GU Headlights...I want a brighter beam

Hi andrew
I got a set of bulbs from ARB and they are called fatboys. I have had they ones from repco and super cheap ie. 90/100 and so on but found I was always blowing bulbs. The fat boys are brighter than standard but low beam is very bright concentrated light they say that is so when you drive with spots on and dip to low you dont get that second or two when your have to adjust to next to no light. I personally find them very good and for the last 2 years have not blown a bulb.
Ther are lots of different bulbs out there and people will have their own opions whether they make a difference or not personally I like to see were I am going.
regards ross

you can always put in a xenon kit, I put h4 xenon kit with high low xenon, and the h3 foglamps in xenon,

Andrew

I tried the Philips Blue jobbies and they're quite a bit better than standard.

Cheers

Rosco

There are several "Plus 50" globes around, just take a cruise thru the Autobarn or similar store near you. These use another gas inside the halogen globe to allow the filament to burn brighter=more light. Theyre MUCH better than the marketing gimmickry of the blue lights, in fact if you want a couple of blue ones you can have mine that I bought tried and took out, they actually throw less light onto the road.

If you do choose to go with a higher wattage like 90/100 I wouldnt do that without installing relays for high and low beam, which is what I ended up doing on our GU. By the way, yoou dont have to replace the whole loom to upgrade, just little bit of wiring at the light end of the loom.

Try the Plus 50's first I reckon.

G'day Andy, Mate, like you, I wanted to upgrade the standard driving around town general purpose low beams.

Found this supplier, he's a wealth of knowledge (no affiliation, just facts) and ended up going for a HID conversion - about $320 from memory, but holy brightness - looks just like a brand new Merc/beamer white "daylight" system. - In all honesty, makes things stand out better. I tried the auto bahn "Blue globes" - I think there a bit of a poor mans try hard HID conversion, and infact think they were worse than the originals. HID draws less current, lasts longer ( Filament/globe burn life), doesn't get anywhere near as hot, ( No wasted energy producing heat like a halogen bulb).

But on the down side, way more exxy to buy, replacement bulbs also quite expensive, Youv've got to install a little ballast type box near each globe.

He also sells all the blue type / higher output bulbs.

Other thing is to check the type of bulb you need. I originally thought mine would be the old H4 stlye - so rang to order same, guy from bright lie atuo asks what sort of veh, I tell him 100 series, he says nuh, its 2 sep. bulbs, a 9005 and a 9006....

so there you go.

Jarrod.

OH, here's his www

http://www.brightlightautoparts.com/index.html

I used to run 130/90's for about 2 years. Didnt have upgraded wiring and would periodically blow a globe.

Bought some Ultra bright 6000K blue style lights, and hated them...crap on road performance...

The Narva plus 50 style globes do ok.

Rev

Careful fitting higher wattage bulbs to your GU headlights. We had a Narva rep come to our club and he said that you can't fit them to GU's or any other vehicle with polycarbonate headlights as the headlight itself will fail. He showed us headlights that had crazed front clear sections as well as melted ones.

Hi all,

Don't forget that it is illegal to have a low beam headlight with greater than 55W globes.

Make sure there are no voltage drops in the wiring. These can sometimes be in unexpected places. I found nearly 0.5v drop from the alternator ground to the body caused by a dodgy earth point. An extra earth wire direct from the alternator to another earth point solved this and my lights are considerably brighter now.

Phil I

I am very happy with the Phillips replacement bulbs that I got at the TJM stand at the last 4WD show. They are much whiter and give excellent illumination. They are a legal standard replacement not requiring new wiring. Changing the bulbs is a little tricky on the LHS if you have a 2nd battery fitted there. ( see my previous post). I went for the white ones on advice from the salesperson.

I changed the bulbs in the original driving lights too and it made a noticeable improvement. Total cost was about $70.00 for four bulbs.

Kings

I'm happy with my Xenon-Oz set-up, but @ $1500- I guess you'd say I'd wanna be bloody happy, eh?

Everyone seems to think, "if I haven't got enough light, I'll just fit bigger globes". Unfortunately it doesn't work that way in real life.

Your best and most effective bet WOULD be to upgrade the loom to the headlights. Most looms are built from the factory to be "adequate" for the regulation 55/60 globes that are fitted, and as cheap as they can possibly make them. Putting extra load on them by fitting bigger wattage globes only causes more power to be lost in the loom through resistance for only a marginal increase in brightness.

The top 20-25% of the light's brightness comes from the last 0.5-1 volt, so any improvement by way of reducing resistive losses in the loom is worth it. Having an external loom also means there is no possibility of shorting out something in the main loom through inadvertant overload.

Do the loom first...............

Jarrod have you got all 4 lights with HID's , and is that $320 a pair or for each light,

I'm interested to see if that dealer has the same type of HID's as Xexon0z at @1595 a pair for the H4 HI/Lo setup in which
Roachie has in his GU.

Can either of you guys email me @ reno62@dodo.com.au

Thanks