Making the front lights brighter

[chim500nj]

I know this topic may have been covered before however.

I have a 1997 4.2 with the original Chim style lights front and rear which personally I prefer. What I would like is the front headlights to be a bit brighter without either changing the style/blowing fuses by putting bulbs that are too powerful in or costing the earth..

Any ideas or thoughts?

[Gazzab]

take off the glass and clean the reflectors?
Replace the reflectors?
Brighter philips bulbs.

[WorAl]

How do you take the glass off?? Wouldnt mind doing mine at some point when i get it back

[chim500nj]

Gazzab said:

take off the glass and clean the reflectors?
Replace the reflectors?
Brighter philips bulbs.

Thanks for that, will have a look at the brighter bulbs.. Consult handbook for bulb type later..

[JensenA]

You can't clean the Reflector, if you so much as wipe it with a soft duster, it just rubs the chrome off! If your reflectors are badly pitted new reflectors are about £20 'ish IIRC.
The best upgrade is to fit an HID Conversion kit. The legality (strictly speaking) is maybe questionable, but the units on mine have passed 2 MOT's, and in over a years od driving I have never been flashed by any oncoming cars - ie they do not dazzle oncoming traffic. There are many different kits available, many are ste, If anyone needs a set email me for details. £130.

To answer the 'How do you get the glass off' question..... it's a pain! Remove the light pods, you'll find the glass is bonded to the bodywork so you have to cut it out, and then re-bond.

[Inny]

Have you seen the Lupo upgrade? I've seen it on Chimaeras - look great.

www.carizma.co.uk

[SimonSparrow]

I did two things to improve mine.

I wired a feed to the lights direct from the battery and used relays switched by the TVR wiring to flip them. Uprated the wiring to the lights as well, all parts available from Vehicle Wiring products.

I then replaced the bulbs with PIAA ones. Near xenon performance for under £100.

[Cerb999]

I bought some Halfords Extreme Brilliance bulbs (supposed to give "up to 100% brighter beam") I think they're slightly brighter but still pretty crap. I guess 100% of sod-all is slightly more than sod-all

Reflectors look like they could do with replacing but sounds like a pain to do. Is it easy to get a neat finish when rebonding glass?

[Phil_Edge]

Not much use at this stage - but - heard down at Austec that someone was working on a Golf-based upgrade for the Cerb... no news as yet.

How difficult are the HID kits to fit? For an average person - not a hardened Cerb owner

[JensenA]

Phil_Edge said:

Not much use at this stage - but - heard down at Austec that someone was working on a Golf-based upgrade for the Cerb... no news as yet.

How difficult are the HID kits to fit? For an average person - not a hardened Cerb owner

Very Easy. The only difficult part is drilling one hole to secure the Ballast unit. You remove the old H4 bulb, fit in the new HID Bulb. Then connect the 3 pin male plug that originally connected to your old bulb into the female 3 pin plug on the ballast unit, thats it.

The lights on the right are Phillips H4 Super bright, the other is the HID Unit.

[BCA]

HID's are worth atleast 200bhp in low light driving.

[PhilCerbera]

BCA said:

HID's are worth atleast 200bhp in low light driving.

My experience of fitting HID's on standard lamps with pics here

[BLUETHUNDER]

Forget all the performance bulbs.Dont waste your money.H.I.D kits are the way to go.........

[Ireland]

I asked this type of question ages ago and got some great replies.

I'll search for the thread and post a link once I find it.

I never fitted them as I was waiting to pass the NCT (Irish version of the MoT but a million times harder to pass) first.

I've got that passed now so it'll probably be a job for me for the coming months.


Edited to add a link .....

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Edited by Ireland on Sunday 11th January 15:47