last night i was trying to figure what is safe watts for bulbs. meaning that the wires wont burn or fuses going out and is bright and no im not gonna invest in hids. im not gonna fork over 3-5bills for that. and those who ever said search i guess you havent seen the results from a bulbs search. after reading so most of the threads here and at another forum i still didnt get a proper response. some swear by the 80w and some even have said that 90 or 120 watts were okai. and some disagreed to those findings.i have a pair of catz right now (55/60w)and i m gonna switch to differnt ones for more brightness. so what is it??

 

65 at the highest.

 

I believe the wiring used for headlights is only 22awg. The ampacity for that wiring in 30 degree celcius ambient air is 7 amps. You shouldn't go any higher than 80% of what the actual rating is so that would be 5.6 amps. To find how high of wattage you can safely go according to NEMA, you just multiply amperage by voltage 5.6amps*12volts=67.2watts. Now you know why people's cars have been catching on fire especially if they leave their lights on with the car off and the battery starts to die and drop in voltage. Lets see the light tries to maintain 67.2 watts and the voltage drops because the battery is dying, hmmm 67.2/10=6.72amps, 67.2/7=9.6amps, 67.2/5=13.44amps. Yeah, I think I'll stick to my oem bulbs