I was going to buy a new pair of bulbs but did not want go the LED route. In regards to halogen, is it worth the money for the supposedly upgraded bulbs? Most of the time, it looks like you pay a little more for a whiter color light but the output is the same as before. I feel as though any off the shelf H7 will do the job but wanted to see if anyone had suggestions for something that performs better.

 

I had Sylvania Silverstars in mine and they were whiter (not blue) and slightly better output. I would do it again

You're only going to get so good because the wattage and reflector in the housing are going to be the same.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I'll get some Sylvania replacement bulbs.

 

DO NOT get Sylvania bulbs!!! They're not that good and don't last very long. Only get top-quality bulbs from Narva, Osram, Philips, Toshiba, Vosla! Nothing with coloured coating. Those just block out parts of spectrum to make bulb appear "blue", but just lowers total output lumens. Read all about lighting tech here:
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/tech.html
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...lbs/bulbs.html


Decades ago, I made headlight upgrade kit for Porsches with heavy-duty relay harness connected directly to alternator (highest voltage before it's dropped at battery due to charging and sharing with other circuits)


along with Cibié ecode headlamp housing and top-quality Narva bulbs.


This is result with exact same 55w power-consumption. People are selling my headlight kits on eBay for 3x what I originally sold them for. They'll even remove from their previous car to install in new car!



Measure voltage at back of headlight-socket and compare it to output of RR. If it's substantially different > 1v, then you need to upgrade your wiring. Due to non-linear response of bulb, losing just 10% power on way to socket will result in -30% loss of bulb output!




Only H7 bulb worth buying is Vosla replacement for Osram 64217. Get it here:
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/p.../products.html
If you're not satisfied that it's substantially better than what you've tried before, I'll gladly buy it from you.

 

Odd, the bulbs I used were in the bike for over 18 years and I never replaced them and they looked a lot better than your picture.

 

Auto-exposure compensation in eyes. Need to have camera with fixed shutter-speed and aperture for before & after comparisons. Here's how it would look if we increased exposure on both same amount. It's the relative differences I wanted to show and differences remain no matter what imaging device used, eyes or camera.



Even before looking at bulbs, you want to measure voltage at headlight-bulb socket to make sure you're not losing power on way there.

 

Thanks for the recommendation. The h7 listed on the Daniel Stern site has a rating of 65W, not sure what effects there will be as I remember the replacement bulb listed for the F4i was: H7 55W.

 

It's a minor power increase of 15% for 50% more light output (2100 lumens). More efficient bulb than regular 55w halogen which puts out 1500-1600 lumens.

That's why we want to measure power at headlight socket. Depending upon voltage-drop along way, you may only effectively have only 45w bulb. Under-powering bulb loses A LOT of light output.