[s-cars] Re: HEADLIGHT UPGRADE

[CyberPoet]

Dan,

    What you are missing is the temperature issue (above and beyond it
drawing the same power). Any
given filliment can be made to run brighter by improving it's burn
characteristics. Up the temp of the burn
on any specific type of bulb (by either increasing power or decreasing
filiment width), generally up the light output,
but simultaneously increase the heat that is radiated from the quartz
surface of the bulb as infrared heat.
Increasing the ambient bulb casement temperature leads to a
higher-than-designed-for temperature in the headlight housing, which
over time causes the plastic components to fail by either becoming
fragile (heat range cycling) or melting (too high
an absolute temp). Additionally, since the reflector material sits on a
plasticized backing in your car, that plastic
may well also give up it's surface cohesion, resulting in loss of
reflective materials. Increasing the power to the
bulb (using a higher-draw bulb) adds to all the previous problems by
increasing the heat load on the supply wires and
relays, which in worst-case scenarios can lead to fire (gee, imagine
that next time you're driving through the country
on a deserted road at night).

Everyone here pretty much gave you the best advice on what to do with
the stock headlight system -- replace it with
the Euro lens or the Euro-spec headlight assemblies. The only
additional suggestion they missed I will take straight out of my own
rally experiences and add to their advice: add an additional set of
externally mounted driving lights (such as Hella 550's mounted below
the bumper line). Since these lights won't tie into the existing wiring
harness, you can buy as powerful a set as you can stand (and afford --
low cost Hella's can be had at $60 set for driving lights) -- and
simply add more light by a factor of 100% or more rather than trying to
upgrade your existing lights by a factor of 10% - 35%.

Best Wishes,
=-= Marc Glasgow

Dan said:

> I am considering just replacing my stock
> bulbs with Xenon bulbs, which are available at
> http://www.eurolights.com/.