I am wanting to upgrade my headlights on my 2003 F-350 (5.4 ltr. 4x4) I am thinking of just buying some brighter headlights (9007 I believe my truck takes) I have seen some vehicles have issues with installing some lights as the socket tends to burn up, my question is what is a good light to get and what is my best route to prevent issues? I thought about a relay or something but not sure what all needs to be done to properly address the issue and 2 relays per side may not be cost effective for the little light that will be made????

 

It's baised on power draw. I use Piaa bulbs, the draw is still 45/65 watts like the factory so there is no extra heat. The cheaper bulbs uses a higher input wattage to produce more light, although I haven't seen a stock harness burnt up by 80/100 bulbs. Painless wiring makes a really nice relay kit to handle the higher draw if your concerned.

A relay system saves the stock wiring and head light switch, if your concerned about the plug, then you need to replace them as well. To build your own harness, a few feet of 18ga wire stock to relay wires, I would use 12-14ga for the relay to socket wires, two relays (total, each relay handles 20-30 amps on the 20 that's 240 watts), a fuse holder and new sockets. It's a simple enough build. There is no need for 4 relays, unless you have 200 watt bulbs.

 

I have seen aftermarket lights on explorers which burn up the headlight plug. I found a company who makes a harness which costs around $60 which seems a bit high and does not come with relays. I was thinking of just installing a relay for the low side / high side and use the stock wiring as the relay trigger / probably going straight off of the battery for the power, then just using 12-14 gauge wiring from the relay to the headlight plug. I figured it would take 4 due to 2 on each side, after looking at a schmatic the low beams appear to be spliced (15amp), the high beams have seperate power per side (10amp,) and use different grounds. Would that mean I would need to run 3 to do it correctly? Maybe I am making this harder than it has to be, I just want to make sure I am not going to bunr up my wiring or cause an issue so I will lose headlights or something. I was looking at possibly going with the PIAA 9007 Super Plasma GT-X which has the specs of Wattage

65/55w = 110/100w XTRA, 5000K
Technology Super Plasma GT-X

or these; Wattage 65/55w = 120/110w, 4000K
Technology Xtreme White Plus with XTRA Technology

I thought to get close to daylight the light had to be 45k, which one is higher and one is lower so I'm not sure which one is better yet, I like the look of some of the newer cars lights which have that purplish color to it and seem very bright which are mostly probably HID??

 

No. I've installed a couple of Painless' kits. It doesn't matter how the stock ran the wires, as long as you can trigger the relays and can flow sufficient power to each bulb. The head lights don't flash or do anything funky other than switch between high and low on command. The Piaa bulbs are 65w max, divide by 12 for the amperage and you get a little over 5 amps, double it for both sides and your left with 10 amps total. You can use any size wire that will support 10A for the length you need, but I wouldn't go smaller than 14ga for my comfort. There are cheaper pigtails available, probably dorman/help/motormite from your local auto supply store will do, just finding the reverse will be difficult if you want to make it plug and play.

Daylight is very high in the kelvins, but you have a lot of other colors coming in as well to make up for what is absorbed. I love my Extreme White plus' and anything hotter will most likely get absorbed in to fresh black top (I had this problem with other bulbs.) The higher the color the "warmer" the light.

 

Has anyone tried the Sylvania Silverstar headlights? I've heard that they are really nice and bright but I have no firsthand experience with them.

 

I have put these in both of my superdutys,'99' & '05. They throw enough extra light and never had problem burning sockets. Nice cheap upgrade, wiating for these lights for my '08'.

 

Thanks for the info scraprat!

 

The Sylvania XtraVisions actually put out more lumens. The SilverStars are whiter but they don't last as long because they have to put out more light at the filiment to get enough light through the blue-tinted glass. Silvania's comparison chart has a * next to the lumens output on the Silverstars and Ultras and the 25% increase in light output is at the filiment.

 

I don't know how long they should last, but from first hand experience. '99' put in at 13,000 miles and at 240,000 still look bright. '05' put 100 miles and at 191,000 still going strong.

 

I think it was just the Ultras having short lives. Still though, the XtraVisions have more lumens output, the higher output of the SilverStars is measured at the filiment, not outside the bulb since a lot of light gets filtered out by the blue glass.

 

Neighbor and I installed headlights the same week. His being silverstars. They didn't last a year. My GE Nighthawks lasted almost a year and a half. Both brighter. Limited life

 

I haven't had that problem with Piaa's. The ones in my truck have been in for 5 years, all the extra lumens without a limited life. Of course you pay a premium price for Piaa bulbs (about $80/pair), but they last. Over the course of 5 years, I sold many sets and I can only recall one warranty. I suspect the customer did something wrong, but Piaa said replace it no questions asked.

 

I've had the same silverstars in my truck over 5 yrs

 

A lesson we learned before we carried Piaa, was that the high draw, high output bulbs are voltage sensitive. Rapid changes in voltage, alt ripple and odd voltage drops shorten their life significant. We were able to extend their life by adding relay kits so the power for the bulbs comes freshly filtered from the battery.

 

A relay won't affect the amount of voltage ripple the bulb sees. You would need an inductive or capacitive filter to do that. On the other hand, relays would provide full battery voltage to the bulb which will improve light output.