What's the best and safest (i.e. no heat or fire hazard) way to brighten up the fog lights and headlights on the FD....they seem awfully dim by today's standards....

 

Better bulbs. Higher wattage bulbs. FIRE!

 

pop some superwhite xenon bulbs in those badboys,

you can find em ALL OVER ebay

more like, you cant NOT find them on ebay, heh
Dont know how tough the installation is on FD's though,
with those flipups and all.

 

I've had 80/80W PIAA Superwhites for a year, and I've have not had to reach for a fire extinguisher, hehe.

It's true, though, that if you go with higher wattage, you increase teh chance of wires melting. The stock harness is pretty pathetic, but basically all you have to do is wire the lights to teh battery using heavy gauge wire, then use the stcok harness to trigger a relay to turn on your lights.

A couple people on the internet sells premade HD harnesses, though I have no experience with thier work.

The true culprit to the lousy lighting though is the lamp assembly. THe refector/lense of the OEM just plain sucks. My Civic with regular 55w bulbs has better light output and dispersion (beam pattern) then my 7 with hi-wattage bulbs.

 

Oh, and I've experimented with many types of cheapo bulbs. The only bulb I can recommend is PIAA Superwhites 80W.

Even PIAAs Super Plasma bite (now that was a $90 waste!).

 

Personally, I'm not willing to spend more the $30 on light bulbs, so I got a set of hyper industries hyper white bulbs from ebay for about $25. They don't really light the road any better, but the light coming out looks white instead of that nasty yellow color. I'll save the rest of my money for a sleek headlight kit and HID conversion.

 

Finally somebody agrees with me! The stock reflectors are absolute garbage. I put some 80w PIAA's in the headlight assembly and it improved it just a tiny bit. I had that same wattage bulb (PIAA also) in my Integra and that car's light projection was probably 30% brighter and sharper.

I detest the stock lamp assembly and I cannot wait until I can rip them out and replace them with a proper non-pop up variety.

 

OK so I'm not going crazy....these lights are as dim as i think they are.....I wondered if somehow the electrical system wasn't putting out the right amount of wattage...........anyway thanks for the tips..........where can i find more info on the HID kits.........I guess you can get them as pop ups or w/o pop ups.........i kinda like the look w/ the lights still hidden unless in use.......any more sources of info on this stuff...........

thanks

dave

 

Hey dclin and zoomspeed...........did you guys just replace the bulbs w/ the superwhites or did you do any rewiring????

 

Yup, nothing has burst into falmes yet.

 

I like living dangerously. Mine are just plugged in. Too lazy to look into it, as that I will do a headlamp conversion a little latter.

 

you can get a clear housing and an HID kit, it looks great.

 

i intend to simple get a great set of HID fogs and use those! The stock flip up looks like ****. The non flip ups have the worst fukin light patern i have ever seen!

I just want some nice 55watt city lights and a good set of HID fogs!

 

I went thru that - I had HID drving lights, and the problem is that its so low when mounted in the 'bumper' mouth.

You either aim it up a little bit and get great light output on the road ahead of you - and **** off enough cops that they pull you over for it 2 times (warnings, thank god).

Or you aim it down and basically lose most of the benefits if having HID.

So, I'm skipping any sort of auxilary (sp) lights, and just do a HID conversion to a Knightsport lamp kit - and cross my fingers... :p

 

Any particular sites where I can find HID kits for the FD..........I kinda like the idea of replacing the fogs w/ a HID kit.........I like the look of the stock lights when there not in the up position and would like to maintain that.........don't think i can get into the clear housing look just yet for the main lights..........

thanks for the comments...........

 

You can find HID kits off of www.ebaymotors.com for $350-$450. Just type in HID kit in the search engine and plenty should pop up.

While we're on this lighting topic, has anyone tried the catz zeta system?

 

JCWhitney 80/100 watt H4 bulbs. They are at least 15-25% better than the stock 55/60 watt bulbs. I've been running them for a year now and no problems yet. I don't do a whole lot of nightime driving though.

 

Just a note,
I had superwhite bulbs in my civic(before i got an fd)
and they really DID improve visiblity, quite a bit,
i mean, they had the white/lightbluegreen look and all,
but moreso they lit the road much much much better.

was sorta like driving with your highbeams on all the time,
without blinding the F%ck out of the guy in fronta you, hehe.

 

For everyone that's been considering all the different types of bulbs, may I recommend taking a look at this:
http://www.overboost.com/story.asp?id=102

The DSM guys have been using it for a year or 2, but I think it's relevant here.

 

HID4LESS.com


true xenon bulb kits. about 600-800 dollars