thetvirus

1964.5 mustang: I want to upgrade from incandescent headlights to halogens so I can actually see more than 5 feet in front of the mustang, the question is do they work with the stock wiring? I was looking at slyvania, the normal halogen are 40 watts lowbeam and 60 watts highbeam, or they also have the brighter silverstar which are 55 watts low and 65 watts high, would either of these work fine with stock wiring? Thanks.

tx65coupe

DO NOT get Silverstar. They have a coating on the halogen bulb.

Get Sylvania Xtravision. The cost less than Silverstar and are better. The Xtravision is 55 watt low and 65 high. I have them on my car and really like them. Another good option is GE Nighthawk.

You can run regular Halogen with the stock wiring, but I wouldn't recommend doing it with the Xtravision. Just get a headlight relay setup. It will carry the load of the lights and deliver more power to them.

The regular replacement Halogens should work alright with the stock wiring.

I have this one.

http://rjminjectiontech.com/?p=8

You can also make your own.

http://www.midnightdsigns.com/james/headlights.htm

ozarks06

I bought Hella units with replaceable bulbs. I believe they were this one:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HLA-002395301/

The work great, very bright, and have a good 'cut off' pattern like modern car headlights. I did upgrade the wiring. You can also put in H4 bulbs if you want brighter (but not street legal).

Starfury

I agree about the SilverStars. I have them on the shelf at work and I try not to sell them. The coating on them is for color correction, to give the light a whiter/bluer cast. It also ends up dropping light output a little bit.

I run Wagner BrightLights (equivalent to the Sylvania XtraVisions) in my car with the factory wiring and I'm VERY happy with them. They made a noticable difference in both beam width and brightness when I upgraded from regular halogens.

Whether or not they'll work well with your stock wiring depends on the condition of your wiring. Mine's in pretty good shape, although I'm still going to do a relay conversion when I get a free weekend. I'd recommend doing the same. Halogens work best when you give them full source voltage (~14V). The stock wiring loses a couple volts running through the car and the headlight switch.

kalli

i used a conversion kit that was thought for Mini's. they're 7" as well. came with H4 bulbs for about 80$ I think

stock wiring is crap (no relays, all power sucked through huge light switch). here's an improvement. will help no matter what bulbs you run:

http://midnightdsigns.com/james/headlights.htm

kalli

tx65coupe

The H4 conversion is a good way to go too. Just make sure you get good glass lenses.

001mustang

I would check your voltage and grounds if your lights are dim.

Once my voltage regulator was sticking and all my lights were really bright; yeah.

I fixed it and now my lights are just normal; oh well...at least my battery didn't explode..

blazerdup

Not to be ignorant, but where does this headlight harness plug into? It looks simple but does it require splicing into the main wiring harness?

Norm Peterson

There is a Silverstar and a Silverstar Ultra. The Ultras seem to be a little brighter. Both are supposedly in the 4000°K-ish color temperature range, which is a 'whiter' light than the 3000°K or so for regular halogens (or even less for sealed beams). Blue coloring comes in at more like 6000°K.

Sylvania also sells a bulb series under the name "Cool Blue". Just like it sounds, and I believe that one is filtered.

I'm pretty sure that the 9003 or HB-2 bulbs will work in the H4 socket. The difference is slightly different photometrics, just enough to be legal in some way where H4's are not.

Last weekend I did swap a pair of 9003 Xtravisions into the Maxima (one bulb was 'out'). I'm not sure what the legal status of XV's is, but as a practical matter nobody ever seems to pay any attention to that level of detail.


Norm

kalli

i checked on the wiring harness and it seems like a smart idea.
In the instructions from James (the wiring) you basically have to splice the relay into the harness.
What they seem to have done is pick up the switching (on/off) from original bulb connector, route that to relay and from there you get the full power for the headlights.

So it seems to be a simple disconnect sockets for headlight at lamp, plug one of them in to new harness. plug the other 2 ends of new harness into your lamps and connect plus and minus job done.

Good design if I understad it right and price is ok as well. If you'd do that yourself and source all connectors and relays then you'd be down 20 quid without even hooking it all up

Kalli