in and replaced the other set just to see what it looked like. When I turned them on there was a drastic difference. The wife really likes them. With that said, I by passed the whole sealed beam thing and went straight to H4 style bulbs in my XJ. I’m using Eagle Eye glass housings and xenon 130/90 bulbs. Officially they are for “off road use only”, but they conveniently fit into the standard headlight housings. These things are bright; they put the Silver Stars to shame.

cool man, where ya get them and how much were they? Are they close to the Silver Star "whitness"? I never heard of Eagle Eyes, or Xenon. Are Xenons name brand? Hmmm 130/90... isn't it a bit high for factory wire harness?
 
xenon is a type of bulb. uses gas instead of a filament. lasts longer and much brighter.
 
Silverstars are worse then IPF's, but better then stock. They are much brighter then stock but have a fairly crappy beam pattern.

-Scott
 
I've got the Hella H4's and they are brighter than the silverstar cool blues. I do suggest upgrading to a little brighter bulb than stock though. May not be legal in all states, but if you do night driving, I think it is a good upgrade.
 
92jeeper said:
I've got the Hella H4's and they are brighter than the silverstar cool blues. I do suggest upgrading to a little brighter bulb than stock though. May not be legal in all states, but if you do night driving, I think it is a good upgrade.

I've been using the Hella H-4's 7-8 years or so (MN and CA), with the 90/130 bulb. They're great, really light up the road, you'll be AMASED w. the difference compared to stock. You'll scare all the little critters right off the road. Augment the H-4's with some decent driving light and you'll have a hell of a set-up. I also have a Jacobs wiring harness which is supposed to get more juice to the bulbs than the stock wiring, it also has some built-in relays, etc., etc.

With the sharpe horizontal cut-off pattern of the low beams (which angle down toward the driver's side to not offend oncoming traffic) you'll never attract the attention of law enforcement, just have to make sure you adjust them properly.

I think there's even a 100/150 out there, but these things get hotter the higher you go, would be very nice though.

The futures so bright, you'll have to wear shades! :cool:
 
Jacobs has a light wiring harness? for the bulbs right? Do you know what part number or is it included in the lighting kit? I do lots of driving at night, I work at 5am. :)
 
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Cool, Thanks for the response. For $20 each I just might get them and throw them in my car. Then no matter if I drive my Jeep or my car at night, I can have decent lighting.
 
dogtired said:
Jacobs has a light wiring harness? for the bulbs right? Do you know what part number or is it included in the lighting kit? I do lots of driving at night, I work at 5am. :)

I just checked Jacobs site and it's not listed, like I mentioned I did this years ago.

I am sure *somebody* out there is making one, do a search, I think someone posted this just a while back.

I'm not too sure about this blue lights and super-dooper whiter than white lights stuff either, just give me a good ol' fashion high powered halogen bulb any ol' day. I think the blue is just give the impression you have high-tech lighting, I really don't think a blue coating on the bulb could possibly make it produce more light, seems to me like it would make less.
 
NEWS FLASH........

This just in......

The Associated Press has learned that PIAA has just introduced a bulb so white that it is under attack by the NAACP........

Sorry :angel:
 
First off that last post was awesome. They'll b*tch about anything. But back to the original topic, I just put a set of Silverstars in and I like them so far. I have no experiance with the H-4 conversion but I can attest that the Silverstars are about 150% better than stock. Long term I'd like to upgrade to a set of HIDs but that's later, for now though I'll just get a set of KCs for when I need real brightness.
 
ZPD said:
I was looking briefly at those Sylvania Silver star. Are they any good?

I was over at Mike Rollins' house a couple of weekends ago. Together, (he did most of the work) we made up three wiring harnesses to upgrade the headlights in our rigs.

Mike's work was fantastic. He used terminal blocks mounted to the inner fender just below the hood prop. The hot side attached to the battery connection of the fuse block via a fuse and the ground went to the same bolt as the regular chassis ground. All connections were crimped, soldered and heat shrinked. The long wire runs were twisted and encased in wire loom that looks like Chinese finger torture netting.

The triggers were soldered to the old headlight connectors and new connectors were wired. The only available headlight connectors had 16 gauge pigtails so we had remove the brass connector from the plastic housing, uncrimp them, discard the pigtails so that we could reuse the connectors with 12 gauge wire.

Once everything was connected, we plugged in the relays, popped in the fuse and installed the headlights into the new connectors. The old connectors remained alongside. Should I ever need or want to pull the harness, all I have to cut is the two trigger wires, pull the harness out and plug the headlights back into the old harness.

It's such a clean install, you wouldn't believe...
Photos of harness wiring


Voltage at the connector jumped from 11.7 to 13.6 volts; a gain of almost two volts!

I bought Sylvania Silverstars online at <http://www.sylvania.com/auto/silverstar.htm>, but noticed that Pep Boys has them on sale this week.

The Silverstars, at 60/70 watts, are marginally brighter than a street legal H4, 55/60 lamp. However, with the new harness, I had a hard time discerning any difference between my lights' output and a Beemer's HID lights as we drove side-by-side down the freeway. There was no difference in the color temp, as both were glaringly white. The Beemer did have a more focused beam (beam... Beemer... I say, pay attenshun son!) but that's a function of the reflector.

I installed them last week and even without the new harness, the increase in light output and whiteness was dramatic. The Silverstars are a regular sealed beam headlight so the swap takes only five minutes. These are great headlights, even without the harness.

The low beams do seem to shed some light to the sides. I find that a benefit not a disadvantage. I think headlights that do that are called cornering lights while headlights that focus all the light straight in front are termed driving lights. Frankly, I like the compromise beam of the Silverstars.
 
Eljay's got the idea. I did the H-4's and I also went and got some 150watt daylighters to put on the arb. Now, you wanna talk about bright?!
 
I work at night a lot...the lights on my 2002 chevy work van stinked so bad in desperation I tried a set of silverstars...amazingly better...not really brighter...but you can see down the road a LOT farther....the next day I put a set in my XJ...I REALLY like 'em.
 
after reading this review (http://www.rockcrawler.com/techreports/sylvania_silverstar/index.asp) i ran out and got a set of sylvania silverstars for my xj the other night from advanced auto. they have a buy one get the other 1/2 off. plus a $6 rebate. so it's almost buy one get one free. they might not be as good as some of the higher $$ lights, but for ~$25 for the PAIR, you can't go wrong. either way, it's an upgrade from stock. (and my high-beam was blown on my OEM so they needed replacing anyways)
 
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Wiley Coyote said:
I put the Silver Stars in my wife’s Suburban. I left one set of factory hi/low light in and replaced the other set just to see what it looked like. When I turned them on there was a drastic difference. The wife really likes them. With that said, I by passed the whole sealed beam thing and went straight to H4 style bulbs in my XJ. I’m using Eagle Eye glass housings and xenon 130/90 bulbs. Officially they are for “off road use only”, but they conveniently fit into the standard headlight housings. These things are bright; they put the Silver Stars to shame.


I saw Eagle Eyes in JC Whitney for a fairly decent price. Were these lights glass and metal in construction? Don't want any plastic to be melting when I put them 100W H4 bulbs in! :laugh3:
Is the front of the lamp clear and can you see the reflector? I can't remember if they were off-road only or DOT-rated? How do you like them. If you are running 100W Xenon or Plasma bulbs are they near HID?
Inquiring minds want to know,
BLUTO :)
 
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