by NowForThe5th on Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:53 pm
You have a couple of choices.
Staying with halogen, replace the HB3 high beams with Phillips HIR1/9011. Even better if you can find the Toshiba bulbs but they're getting a bit rare now. These bulbs use an infra-red technology to boost output and are much better than the Plus series bulbs. They are optically compatible with the HB3, so the filament is in exactly the right position, but they do need a small notching modification to the base to fit. Amazon is usually the best place to find them but if you have no luck then let me know and I'll give you some other supply options.
For the low beams, replace the H11 with H9. This should give you around 30% more low beam output. As per the high beams, optically identical and also need a small modification of the base to fit.
Whatever you do, don't put high wattage bulbs in those enclosures. The extra heat will burn them out, sometimes explosively, and they don't give any more light than the better engineered and designed HIR1 and H9. LEDs are too blue (even the "warm white" varieties) and give an awful beam pattern. There is a new technology that has the potential to blow everything else out of the water, but general availability is a couple of years away.
Stretching legality you could go to HID in the lows. Phillips used to make a bulb which was almost the same colour temperature as halogen at 4200K but these are out of production now. Stay with the standard 35W (higher gets too hot) and name brand bulbs and ballasts, not Ebay rubbish. In the shop we carry high quality bulbs at 5000K which is white, but not blue. PM me for more details.
I have HID lows and HID highs. By themselves the HID highs are a pain with warmup times but, in conjunction with the Fyrlyts they are awesome, whitening the overall output and providing fill and spread while the Fyrlyts provide the "instant on" that you need. My lows are the Philips ones mentioned above, but are due for replacement now. I'll replace with these new 5000K bulbs.
Chris
If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay us to do it?