What are the absolute brightest high-beam lamps?
 

I'd like to replace my high-beams with the absolute brightest lamps available. I don't care if they are legal or not. My XK8 takes 9005 lamps for the high beams. I think the OEM bulbs are either 55 watts or 65 watts. I found some Nokia lamps that are 120 watts, which is about double the wattage of the originals. Of course, I realize that that doesn't necessarily mean that they are the brightest bulbs available. What do you guys recommend?

By the way, I'm thinking about installing some aircraft landing lights in the holes where the fog lights go. Most landing lights for small planes are 4.5 inches in diameter, but the holes on the XK look like they are about 3.5. I know I've seen compact landing lights somewhere, I'm just trying to locate them. They are used on some homebuilt airplanes. The 4.5 inchers are available at up to 250 watts. A pair of those would certainly light up the highway. I remember when I started flying I was amazed at how well the landing lights lit up the runway. I want something like that for my Jag.

I don't no what the brightest are, but I'm very happy with the Sylvania Ultra Silverstars. Just one warning, if you put a higher rated bulb in your car you take the chance of melting the wires and headlight housing.

I actually ended up buying some Toshiba HIR bulbs. They are incredibly bright, and I love them. They are halogen bulbs, but they work on some other principal than standard halogens. Here's a link to the website where I bought them.

http://www.finemotoring.com/

I highly recommend these bulbs.

You've really got to watch out when replacing headlights. You don't want to blind oncoming traffic. I for one am sick of seeing people in pimped out cars with blinding bright headlamps, especially trucks with fog lights on at all times that seem to light up the back of my brain.

Just remember this, people, especially drunken ones are attracted to light. Also, things that are too bright are illegal for a reason. You'll also want to note if the lights are illuminating the road further beyond your old lights, or just making the existing illuminated area brighter.

I'm happy with Sylvania Silverstar Ultra (or whatever I bought), because they still have that beautiful white finish.

I completely agree. The bulbs I installed are only for the high beams, and I turn them off when facing oncoming traffic or when I'm catching up to someone from behind. I live in a rural area with lots of country roads. In the past few years both my wife and I have both hit deer with other cars. These HIR bulbs definitely give me more illumination down the road, but I'm not going to be shining them at oncoming drivers.

I also live in a rural area, with many trucks that have a sort of an incessant need to fit crazy bright headlamps, so I've got a soft spot with that. I can only hope that you can avoid another deer. Luckily, my biggest worry would be raccoons.

This is very true I actually did this in a mazda I had and it was a pain to get headlights to work after. It was a lease so I didnt want to buy new wiring and assemblies so I lived with it till I turned it in. I dont think I was even running anything too much higher then stock either. I had silverstars in my last vehicle and they did the job.

I had the sylvania ultra silverstars in my 97 VDP -- first time on a country road we were "flashed" by oncoming, blinded traffic. Of course that stopped once we flashed back and blinded them even more. (oops) 100% improvement over OEM bulbs and very easy to install.

Don't forget the wiring!!!
If you go and change the bulbs for a 150 w bulb you could see your jaguar go up in a ball of smoke. I'm sure they didn't rate the wire to take twice the load, so you could maybe fit a relay??? Maybe there is an electrical buff here that can tell you a way.

The brightest bulbs I know of (granted, these are illegal) that are an easy mod to our cars is 80W HID bulbs (if you are after ultimate brightness, then 4300K bulbs are what you are after). You WILL!!!! need to upgrade the wiring and use 2 relays as each bulb has an initial surge of 40 amps when starting. Then they will back down to around 10 amps each. But, an 80 watt HID bulb will easy output more light than a 150 watt halogen bulb (by about a factor of 2-3). They also will not burn as hot, so, the likelihood of damage to your headlight housing is minimized (may still happen due to a higher wattage bulb generating more heat). Just saying.

Attachment 176580

If its any help guys, I added 100w bulbs to my Jag / Saab 93 and over a year ago to my AudiA6 and have had zero problems, just exremely bright white lights with no oncoming traffic flashing me:)
These were made by Ring and were the sportzblue variety for those that may be interested.
I think HIDS are the way to go though

I have had Sylvania Silverstars in other cars. They are expensive, and they seem to only last a few months before they burn out. Plus theoretically, isn't yellow-er light actually better for nighttime vision? Ultra-blue lights may look brighter, but I don't think they actually help you see.

I've had numerous failures of Sylvania bulbs recently ...even the standard replacements. I wonder what's going on? <shrug>

As far as these ultra-bright bulbs go, well, I hope you're all being honest when you say you'll dim your lights for oncoming drivers. I can assure you that a large portion of drivers in my neck o'the woods don't extend that simple courtesy so I'm a little skeptical. And, frankly, even many of the upgraded low-beam bulbs are blinding to oncoming traffic. Maybe if people would make sure their lights were properly aimed it wouldn't be so bad.

To be honest I don't understand this fascination with lighting. HIDs, blue lights, ultra white light, halo headlights, cat's eye headlights, LED bars, ultra bright LED tail lamp replacements, projector lamps, fog lamps, blah blah blah. Yeah, I've upgraded lighting a bit on some of my cars but, geeez, lighting seems to have developed into some sort of sub-culture where everybody is trying to be the brightest guy on the block. To each his own and all that but I'm just getting plain old sick and tired of being blinded by other drivers' lights. Really. I'm not usually one to be melodramatic but sometimes I feel like I'm being assaulted by bright lights.

I'll stop now before I *really* start ranting....

Cheers
DD

I can assure you that I don't blind oncoming drivers. I despise those guys just as much as you. But I live out in the boonies, and we have an overpopulation of deer in this area. I hit a deer a few years ago and my wife hit one about two years ago. Every few days I drive by another dead deer that someone hit. The bulbs I got allow me to see much further down the road to avoid deer and other critters. But I definitely turn them off when cars are approaching.