I don't know if you saw the other posts on this thread. I look at it like spending money on high performance tires that cost 50% more but also wear 50% faster. It seems that as long as you don't go with colored bulbs, you can spend more on high performance bulbs with a marginally shorter life, or on long-life bulbs with considerably longer life and marginally lower output.
It's going to be a royal pain when I have to replace that left bulb in my 2004 WRX. Who's brilliant idea was it to put the battery an inch from the headlight socket?
|| || ||Daniel J. Stern wrote: ||> On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, y_p_w wrote: ||> ||> ||>>BTW - what might one recommend for a '96 Buick Regal in 9006/HB4? ||> ||> ||> A new car. Sorry to be flippant...those headlamp optics are godawful. Not ||> quite as bad as the ones on the Century of the same year, but pretty damn ||> bad. There is no such thing as a magic bulb that turns bad headlamps into ||> good ones. || ||He's got no problem with my mom's 2001 Toyota Camry, which also ||uses 9006 for the low beams.
The optics are in the plastic lense shell, not the bulb. The Camry has a better design.
There are some bulbs that are intrinsically bad and cannot be used to form a good beam pattern (9004 is the worst offender here), but most bulbs, including 9006, are found in bad headlamps and good headlamps alike. The '01 Camry's optics are a great deal more efficient than the '96 Buick's optics, and the wiring on the Camry is also 5 years newer and less deteriorated than on the Buick.
Some cars -- primarily those on which HIDs are available as original equipment -- *can* easily be retrofitted with HID lights, simply by purchasing the complete "loaded" headlamp assemblies ("loaded" means it includes the bulbs, ballasts, etc.) and installing them.
There are a few good aftermarket setups for a few cars for which HIDs were never available from the factory.
There are specialist "headlamp boutiques" that will disassemble factory headlamps and adapt HID projectors:
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, have a fire extinguisher handy for when your credit card bursts into flames.
And of course there are the cheap and nasty "HID kits", which are never a good idea -- see
My previous (and recently stolen) car was a 1995 Acura Integra GS-R which used 9006 for the low beams and 9005 for the high beams. I could have sworn the headlight assemblies were designed to mimic a couple of cheap Eveready double D-cell flashlights. It was like two tiny spotlights.
Well - I ended up getting a two-pack of Sylvania XtraVision 9006 for $22 (+ tax). The Sylvania Silverstars were $25 ea or $50 for the two-pack (what no discount for buying two?). They were also completely out of them in 9006, and low in other bulb types. Apparently they're selling really well. So I ran the numbers given the price and the manufacturer's rated life. The 9006 ST (Silverstar) costs more than
12 times per hour of use than the 9006 XV (XtraVision). If they're making money like that, then I guess they can afford to buy commercial time on Fox.
I've read a few posts by people who gave up on the Silverstars after they burned out after four months.
Apparently, whether or not a factory STi HID kit could be installed in place of a standard WRX headlamp assembly. That would be my guess as to the intent of the question.
Finally, A fact about automotive lighting. You cannot overcome poor headlamp optics with more expensive bulbs. But, if you watch enough TV, maybe you can...
Maybe everyone here already knows this, and it will not improve poor optic design in the headlamp lens, but polishing compound can often brighten them up considerably - which will also increase light transmission versus clouded or dull surface.
As an aside, I tried looking up "GE Night Hawk" in a search engine. What I got were public specs of the Lockheed F-117A stealth fighter (in reality a bomber). Apparently, it's unofficially known as the "Night Hawk", and uses a couple of GE engines.
I had the 1st generation Integra. H6054 in a retractable assembly It was a royal pain replacing those things, although their performance was decent.
The best part of the '95 Integra was the ease of replacement, and the ease of aiming. It contained a bubble level, and the vertical (and horizontal) adjustment was via a crown screw that could be turned with a #2 Phillips screwdriver. However - it was pretty darn bad when it came to lighting up pavement.
Don't think so. Wouldn't be very stealthy, would it? :-)
Now for the off-topic part......
I used to be have a mild interest in military aviation. I've always been skeptical of the benefit of the F-117A. It carries only two bombs, has no defensive capabilities, and costs two to three times as much to purchase and maintain than an F-16. An F-16 can carry at least four times the ordinance, is faster/more maneuverable, and the Pentagon doesn't totally freak out every time one is shot down in combat (or otherwise goes down) for fear that stealth material will be recovered. In addition, it's questionable whether the F-117A would have been able to evade the pulse radar systems that the Soviet Bloc was developing. Basicially, few F-117A's have been shot down because they typically fly low to the ground to reduce visual detection. One could do that equally well with an F-16.
I once talked to a former USAF maintenance officer about the F-117A. I was trying to get the point across that it was a rather silly aircraft, and that F-16's could do a better job for a lower price. His answer was that he didn't disagree with my assessment.
That being said, I've seen a couple in person at an airshow. With that shape, it seems a miracle that it can be controlled. Apparently flying one is akin to trying to fly a rock, and that only thing keeping it from going in odd directions are a ton on electronics constantly monitoring movement and correcting the thrust from the engines. It was kinda cool when the two F-117A's came right into the crowd area at the Edwards AFB Airshow/Open House, making people move to make space for it (behind some velvet ropes and guarded by mean looking guards with shotguns and M-16's). The maintenance crew was nice enough to come into the crowd, answer questions, and autograph glossy pictures of the plane. He pointed out one of the two we saw was the first prototype, and showed the minor cosmetic differences. Apparently, there's also an attachment about the size of a fist that, when mounted on the plane, can make it detectable by ordinary civilian radar.
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