Help, want light upgrade, including driving lights

I want to improve the headlights on my 96. What would be an effective, yet inexpensive way to start. Slyvania Silverstars? Anyone know of a cheap way to improve the wiring set up, as I have heard that will improve light output. Also, what are some attractive driving lights that work well for about $70-100. I am looking for the small rectangular driving lights, I guess about 4"x6". Any input greatly appreciated.

get some silverstars, we have them buy one get one 1/2 off at advance. don't know if it's the same across the nation though.

Searching would have been good for this. ON the other hand I love the Silverstars for a stock wattage light. A wireing harness upgrade will greatly increase there output ( and decreese there life too unfortunely). A lot of people love the Hella 500's, but I prefer IPF 968's for a less costly light (although they are about 120$ compaired to the Hella's 80$s). They can be had in a rectangle like you want, and can run a 100w bulb as an upgraid. I just wasn't impressed with the 500's build quality, or beam patteren.

Wow, they do look nice. Thanks guys, keep em coming!

One of the best things you can do to upgrade your lights (any lights!) is to "shorten" the power path.

OEM power path - battery/alt - wiring - C101 - wiring - switch - wiring - C101 - wiring - lights.

Shortened power path - battery/alt - wiring - relay - wiring - bulb.

How do you shorten the power path? Easy - make a relay harness, mount the relays and fuzes near the battery, and use the power from the OEMR harness to "trigger" the relays.

Also, reports from the field say that upgrading the mains helps to make the lights brighter - but that's not me (I noticed a lot of things when I upgraded my mains - mainly smoother running due to a cleaner set of grounds.)

Check with Grizzley for ideas - he said that upgrading the mains made the lights brighter, and we're working on a homebrew headlamp harness (unless he's not in a hurry, in which case I'll come up with a PnP headlamp harness for sale first. Check my website for details...)

5-90

scoobyxj said:

A wireing harness upgrade will greatly increase there output...

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Maybe. Or maybe not. Best to check the voltage at the headlight before you ASS-U-ME that a wiring harness will make a difference. On my '01 I am getting 13.1 volts at the headlight with the engine idling. A wiring harness would be a waste of time, money, and effort for me.

dmillion said:

Maybe. Or maybe not. Best to check the voltage at the headlight before you ASS-U-ME that a wiring harness will make a difference. On my '01 I am getting 13.1 volts at the headlight with the engine idling. A wiring harness would be a waste of time, money, and effort for me.

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Untill you run a 100w bulb.

On my '98, I recently lost all high beams. I finally did some investigating and found a burned contact in C101 for the combined high beams! I cut the wires on either side of the big block connector and put in a separate bullet type connector. I got High Beams back, but really think a harness would be the thing to do now! I've looked all over for commercially available harnesses and see that most of them have three relays, but I haven't found any wiring diagrams to show how the circuit is modified. Any help? On my '98, there is a separate wire for low beams and high beams going to the junction block/fuse panel in the passengers side kick panel where both wires split to fuses and then feed a separate wire for each bulb...four fuses and four wires. How do the commercially available H4 harnesses connect to this arrangement? Do they use ONE high beam circuit to trigger ONE relay which then routes battery voltage to BOTH high beams? Do they use ONE high beam circuit to trigger TWO relays that then feed each high beam bulb? Do they use each high beam circuit to trigger a relay to feed battery voltage to their respective high beam bulb? And what about low beams. Thanks for any inf. Jeff

Slyvania Silverstars are a great upgrade. I have then in my 2000 XJ and they work great. Better thans those stock Wagners. Soon I will put them in my fog lamps too.
Alex

I replaced my head lights with Bosh H4 headlights and Hella H4 bulbs and its about twice the light than the standard sealed beam H4.

I recently put silverstars in my 94 XJ and it was a vast improvement. Inexpensive upgrade.

DO NOT BUY SYLVANIA SILVERSTARS!
Can't say it enough. Sylvania Silverstar bulbs are TINTED BLUE. Tint decreases light output, mmmkay? Of course, they give the "HID look" that all the ricer kiddies are after these days.

If you want more light without gimmicky blue tint, get "high efficiency" +30/+50 bulbs like Philips VisionPlus, Sylvania XtraVision, or GE NightHawk. These bulbs have more output than standard bulbs, and more importantly, NO TINT.

Personally, I have the IPF H4 lenses and Sylvania XtraVision bulbs, with a custom heavy-gauge wiring harness. Getting headlamps that accept H4 bulbs gives you many more upgrade options than the sealed-beam units.

My recommendation:
1) Hella, Cibie, or IPF H4 headlamp units
2) Wiring harness + relays
3) Philips VisionPlus or GE Nighthawk bulbs
4) High-quality (Hella, Cibie, etc.) driving lamps mounted on bumper or roof rack
5) High-quality fog lamps mounted on or under bumper

I personally disagree with the above comment.
Silverstar bulbs didn't seem to have any tint to them wen I installed them on the GF's Camry.
The "cool blue" lights yes.
Checking the Osram Sylvania page shows that standard halogens and the silverstars are rated at the same Lumen rating. AFAIK the only difference between Silverstars and regular halogens are the color temp.
In my personal opinon they did increase the "useable" amount of the light is much more with the silverstar bulbs. It's much less yellow, and we all know that as a light gets toward the yellow spectrum much more of the useable Lumens are lost to the near IR spectrum, useless for lighting. It's the same reason that an LED flashlight can have much more useable light with a dead battery, because they don't color shift into the IR spectrum.

here is a link for headlight wiring: http://www.rallylights.com/useful_info/headlamp_wiring.htm

I put Hella's conversion lights on my xj with 85/100 watt bulbs in them, doesnt seem to offend oncoming traffic, and I can see at night, and no-one has ever said anything about them when inspection time came around

I haven't notice any blue tint on the Silverstars I recently installed. I don't drive it a lot at night but next time I do I'll really pay attention to the lights. :wierd:

iBran said:

Tint decreases light output, mmmkay? Of course, they give the "HID look" that all the ricer kiddies are after these days.

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While I agree with you on the tint, I'm not sure that you're talking about Silverstars but rather the Cool Blue line. I've run Silverstars exclusively in all my vehicles over about the last four years (sealed-beams and halogens) and have *never* had the HID-look retina-burner effect from them.

dmillion said:

Maybe. Or maybe not. Best to check the voltage at the headlight before you ASS-U-ME that a wiring harness will make a difference. On my '01 I am getting 13.1 volts at the headlight with the engine idling. A wiring harness would be a waste of time, money, and effort for me.

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I bet if you check that with the bulb plugged in your not getting 13.1 volts you think your getting. See when you check it with no current draw (bulb unplugged) the wire carries enough current to provide a decent voltage. When you increase the current draw (plugging in a bulb) the voltage drops. The headlight wiring on XJ's is under guaged for the distance it travels. On you're 01 the factory wiring is 14AWG from the PDC under the hood to the head light switch then 16AWG over to the fuse block, then 20AWG to a connector somewhere on the lefhand side of the engine bay, then 18AWG to the headlight plugs.

GOJEEPS headlight wiring upgraid

delete

casm said:

While I agree with you on the tint, I'm not sure that you're talking about Silverstars but rather the Cool Blue line. I've run Silverstars exclusively in all my vehicles over about the last four years (sealed-beams and halogens) and have *never* had the HID-look retina-burner effect from them.

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Looks blue to me!

The pic above, taken from the Sylvania website, shows that the Silverstar H4 bulbs put out 910 lumens (low beams). A standard H4 bulb is supposed to put out 1000 lumens, and a +30 "high efficiency" bulb (XtraVision, VisionPlus, Nighthawk etc.) is 1075 lumens!

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/bulb_types/bulb_types.html

Last time I checked, GE Nighthawk bulbs cost about $25 for a set of 2, and Silverstars were $40. Your choice; more light, or fancy packaging?

I believe the above posters were referring to replacing their sealed halogen headlamps with silverstar sealed bulbs. I did a quick search and in this first web site it shows them to be $20 each AND says they have some sort of blue coating. Jeff

http://www.autobarn.net/silstarhalse.html