Hey I just installed the new sylvania ultra headlight bulbs. Do I need to put a relay switch in with these bulbs so I don't burn up the combo switch?

Thanks ****

 

Naw they are the same wattage as oem but whiter light output

 

What do you mean naw? The factory bulb will burn up the headlight switch. You should install relays one way or another. BTW, the whiter light output is actually dimmer. Yellow light is more natural and dramatically improve night vision. The whiter light works by adding a film that blocks part of the spectrum giving a blue or white color. But it is actually putting out less light when measured in lumens. Its apparent output is increased and the light appears brighter. That is because your eyes are more sensitive to blue and violet than to red. Your eyes perceive it as brighter and your eyes are not triggered to dialate. Lights that have a slight yellow tind to not tend to adversly affect your night vision and penetrate through rain and fog better. They also do not blind other nearby drivers. Since these bulbs are made by Sylvania, a reputable company, they are safe and will light the road up, but the "Ultra White" feature is not advantageous, and less expensive slightly yellow bulbs work just as well. The white just looks cooler.

check it out
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/home.html

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...good/good.html

 

it's not fun nor cheap to replace the headlight or dimmer turn signal stalk switches

 

I agree on this - the headlights should be relayed regardless of the bulb wattage. Not only will it save the headlight switch, but it will improve the output of the headlights without a wattage increase, just due to the lack of voltage drop in the circuit. Halogen bulbs are very sensitive to voltage input - a small percentage of voltage drop results in a much larger percentage of lighting output loss.

And regarding the so called "whiter" bulbs, they are marketing ploys. Something to keep in mind is that the percentage of the halogen spectrum that is in the blue color range is very small (that's why these bulbs tend to have yellowish color). When you put a blue filter on the globe, you remove a great deal of the actual light specturm, meaning less light makes it to the road surface. Granted, the tint of the filter impacts how much it impacts the light (a dark blue filter is downright dangerous, whereas a very light blue tint like on the Silverstars or Ultras is merely a less useful bulb).

People started putting blue or very white tinted bulbs in their cars to mimic the appearance of HID lights. Not because they worked better, but because they thought it made their car look cooler. HID lights are the color they are because they produce their light with an electric arc. Sort of like putting a spark plug in a reflector. But although they create a lot of light with less amp draw, the trade off is that the natural color of that type of light source (blue) has a very short wave length, which as Khantyranitar hinted at, tends to scatter readily and cause high levels of glare. This is especially true when the weather is poor, and there are millions of little prisms in the air causing that scattered light to glare back at the driver.

It always struck me as funny that people thought that copying the bad part of an HID light, which in turn made their halogen bulbs worse as well, was "cool"...

 

If it is perceived to be brighter, don't we actually see better? Isn't perception actual reality? Those bulbs look pretty good to me.

Ken

 

Hey thanks for the replys. These new bulbs work great for me. I replaced them for safety reasons and not to make a fashion statement. Is there a link on how to install the relay?

 

Again, if safety is the concern, then I'm not convinced these bulbs are as helpful as you think. The best option for actually improving your lighting is to install headlamps with a better beam pattern which can make much better use of the bulb's output, especially upgraded bulbs. As discussed in other recent and related threads, switching to an E-code lamp is ticket for that. You'd be surprised how much better the light output is just by doing that, with otherwise standard-type bulbs.

However, to answer your actual question - here's a link that should guide you through the relay installation wiring:
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...ys/relays.html

 

Ken,

If you actually get a chance to look at a road illuminated by one of these blue-tinted lights from behind the wheel, you will find that they do a very poor job of illumination compared to un-colored halogen bulbs. What usually happens is this: The tint reduces overall light output, so many sources use a higher power filament to increase perceived brightness. But they also have very poor light distribution, so they spray light to all the wrong places, causing glare for on-coming drivers. Yes, the on-coming drivers perceive it as being brighter (more irritating), but they are not the ones who should be seeing it. You, the driver behind it, are the one who needs the illumination from it. You might see more lighting from places off to the sides where a proper light wasn't spraying light before, but those are of limited value.

As Rick said, a good light housing, such as one of the E-spec versions will put more of the available light to the right places in front of you, without irritating on-coming drivers. You can't do this with a simple bulb change in our DOT-spec lights, especially not with those tinted bulbs.

Installing relays will depend on the car, but the concept is this:

Intercept the switched power lines that are going to the bulb filaments and divert them to drive the relay coils (one for low beam, one for high, and if you have it, one for an aux light). Run power directly from the battery (or the lug on the starter solonoid) to one of the contacts on each relay, and run wires from the other contacts to the bulb filament. Use heavy gauge wires on this second set of connections to minimize voltage drop to the filaments, but install a fuse in each line to protect them. I'll try to post pictures of my installation on my web site soon.

 

On my 323GTX and on my '84 EXP, I have a relay block mounted on the radiator core support, just behind the left headlight. That minimizes the distance needed to run to the lamps, even compared to a firewall mount. In that block, on both cars, I have a relay for the high beams, one for the low beams, and one for the fog lights. On the Mazda, the 4th slot is for driving lamps and on the EXP it's for the air horn compressor. I had to mount the Mazda's air horn relay elsewhere. Here are a couple pictures of the relay box in the GTX. Sorry for things being dirty, but it is a winter/rally car. You can see that there's a main trunk of wiring feeding it underneath. And yes, there's a Guiness bottle serving as a catch can behind the airbox...