erikiksaz1

Ever since I bought my car I never thought there were any headlight issues. The car came equipped with PIAAs, I haven't looked up which ones, but I'm sure they were of the super-hyper-harness-melting-75watt variety. The light output was better than the EF hatch I owned before, so there were no complaints.

Fast forward a year and one of the PIAA's blow. I then replace them both with Sylvania Silverstars. It was then that one headlight was apparently brighter than the other. So, after busting out the multimeter, the electrical portion checked out fine. I decided to bake them apart (300 degrees at 10 mins). And this is what I found:



This one might give you a better idea of what was wrong:



It seemed that the previous owner had some other bulbs in there before the PIAAs, and the bulb exploded. My guess is that when it popped, the smaller glass particles decided to bake themselves onto the reflective layer of the bulb housing, rendering it unreflective. So, I cleaned the baked on residue, and all was well, for the most part.

Upon having everything apart, I figured that maybe I could improve the lighting. If you look at this:



And this:





You could see that the light is supposed to be cast over that cutoff piece, but what about that cutoff piece itself? It's a dull metal, so if i polish it, it might just yield a bit more reflected light. So that's what I did. 600/800/1000/2000, and polishes yielded:

Before and After:





After glueing everything back together, the lights were back to normal. Both sides were just about equal in output. But, our stock lighting still sucked. I decided to go with HIR bulbs instead of the typical 9006. I also opted for the 9005 conversion as well.

Lighting with Sylvanias:



HIR Bulbs:



Sylvania:



HIR:



As you can tell, the light output was much greater. I'm content for now.

95IntegraGSRAZ

Where did you get the HIRs?

erikiksaz1

http://hirheadlights.com/

George Knighton

Does anybody use these bulbs to talk about the real world life expectancy?

Although they say the glass is cool, the filament must obviously burn quite hot to get the extra light and I'm wondering how much this affects the life of the filament.

Mr.OB*GYN_Rhett

iTrader: (2)

old thread that never made it but yeah, its been about a year now man. how are they treating you?

erikiksaz1

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by George Knighton &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Does anybody use these bulbs to talk about the real world life expectancy?

Although they say the glass is cool, the filament must obviously burn quite hot to get the extra light and I'm wondering how much this affects the life of the filament.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well, it's been about ten months and everything's still working well. Granted I don't do much night driving (~7-8 hours a week), but I'm right near the 300 hour limit of these bulbs. At my rate, they should be toast by about the 37th week, and I think I'm at week 40 something.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mr.OB*GYN_Rhett &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">old thread that never made it but yeah, its been about a year now man. how are they treating you?</TD></TR></TABLE>

They're still working out great. I still get a kick out of driving next to stock integras.

PatrickGSR94

iTrader: (1)

I'm pretty surprised they lasted that long, considering all the standard 9005 bulbs on Sylvania's website have a rated life of only 50-100 hours (which explains why one of my old 9005 Silverstars went out after only 4 months).

&lt;-- has probably 2000 hours on the current D2S HID bulbs (installed February 2004) and 3000+ hours on the ballasts (installed December 2002), and still going strong

tegG2

HIRs

Outrun

How long did the HIR bulbs end up lasting? Also, I'm a bit confused. Are there specific 9005 and 9006 HIR bulbs? Or are they only available as 9011/9012 bulbs that need trimming on the tabs?

vietnamezerice

how long did it take you to sand it down till it was polished?

erikiksaz1

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Outrun &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">How long did the HIR bulbs end up lasting? Also, I'm a bit confused. Are there specific 9005 and 9006 HIR bulbs? Or are they only available as 9011/9012 bulbs that need trimming on the tabs?</TD></TR></TABLE>

One of the bulbs is still going strong (it's been 2 years). The bulb in the passenger headlight, which is the one that's lost some of its reflective coating, is the one that popped. My guess is that most of the light energy was being absorbed by the non-reflective walls, generating excessive heat.

There are specific bulbs. The high beams (9005?) are 9011 HIR. Low beams are 9012. You can double check on the HIR website.

But if you buy the high beams to mod to fit your low beams, ensure that you're cutting the right part of the tab. The HIR website marks which part of the tab you're supposed to cut for the conversion, but I think they marked the wrong side

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vietnamezerice &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">how long did it take you to sand it down till it was polished?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hell it's been such a long time, I'm guessing 15 mins each side? I didn't have the polishing wheel for my bench grinder back then so I did it by hand, hah. A polishing wheel for your drill would work wonders too.


And bonus:

Use the 25% live.com discount now to buy these bulbs for super cheap!