I think the first mod I'm doing to my tC will be true HID headlights or a clear front bra.

Anybody have opinions on the best HID system out there for the money. I've seen the McCulloch, Super HID and JDM systems, but I'm not sure what the consensus is on quality and reliability yet for the 9006 bulbs the tC uses? Thanks for any info.


I've searched the board on the HID topic and all the posts I came across are for the xA and xB's.

 

As far as quality kits... there is no such thing. If you want to do HID the right way retrofit a projector in. There is a thread in the photo booth of a retro fit in progress on an xB.

Otherwise you are paying a lot of money for something that is not giving you that much more light than a 9005 bulb (do the mod to put the high beam bulb in the low beam) and creating a lot more problems (glare, ect.)

All an HID kit will do is make the bad parts of your halogen lights a LOT worse:
-More glare = ____ed off on-coming traffic.
-More color = less light and more eye fatigue and strain for you.
-Same crappy spread of light.
-Intensified hot spots.

Not only that, but HID kits are notoriously unreliable (mccollough in particular).

However, if you are intent in downgrading your headlights to an HID kit stay away from McCollouch, anything that says "JDM" and any kit that uses a bulb other than phillips or osram. Don't go over 5000k (ideally 4100k) because light output falls off dramatically.

 

I was afraid you were going to say that. I'll probably stick with my stock lights then.
But what is the high beam bulb to low beam bulb mod that you mentioned? I've never heard of it...

 

The 9005 high beam bulb is basically identical to the standard 9006 low beam. You just have to cut off a small tab off the bulb and you can get much brighter low beams because of the higher wattage. I'll try to find the link.

 

That sounds like the way to go then. My problem is I do a lot of night time driving since I mainly work 2nd shift. And I just want something I can see good with...
Any help with that link would be great.

 

I agree with everything that hawkeye said. Also, the lights on the tC are really great, by far the best stock headlights of any car I've driven.

 

You can always upgrade to Silverstar bulbs. And you could add driving lights.

 

headlight rant ahead

Silverstars don't work any better than stock bulbs. The Silverstars that are on the market in the US are blue tinted halogen bulbs. These bulbs work through the use of a filter coated on the outside of the bulb. This filter blocks off certain wavelengths of light and allows blue light to pass through. Halogen lights, by their nature, do not produce very much light in the blue spectrum. This is fine because blue light has the shortest wavelength of the color spectrum. The human eye has difficulty focusing on blue light at night because of its short wavelength. Halogens just weren't designed to output blue light because blue light does such a poor job at illuminating the road. So, in order to get that blue tint, a filter must be placed on the bulb to block out other wavelengths and let blue light pass through.

You can see this principle for yourself if you have a car with a blue tint strip on the top of the windshield. Find an orange colored streetlight. These types of street lights (high pressure sodium) output a great deal of lumens but it is primarily in the red side of the light spectrum. When you look at the light through the blue tint strip on your windshield, the light looks whiter. However, it is also much dimmer. What you see there is the same process that goes on when you equip a blue tinted halogen bulb on your car.

The skeptical may ask, "If the blue filter robs so much light away, how come Silverstars don't look any dimmer than my stock bulbs?" The answer is that the filament (the wire inside the bulb) is overdriven to compensate for the filter. Legal regulations only allow for certain wattages to be used on headlights, so the wattage cannot be increased. So what blue bulb manufacturers did was to use a filament meant for a lower voltage and use that to increase light output.

In engineering, there is no free lunch. In this case, the tradeoff is that the longevity of the bulb is reduced due to overdriving the filament.

So to summarize, don't buy Silverstar bulbs. They:

• are more expensive
• produce less useable light
• produce more glare to other drivers
• don't last as long as regular halogens

 

Wouldn't that essentially be the same thing as driving with your brights on? THAT will SURELY ____ off oncoming traffic.

Silverstars SUCK. There is no such thing to "upgrading" to a Silverstar, unless you don't have headlights. My stock GM bulbs on my Cavalier were better than the Silverstars, as I went through 3 sets of them in 2 years.

 

No. A higher wattage bulb in the low beam is brighter but does not shine high (like a high beam) into other drivers eyes.

There will be some increase in glare, but not nearly as bad as the intolerable blue stray light from an HID kit.

 

So...now I know Silverstar sux. How about those expensive PIAA bulbs? Any fellow member here have experience with PIAA?

 

They're at the top of the bottom of the barrel. Very expensive, and crappy output.

I personally have had excellent experiences with silverstars.

Quote from HIDforum about output of halogen bulbs.

PIAA are the top of line ricer bulb, any other hyperwhite or super whatever, will be even worse.

Deja-vu, I think I have posted this once or twice today ;)

Another thing that is comming down the pike and is becoming increasingly popular are HIR bulbs or halogen infrared. They have a coating that keeps the filament hotter and produces a great deal more light.

They are expensive at over a 100 dollars a bulb, but work in halogen housings.

 

Another question - so the low beam is the 9006 bulb, right? And the high beam is the 9005, right? So the 9005 is a higher wattage bulb than the 9006, right? So the premise is if you put a 9005 in the place of a 9006 (after cutting off the little tab to make it fit, it's going to provide more light because it's just a more powerful bulb, right?

Any drawbacks other than you just made your headlights illegal?

 

Increased powerdraw and a 9005 bulb running constantly will not last as long as a 9006. Plus there is slightly more glare due to the extra light, but like I said above, its not as bad as a rebased HID kit.

 

Those bulbs last a pretty long time as is, so that's no big worry. Does increased power draw matter? Assuming you don't leave your headlights on with the car turned off? I can't imagine a car engine running two little flashlights makes that much of a difference, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

I stand corrected. :oops:

Where can I find these HIR bulbs you speak of?

 

No biggie, most people think that high beams are just brighter (which they are), but it is mostly because of the pattern of the light that they are "high."

HIR bulbs are still pretty rare. There was a link on HIDforum with someone selling 9005 and 9006 based HIRs but the forum got hacked. Dodge uses HIR in the high beams for the viper, but I am not sure what size bulb it is.

 

be careful of burning your headlight wiring if you use a 9005 in place of a 9006. some wiring cannot handle the xtra 10 watt draw.

 

HIR bulbs come in low and high beam versions, just like 9005 and 9006 halogens. I know you can get the the high beam HIR bulb (HIR1 aka 9011) from www.danielsternlighting.com. I am not sure of the price now, but they were selling them for $39 last year. I am not sure how much the low beam version (HIR2/9012) costs or if they are even available from that site.

If you have the money, you can also go into a Dodge dealer and purchase them there. HIR bulbs are found stock on the Viper. The price of the bulbs from the dealer is something ridiculous -- around $127 each

Here is a quick comparison between 9005/9006 stock bulbs and HIR1/HIR2 bulbs:

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