Thread: Xenon Gas H4 Halogen and all that Jazz.

Hi all,


I've been looking at these head light upgrades for my S2a (1971).

I have got sealed beam setup right now but I have the H4 cases from my last kingswood, which happen to fit.

Instead of using the Halogen bulbs does anyone know if it's legal in Australia to use brighter blue tint Xenon bulbs? I've found some at Big W that are 100/90watt 12v Bulbs, they look like they'd fit and say the require a 12v circuit, no ballast. so Not Technically a HID conversion.

Just wondering what others think of this? I know standard is 60/55watt or somthing, so my question is;

1) Is Xenon better then Halogen in non HID upgrades?
2) Is it legal is Australia to use Blue Tint (5000K) Bulbs in cars that didn't come with them?
3) What's the legal Limit for Wattage? 100/90Watts?


Of Course they'll still be facing downwards a little and to the curb.

Many thanks to people who can point me in the right direction,
-Bryan.


PS: I would ask a staff member, but it's BigW, nobody can be found AND if you find someone, they don't know.

The halogen globes with the Xenon look (Cool Blue and other similar brand names) are a complete waste of time and are actually illegal in some states.

My young bloke imported an RX7 into the country through Sydney and it had some fairly expensive and supposedly high quality "blue" globes fitted. While it passed ADR inspection and was registered in NSW, they refused to pass it for WA with these globes fitted (and because it was too low). The light output was crap anyway, so he removed them to get it registered over here, and has never replaced them.

Both the young bloke and I have tried various headlight golbes - he probably more because "they look cool" in his various souped up ricers, and me because the original Discovery headlights are crap. We have both found that the "blue" (claimed Xenon) ones are utter crap, and are out-performed by even the basic Supercheap Autos standard globes.

One globe which I did find made some improvement was one called "plus 50" released I think by Narva. They were still not really good in the Discovery, but were a slight improvement. Standard 90/100W H4 globes probably gave the best performance, but you want to be sure that your wiring harness / original electrics are up to the job of handling the increased current draw. In most cases, particularly with older vehicles, an upgrade of the wiring harness for the lights will actually give you a better performance improvement than any changes to the globes (unless of course you opt for the full HID conversion).

In the end, I upgraded the headlights in the Disco with a full hi/lo beam HID kit. Cost me a few dollars, but was well worth it. I also have HID driving lights (Hella Predators), so anything less than full HID on low beam in particular was never really going to make the grade. And there was no need to upgrade the original wiring harness, as the HID installation kit includes running a dedicated power supply to the ballasts - the original wiring is used as a "trigger" only. The young blokes Mazda - now running around with just conventional Halogen H4 globes.