I’ve 96 Max 5-speeds SE, and I love this car except the poor headlight output.
I’ve attempted to increase the output by installing heavy-duty harness and 85W light bulbs but wasn’t satisfied.
My family has non-HID Mercedes and it feels like its headlight output is at least double the Maxima output.
So I’ve purchased retrofitted OEM headlight w/ Mercedes non-HID projector. Now, my headlight output increased but it’s still not that bright.
What can I do to improve my light output? Should I buy HID and add onto my new Mercedes projectors?
My budget is limited but I really want better light output out of my Max…
Any thoughts?

 

Directly wire the headlight ground to the frame.

Dave

 

From what I have heard, halogen and HID projectors are different. So it may not be beneficial to simply buy HID's and put them in your projectors.
What bulbs are you using? If it is something with a blue tint, those aren't too good for light output in poor conditions.
I don't have experience with projectors so I can't really help you much with that.

 

I'm using heavy-duty harness and it's directly grouned.
I think Mercedes projector uses H7 type, and I think that's what I have.
It does not have any tint.. they're factory Mercedes light bulbs.

I thought I could use HID bulbs in Mercedes projectors... any other ideas?

 

I'd say you wasted time with halogen projectors. They're better than reflectors, but with the money spent + money spent on an HID kit would have gotten you a nice bixenon projector setup.

 

explain please.

 

Wiring the ground wire to the chassis instead of through the wiring harness will do a better job because the ground isn't limited to a tiny little wire. Ideally, you would also want the 12v coming directly from the battery as well, using a relay.

 

First, it helps to buy a higher output bulb connector/pigtail. Then when you splice it in, run the ground back to the nearest bolt on the frame instead of into the harness. The harness ground usually adds enough resistance to dim the lights, but on my fiance's eclipse it actually caused the stock connectors to short and melt. Reattaching the ground to the frame made it like new. When I'm bored and not frozen solid I'll do it with my Maxima.

 

IMHO, I don't think Mercedes projector was waste of $ but it's still not bright enough.

 

this may be just the thing you need.

degeesman-can you make a writeup on wxactaly what you would need to perfom this? it could become a very useful sticky.

 

I'm thinking about adding 6000k H7 type HID into my projector headlights.
Any opinions?

 

Wouldn't reccommend it, but if you're truly worried about light output get a 4300k kit or at least 5000k. 6000k is a step in the wrong direction for output.

 

If I did a writeup, it would look a lot like this:
http://www.eclipseforums.org/fortopic206458.html

Really it's just a matter of comparing the wires and connectors and making sure you connect them to the same positions. Then it's just crimp and heat-shrink and you're done.

Dave