okay well ive been having problems with my head lights lately. they have not been bright enough especially in the dimly lit streets. im not sure what the problem is but its hard to see the lanes directly in front of me. i cant really see the light casted by the head light. its gotten to the point where i love making turns because the turn lights would help and make things a little brighter.

im not sure what the problem is but i changed my bulbs roughly 6mo ago. i dont know much about head lights but i have a feeling that its the housing or the front cover of the housing itself. is there anything i can do that is fairly cheap? ive read about retro fitting and upgrading to hid's but those can get costly. i dont have plans on modding my max because its just a daily driver and i dont have the funds for it. maybe new housings will help? if so which ones are good? or are there bulbs that fit directly on without any modifications and will be brighter? any input is appreciated thanks

if i can ill try to get some pictures tonight.

 

I'd suggest first polishing your headlight lenses. Wetsand them with fine-grit sandpaper until they're pretty clear, and then finish them off with Meguiar's PlasticX or another type of plastic polish that will provide UV protection and keep them from getting cloudy again.

Then, I'd look at getting a harness. A 10% drop in voltage will result in a 46% reduction in headlight output with halogen bulbs. You can probably get the parts you need for $30, if you have soldering experience. What you're basically doing is instead of having the power for the headlights go through the fuse box, firewall, headlight stalk, etc., you're powering them right off the battery, so they have a higher voltage available.

What I'd suggest is a high-quality bulb. NOT blue-tinted. Avoid Sylvania Silverstars, Luminics, etc.... they are whiter in color, but have less output and a shorter life than the stock yellow-ish bulbs. They make it whiter by having a slight blue tint, which blocks light.

Look for GE Nighthawks or Osram Nightbreakers, they're considered very good 9004 bulbs, which will be a lot brighter than generic 9004s.

Or, look for +20 or +50 bulbs, which are stock wattage, but more efficient.

 

I have in the past bought pigtails, which are perfect for replacing a fried connector but that's it.

On the testing side, would it be reasonable to test voltage drop across the headlight while it's turned on? (Taking care not to blow the fuse)? If you compare that to the system voltage I think you'll figure out whether rewiring will help at all.

Before digging into that, take out the bulb and closely inspect it in good light. The filaments will often show damage and run dim for a while before they finally fail. Once you replace the bulb you will see the total light output improve a lot. Make sure to use dielectric grease on the terminal connectors and don't let ANYTHING touch the glass of the bulb.

 

Back when i had he 9004 and 9007 setup I saw an increase in output when i made a new harness. So i will recommend that first.

 

With the bulbs running (important), you can measure the voltage at the connector, and compare with the voltage at the battery. more than a 1v difference, get a harness.

 

Have you tried a grounding kit? I know my lights burn brighter with it..........you can get them off of E-bay pretty cheap.

 

Are you wearing your glasses when you drive at night? Also, have you cleaned the inside of your windshield lately? These were my problems when I had problems seeing at night.

 

hmm a lot of good input...ill definitely take them into consideration...i think ill go with changing bulbs first...i got generic bulbs..maybe thats why...i just need it to be as bright as stock....so maybe ill go with the cleaning of the headlight lens...

as far as getting newer/cleaner head light housing is that a good way to go? ive tried like wiping the head light and still when i look through it it seems cloudy...

btw i do use my glasses/contacts when i drive, cuz id probably crash as soon as i get out of my driveway...

 

96 max has GLASS lens unless they were switched to 97-99 plastic. if still GLASS, don't
sand those puppies unless you want the output worse than now! sylvania Xtra vision are the way to go stock...20% brighter than stock. that's all i used at first, now w/harness even brighter. not daytime bright, but you see better. that's my story & i'm sticking to it.
if the chrome inside the housing isn't bright, nothing short of new housings will help.

 

ruckus i would deffinately do what nalc suggested. It's a simple 10 second test w/a multimeter and it will tell you if you are getting full voltage.

I'm just going to suggest it.... the catz zeta system boosts the voltage up a lot. That would give you a noticeable increase in light output. I don't know how it works, i've just heard good things about them.

 

It's basically an inductor-based ballast that pumps the headlight voltage up to 15.4v. That will reduce bulb lifespan (not really an issue for $5 bulbs though) but give you significantly more output. Runs about $80 on e-bay.

The voltage is related exponentially to the brightness, i.e. increasing the voltage 10% increases brightness 25% or more.

 

A lot of good things have been said,
But the first thing you should do is get a multimeter (if you dont have one buy one, you own a Maxima) and test the voltage at the plug on the headlight bulb when the headlights are turned on, with the car running.

Test the voltage at the battery with the car running.

Post your results.

 

All that's doing, essentially, is reducing the amperage to increase the voltage, there are a lot of ways to do that without spending $80 before shipping, and there should be absolutely no reason for it.
Not only that, but if everything is working properly you'll see at least 14V to the headlights, which is more than enough.

Not trying to be an a** but that is a poor recomendation, this isn't a civic

 

It's not reducing current... it increases the voltage, which will correspondingly increase the current. You're getting your info mixed up.

But I do agree with you on it not being worth $80... the 9004 reflectors are not worth sinking money into, because they'll never be as good as newer halogen designs, much less as good as HIDs.

Yes, definitely post the results. I'm curious. I never measured that on my car.

 

Well today I checked the voltage of the low beam on my driver side headlight.
Battery voltage = 14.0v
Headlight voltage = 13.6v.

So at least in my case I still don't know why it's running dim.

Dave

 

Yes, I suppose you're right, I'm kind of interested how they're acheiving this.

As far as the voltages go, here are mine, I had to put a bulb in today anyways so I checked.
Keep in mind these are PURELY reference values, I have H4 harnesses on my car.
Also keep in mind, I did NOT test these values with the headlight drawing (plugged in), which I really should have to gain accurate readings.

Car not running:
BAT - 12.6V Headlight plug/harness - 11.8V

Car running:
BAT - 14.5V Headlight plug/harness - 14.5V


This shows us that with the alternator charging properly, the headlights should receive very close to battery voltage, if they aren't, I would suspect the harnesses are starting to melt and should be replaced, or some other wiring issue.

This is the best advice I can give to guys to diagnose this, we need to know if the bulbs are seeing the correct voltage before we talk about the bulbs themselves, housings, or lens'

 

Voltage = Resistance*Current
Power = Voltage*Current

The catz ballasts are just step-up transformers, AFAIK.
The reason you're confused is because you're thinking that a 60w bulb is designed to draw 60 watts, no more. You can get 60w by running 6 amps at 10v, or by running 4 amps at 15v. If this assuption were true, then increasing the voltage will do nothing.

We calculate the bulb's "wattage" as the power it draws at a specific voltage. The wattage is therefore just the voltage squared, divided by the filament's resistance. So, if our bulb is rated for 60w at 12v, we know that it has a resistance of about 2.5 ohms, since 12 squared divided by 2.5 is about 60. Now, this resistance isn't going to change, so our wattage at any given voltage is going to be V^2 divided by 2.5. Say we decide to increase the voltage to 15. Our new wattage is 225/2.5, or ~95 watts.


The measurements are worthless unless the bulbs are running... the internal resistance of a voltmeter is so high that the current is almost zero, so with just the voltmeter across the connector, it will be the exact same voltage as the battery no matter how crappy the harness is.
We can view this as a simple voltage divider, where we have a voltage V, a harness resistance H, and a "load" (bulb or voltmeter) resistance R. We've already calculated that R for a bulb is <5 ohms, and R for a voltmeter is about 1,000,000 ohms.

The voltage at the bulb is going to be (V*R)/(H+R)
As you can see by the formula, if, for instance, H is much smaller than R, (just a voltmeter connected) we can say 2 ohms in our example, then the voltage is just V * (1000000/1000002), which comes out to be 11.9999v.

But, if R is 5 ohms, and H is 2 ohms, then the voltage (V*R)/(H+R) will be (5/7)V, which is only 8.6v
It's the same harness, but once a bulb is in, then you can see how much power is lost in it.

 

Damn symbols would be nice haha.

Yeah of course a step up transformer, DUH.

Are you saying that testing the Voltage at the headlight plug would not be a good place to start?
You should test with the bulb in, but why would you test that first? That would seem like then NEXT thing to check to me.

If the harness is damaged, or the wiring to the harness is damaged, then the resistance will normally be increased, would that not result in a lower voltage when testing at the bulb side of the harness? Therefore giving a good indication whether there is wiring/harness issues as opposed to issues with the actual headlight itself.

 

Right, but the voltage drop is directly proportional not only to the resistance of the harness, but also the current going through it. V = I*R. When there is no bulb, just a voltmeter, the current is very small, so the voltage drop is only maybe 0.01 volts, because the voltmeter doesn't draw a lot of power. When the bulb is attached, the current is much larger, so the voltage drop over the harness will be significant. Since we're only interested in the voltage drop when the bulb is on, we have to measure it in that scenario. Measuring the voltage drop when there isn't a bulb does us no good, because we don't really care what the voltage drop is without a bulb.

 

I see burned connectors all the time on these cars. its usually the black wire also. when it gets burned it will messed the female pin up so it will not have a good connection. I actually but new 9004 super white sylvanias a month or two ago and the drivers side head light would go dim or go off completly ovetr a bump or something. so i seen the burned connector and replaced it then noticed then brand new bulb i put in was burned out. but anyway check the connectors, both sides like everyone else said

 

Ok I get what you're saying now, makes sense, thanks for clearing that up for me.
I'll see if I can get those ref. values tomorrow, though as I said it will only give a general idea, as my headlight setup isn't stock.
It would be more helpful if someone running stock harnesses and bulbs that are working properly could post up their measured values in the scenario nalc described.