What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
WHAT? Philips Xtreme Power is now available for 9006? Djdownfawl: Where did you buy your 9006 XP bulbs from? I dont see them available on powerbulbs.com, only H4 and H7!
"if you are worried about splicing, i would recommend just buy a pnp harness and plug it in. its better than nothing. and run hir bulbs off the harness if you can. i think 04-05 civic headlight you should be able to mod them to fit. and with hir, you want them getting as much voltage as possible."
--> Gear, do you mean instead of splicing stock wires just buy the pnp wire harness and splice the new wire harness to fit into the ballasts? Or did you mean I should just dump the idea of Catz Zeta and just use an upgrade wire harness? THanks dude.
"if you are worried about splicing, i would recommend just buy a pnp harness and plug it in. its better than nothing. and run hir bulbs off the harness if you can. i think 04-05 civic headlight you should be able to mod them to fit. and with hir, you want them getting as much voltage as possible."
--> Gear, do you mean instead of splicing stock wires just buy the pnp wire harness and splice the new wire harness to fit into the ballasts? Or did you mean I should just dump the idea of Catz Zeta and just use an upgrade wire harness? THanks dude.
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 51,241
Likes: 20
From: NV
Rep Power: 812 
Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
yeah dump the catz zeta and just go with wire harness upgrade for the simplest way. if you plan to use hir, the harness will greatly help them, much more than if you are just using the philips xp bulbs.
xp 9006 is available from suvlights.com or locally from aid auto (or online). im thinking of getting a set for moms 92 accord. it has vp now which is a good upgrade, but it needs more. glare is quite a bit from those older headlamps so i wouldnt dare try hir in them lol.
http://www.aidauto.com/
xp 9006 is available from suvlights.com or locally from aid auto (or online). im thinking of getting a set for moms 92 accord. it has vp now which is a good upgrade, but it needs more. glare is quite a bit from those older headlamps so i wouldnt dare try hir in them lol.
http://www.aidauto.com/
Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
Sure, based on what you said if the harness will do my bulbs good, I will go for it then. Will make it a point to take pictures before harness and after harness upgrade. I already run HIRs currently btw, but pretty sure they arent at their maximum potentials yet! Thanks gearbox, you have been a great help! Cheers bro.
Registered!!
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 43
Likes: 0
Rep Power: 0 
Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
the 9006 philips xp is actually brand new, it was just released not too long ago. previously, they only had H4 and H7 sizes. but now they have 9006.
for the aiming, heres what you do. install the new bulbs. then drive to a place where there is a white wall and park the car 25 ft away from it. so from the front of the car to the wall is 25ft distance. make sure the ground is flat. then next to your car with a measuring tape, measure the distance from the ground up to the middle of the headlight housing (where the bulb is). walk over to the wall and measure that same distance up from the ground and make a mark on the wall. so if your headlight bulb was 3 ft from the ground, on the wall your mark should be 3ft above the ground. now that you have the mark telling you how high your headlight is, look at the beam of light on the wall. there should be some sort of defining line between the light below and the darkness above. this is called the cutoff line. usually it will have a lower line on the left and a higher line on the right. this is so that oncoming traffic doesnt get blinded, but also so you can see more to the right. cutoff shapes vary, and with a reflector it may not be perfect, but some shapes include angled like ___/ or more of a flat shape like ___--- while most projector cutoffs have a defined step like ___/---- so it will vary. what you want to do is look at the lower cutoff line. you want this line to fall 2 inches below the old mark you made on the wall. so adjust the beam with the headlight adjustment screws until it is 2 inch lower than the mark you made. if the lower cutoff is exactly where the mark is, it means your light beam has no drop/slope and will blind traffic. this is the standard rule for car headlight aiming. and before you start, make sure the car is prepped like how you would normally drive it. stuff like gas level, heavy stuff in trunk, etc will all affect headlight aiming. so aim them according to what you normally carry in the car.
btw just so theres no confusion, your camry uses 9006 LO beam bulbs and 9005 HI beam bulbs. they are not swappable as 9006 runs at 55w with a silver cap and 9005 runs at 65w with no cap. you can use a 9005 as a lo beam with modification to the bulb base, but there is a good chance you will blind traffic.
for the aiming, heres what you do. install the new bulbs. then drive to a place where there is a white wall and park the car 25 ft away from it. so from the front of the car to the wall is 25ft distance. make sure the ground is flat. then next to your car with a measuring tape, measure the distance from the ground up to the middle of the headlight housing (where the bulb is). walk over to the wall and measure that same distance up from the ground and make a mark on the wall. so if your headlight bulb was 3 ft from the ground, on the wall your mark should be 3ft above the ground. now that you have the mark telling you how high your headlight is, look at the beam of light on the wall. there should be some sort of defining line between the light below and the darkness above. this is called the cutoff line. usually it will have a lower line on the left and a higher line on the right. this is so that oncoming traffic doesnt get blinded, but also so you can see more to the right. cutoff shapes vary, and with a reflector it may not be perfect, but some shapes include angled like ___/ or more of a flat shape like ___--- while most projector cutoffs have a defined step like ___/---- so it will vary. what you want to do is look at the lower cutoff line. you want this line to fall 2 inches below the old mark you made on the wall. so adjust the beam with the headlight adjustment screws until it is 2 inch lower than the mark you made. if the lower cutoff is exactly where the mark is, it means your light beam has no drop/slope and will blind traffic. this is the standard rule for car headlight aiming. and before you start, make sure the car is prepped like how you would normally drive it. stuff like gas level, heavy stuff in trunk, etc will all affect headlight aiming. so aim them according to what you normally carry in the car.
btw just so theres no confusion, your camry uses 9006 LO beam bulbs and 9005 HI beam bulbs. they are not swappable as 9006 runs at 55w with a silver cap and 9005 runs at 65w with no cap. you can use a 9005 as a lo beam with modification to the bulb base, but there is a good chance you will blind traffic.
I ordered the 9006 XP thinking they will fit in my camry. Now what?
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 51,241
Likes: 20
From: NV
Rep Power: 812 Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
well its not night and day difference, but the harness does make them brighter (prolly a few hundred more lumens total). its a good upgrade and worth doing to get the most out of the xp bulbs. when i first put the harness on i didnt really notice the brightness, but maybe cause its hard to remember what the old brightness was. i did notice the bulb color was whiter than before the harness upgrade.
what year camry? are you wanting lo beam or hi beam xp bulbs? 9006 is the lo/driving beam, 9005 is hi/bright beam.
what year camry? are you wanting lo beam or hi beam xp bulbs? 9006 is the lo/driving beam, 9005 is hi/bright beam.
Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
Just to sidetrack, the Catz Zeta system apparently uses ATO type fuses which is bigger than the mini fuses that our Civics use (apparently) hence plug and play of the ballasts at the fuse box isn't possible. Thats where splicing comes in to basically put the ballasts in the wire path between the alternator and headlights some where away from the fuse box. UNLESS of course if you can find an adaptor for the ATO fuse with slimmer blades to be inserted in the original place of the mini fuse in the box.
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 51,241
Likes: 20
From: NV
Rep Power: 812 Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
its much easier to just splice wires right in front of the headlight bulb so there's no problems with needing upgrade wires and stuff. i tried trimming the fuse and stuff, it was just too much problem and wouldnt fit. there actually was an H4 pnp catz zeta system which was awesome but it got discontinued.
Registered!!
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 43
Likes: 0
Rep Power: 0 Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
well its not night and day difference, but the harness does make them brighter (prolly a few hundred more lumens total). its a good upgrade and worth doing to get the most out of the xp bulbs. when i first put the harness on i didnt really notice the brightness, but maybe cause its hard to remember what the old brightness was. i did notice the bulb color was whiter than before the harness upgrade.
what year camry? are you wanting lo beam or hi beam xp bulbs? 9006 is the lo/driving beam, 9005 is hi/bright beam.
what year camry? are you wanting lo beam or hi beam xp bulbs? 9006 is the lo/driving beam, 9005 is hi/bright beam.
9006 is the lo beam thats what i got in XP
Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
More on Catz Zeta, in case anyone else may be interested... I have been reading on many other forums and apparently since the catz zeta makes the bulbs burn brighter with more voltage, the life span of the bulbs dramatically reduces. While this sounds totally logical, I have come up with my own theory.
Every headlight bulb out there has a max voltage rating which I think is somewhere at 15V? And the life span quoted for each bulb say 1000 hours should be based at the max voltage. In reality, we do not get 15V at our headlights due to drop from alternator to etc etc components, hence we are only burning the bulbs at perhaps 10-13V which would also mean that we should get longer than 1000 hours lifespan? With the Catz Zeta, it simply unleashes the full potential of the bulbs and although the life span is reduced as well, the 'reduced' lifespan would mean getting back the 1000 hours at max voltage instead of longer hours at lower voltage.
Sorry if I am hijacking this thread... And do correct my facts if Im wrong. Have been a junkie on bulbs these few days!
Every headlight bulb out there has a max voltage rating which I think is somewhere at 15V? And the life span quoted for each bulb say 1000 hours should be based at the max voltage. In reality, we do not get 15V at our headlights due to drop from alternator to etc etc components, hence we are only burning the bulbs at perhaps 10-13V which would also mean that we should get longer than 1000 hours lifespan? With the Catz Zeta, it simply unleashes the full potential of the bulbs and although the life span is reduced as well, the 'reduced' lifespan would mean getting back the 1000 hours at max voltage instead of longer hours at lower voltage.
Sorry if I am hijacking this thread... And do correct my facts if Im wrong. Have been a junkie on bulbs these few days!
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 51,241
Likes: 20
From: NV
Rep Power: 812 Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
thats pretty much it. you are only running the bulbs lil more than 1v over what the alternator puts out. its not that much difference. instead of 14.2 the bulb gets 15.4 and it will not lower bulb life or anything. with stock wiring, you get around 13.9v actually. with harness, 14.2v more or less. i had the same bulbs with catz zeta for 6 months with heavy night use often several hours continuously. never burnt one out. and if you read more about catz zeta, the ballasts actually provide gradual and stable voltage to the bulbs, which drastically increases bulb life. the main cause of premature bulb wear is how often you turn them on and off. flashing the bulbs will kill them very fast and the zeta ballast protects against this. so for sure any reduced lifespan from running them over 15v will be balanced by its safe start feature.
Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
Thanks for the confirmation. I'm actually in contact with a seller of Catz Zeta from eBay who is helping me figure out the wiring for my Civic. Turns out that my Civic at least uses the 0.5 inch MINI fuses, so no way for PnP. The wiring for the headlight bulbs are so concealed by insulator tape and tubing and I'm having 2nd thoughts about trying to locate the path between the alternator and my headlights. May need to strip the tapes and tubing just to have a better look at the wire paths. Actually I might just snip the wires behind the 9006 connector and put the ballast between the 2 ends since that's where the wires are visible. Mind you I'm a noob at car wiring so Im learning everything from soldering to basic physics.
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 51,241
Likes: 20
From: NV
Rep Power: 812 Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
ya all you do is cut the wires at the stock h4 plug, then run one side to the catz zeta and then wire the catz zeta to the bulb. you just splice in the ballast at the bulb socket. thats easiest and no harness needed. what i never did was make it so the hi beams work. i know its possible, i even made a diagram but never got around to it and now lost the diagram. it involved reversing the wires for lo and hi beam so they would ground out if the other turned on. just wiring the lo beam is easy, but then the hi beam wont work.
Thread Starter
Registered!!
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 53
Likes: 0
Rep Power: 0 Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
heyy i just put them in
i noticed the difference right away
the lights are brighter and whitest
also the beam goes wider then the normal bulbs
but the bulbs seem to be too low, is there any way to adjust this ?
i noticed the difference right away
the lights are brighter and whitest
also the beam goes wider then the normal bulbs
but the bulbs seem to be too low, is there any way to adjust this ?
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 51,241
Likes: 20
From: NV
Rep Power: 812 Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
yup there is an adjustment wheel on the stock lights. use a star screwdriver and turn the gear. be sure you are parked in front of a white wall so you can see which way the beam is moving up or down.
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 51,241
Likes: 20
From: NV
Rep Power: 812 Re: What Head Light Bulbs Do You Use >?
you want the car on flat level ground 25ft away from white wall. the lower cutoff should be 2 inch below the height of the headlight bulb from the ground.
Thread
Thread Starter
Honda Civic Forum
Replies
Last Post
SpoonSportsD17
West
10
Nov 29, 2001 02:02 PM
