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Back when I had my 88 Mustang I used to run 80W/100W bulbs that I absolutely loved. I never once had a problem with them and I ran them for over 2 years. I was thinking about going with the same setup in my 03 EX; however, I was told that the Civic wiring harness is a little more sensitive and by running the higher wattage bulbs that I could be putting my self at risk for damaging the wiring harness. I was wondering how much truth there is to this. If I go from the stock 55W/60W bulbs to the higher 80W/100W bulbs am I going to be okay, or is there something that I can get/do to help out with this?

 
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Crap, this was supposed to be in Lighting. Will someone please move it to where it belongs. Sorry!

 
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you will overload the wiring harness and melt it.

 
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You can get the 55W/60W bulbs with like 125W/130W light output. Thats what I did. It kept my wire harness safe and they are nice and bright as well. Here for example

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...category=36476

Evolution Super White Bulbs
reduce eyestrain and increase safety by sharpening your view. the give you clarity, brilliance and sparkle of HID lighting type of look. these lights are capable of producing up to twice the brightness power with only stock wattage. these bulbs are universal for specific application.

Might be BS but they seem to work fine for me.

 
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check your fuse. it should say what the fuse is rated for for that device. figure 60 watt bulb, and that they are the only bulbs on the line. so thats 5 amps of draw per bulb times two bulbs is 10 amps of draw. Honda might give you a 2x safety factor, a 20 watt bulb. in this case, a 100 watt bulb might draw 9 amps max, which puts you close to blowing fuses.

but then again, your blinkers and parking lights might be on the same circuit and the fuse rated for 30 amps. might do some math to see whether its a good idea or not.

 
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At one point I thought I had seen an ad for a relay (or something) that could be used to protect the wiring harness from melting so that you can use higher wattage bulbs. Has anyone seen this, used it, or know where I could find one?

 
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Will the housing get distorted or something with the heat of a larger watt bulb?

 
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That's like asking if D Cup titty's fit in an A Cup bra!

The answer: Sure they'll fit, but for how long is the question.

 
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indefinitely. itll just look ugly. I dont think its a question of how long. if it works, it works. if the wire heats up but not to the melt temperature of the insulation, doesnt matter how long. itll never hurt. if it does heat up, itll be fast enough to not be an issue of how long, it would only take minutes or less to fry the wire.

edit: or blow the fuse

 
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WhiteRabbit,
Don't you think that it can be like running an amp at 2 ohms when it's not 2 ohm stable?
The amp would work for awhile, but eventually it will fry. Am I off base?

 
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*shrug* my earthquake would run till you hit too high of a volume, not a time limit. then the fuse would go.

any amp with thermal protect would just slowly heat up till the sink was too hot then it would go into thermal protection.

any amp with no fuse or thermal protection would slowly heat up till it got too hot or till someone turned it too loud like the first example then the output transistors would go.

the reason its a differnt situation than your car wiring is that your car wiring doesnt have heatsinks all throughout the wiring. same situation above with the heat sink disconnected, there is no time limit! amp just frys. immediately.

but realistically, the balence ot cause a slow heat up in the wiring is such a small margin of power draw, the likeyhood you will achieve the balence needed to cause slow heat up is so small, its MUCH more likely to either NEVER heat up, never cause a problem, or RAPIDLY heat up, and cause thermal failure very very quickly, on the order of seconds.

I dont see it as a likely possibility to last an hour before burning at all.