I got the silverstar 9003 installed and I'm not all that impressed. It's whiter than the stock, buy only tad bit brighter thans the oems. I think it's like 4k or so in brightness.

 

Read up on 4crawler's wiring harness. You may not be getting enough volts to power those superwhites.

 

I had my silverstars in my old runner and my overall impression is that they are garbage. I know many may disagree with me. My beef was that on a dark night they were good, but throw some rain or snow and the light just washed out, and thats when you really need light. On my 99 i just have normal headlights and i prefer them hands down.

 

I've got 4crawler's wiring harness and 90/130 watt bulbs. Let's just say is bright.

 

I bought some 9,000 watt bulbs off ebay. White as fudge! look very close to bimmer style. I only paid about $10 and they've lasted about 1 year. Before that though I had some that I liked more. When you looked at the headlight it looked yellow/purple but the light was blue.

 

I'm assuming that you mean 9000K not watts.

While they look bright, that's only because of the white look. The only way to really increase headlight performance is to either get a higher wattage bulb, get the phillips vision plus bulbs, or go HID.

 

yea theyre 9000K, even though they are cheapies they did increase my lighting distance. im sure theyre not on par w/ hids though.

 

I read all about the 4crawler light harness. How would I know if it'll help? What if I drop $50 and does nothing?

 

Fuzion that's the color temperature, as he said.
The only way Korean/Taiwanese 9000K blue painted bulbs would increase the distance is if the previous bulbs were so old they bearly lit up. I will bet money, nearly any sub $10 clear bulb at an autoparts store (Especially a generic Sylvania) would kill the cheap blue "9000K" bulbs you see civics rolling.



Anyways, It's best to simply swap to something else. Silverstars... Are whiter, so they look brighter, but they're actually not any brighter.


The best option IMHO regardless of the vehicle are:
1) HID + projectors
2) Swap to HIR
3) Mod in brighter silverstar bulbs
4) Rewire, Refuse & re-relay very high wattage bulbs (Legit ones, most are no brighter, nor do they draw more current)
5) Add more lights

Interesting, tho 9005 & 9006 bulbs(Common sizes for cars)



9006 Low beams in low beam housing:



9005 High beams in high beam housing:

Quote:

The Sylvania 9005 “SilverStar” highbeam bulb is advertised as making “whiter and 20% brighter” light, and this is supposed to improve the driver’s ability to use the light. I can’t comment on that claim, although the bulb does have a blue coating on the quartz envelope. What is obvious in comparing the “SilverStar” to the standard Sylvania high-beam bulb is that the SilverStar makes less light than a standard bulb. The difference at the brightest point in the beam is 77 foot-candles from the SilverStar, and 109 footcandles from the normal high-beam bulb. This equates to ~23% less light. The pattern is basically maintained with perhaps a bit more light going towards the left side. The loss of light is fairly uniform across the entire pattern compared to the standard clear halogen bulb. I didn’t try these on the road, so I have no comment on how well they work.

Those HIR's just owned, hardcore. Look at that 9011 HIR, daaaaaaaamn!!!

On the flip side:
Life @ 14.4v:
9011 greater than 235 hours
9012 1000 hours.
May seem bad & we all know the lucky few can charge @ 14.4 volts, but most of these cars will charge @ 13.2v, so the life will probably be longer than 255hours. And the 9011 bulb was only drawing 12.6V @ 5.1 amps, which equates to 64.2 watts.


Eh, who knows. That's longer than the published lifepsans of PIAA Extreme's & Silver Stars. There are pleanty of us that have run either of those bulbs for years, and others that only get so many months out of them - go figure.




In conclusion, without going HID's, modding HIR's to fit owns everything short of adding lights.

 

as much as i hate to admit it, i went through PIAA superwhites and sylvania blue-somethings and this was my experience too. not so much w/ the sylvanias, but defintely the superwhites were not that great in the fog or wet stuff.

now i just buy the regular sylvanias that you find at any autoparts stores. they work well in all conditions.

bob

 

I've been through 2 pairs of silverstars with and without rogers harness. I gave up on silverstars recently after the 2nd passenger side SS blew....so I went back to the normal Sylvania bulb....with the improved harness and you know what?

I cant see a difference from behind the wheel. The drivers side is still a SS and the passenger side is a Sylvania bulb and while the SS looks 'whiter' when I compare the bulbs head on the net effect on the pavement (when viewed from the drivers seat) is the same darn thing. I have spent way way too much on SS bulbs - they are white and bright but they do not last, even with the improved wiring harness.

My advice is 1) Get the harness, this works well. 2) run the Sylvania 'extra' bulbs in the purple packaging for about $9 bucks a bulb. From the drivers seat I doubt you can see a difference but after 6+ months I think your wallet will

 

My silverstars are still going after 15 months but I agree they don't work that great on wet nights so as soon as these go out I think I'll go back to a standard bulb and paint my fog reflectors yellow so they actually can be functional.

 

The only real improvement in headlight output that I've found was converting my old '85 and '90 to Hella H-4s.. now they put out some light.. had a 55w low beam and a high that would melt snow... flashing the highs would blow a fuse..

Don't work on the '96.... Gonna be selling the H-4s when I get off of my butt..

 

Romad, my thought from the different posts were the 4crawler harness will provide the proper voltage to the higher capacity halogens so life is longer on these halogens. Are you saying that even with the harness, you still blew out a SS? Could it be that you already had the SS prior to the harness and damage was already done? I just ordered the harness b/c HID's are too expensive and would rather work w/ what I already have.

BTW, I don't have SS but Nokya's and they have been doing fine for 6 months.

 

I am a fan of the Phillips Vison Plus.

 

Get the 4crawler harness. I put the harness on my 95 a few months ago, man what a difference. Then just tonight, i put the harness on my 85 with new silverstars. cars dont like me following them they are very bright and wonderful

 

I still don't see the SS's not lasting long. Mine have to be 2+ years old already, and I work nights.

I don't have DRL's anymore, so that may be a factor as well.