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#16
02-17-2004, 01:40 PM
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Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
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what type are you using? 
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#17
02-17-2004, 03:22 PM
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I've used a different kind every time, I buy them from ebay, and I make sure that the sellers all have great, if not perfect feedback. I get them for about 9 bucks a set, but its just frusterating. And no, I dont touch them at all when im installing them, but I havent tried to wipe them off with anything yet, I didnt want to do that for fear of leaving some residue on there and causing them to explode soon anyways. But thanks for the suggestion, next time I get a set, I'll do that.
__________________
Official AF Primer Crew!  Updated 1-23-05 For sale: Stock 4-door corner lights. 13" stock wheels with 6 month old tires.
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#18
02-17-2004, 04:23 PM
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I've been thinking about getting them because my stock headlights absolutely SUCK! But at Canadian Tire they are $25 per bulb!! That is like double of what I normally spend on bulbs...man, that's crazy.
Still will likely get them though...if they are as good as everyone says they are!?! Jason
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#19
02-17-2004, 05:58 PM
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Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
*** awesome cheap mod for those who want brighter low beams ****
if you want a REAL lighting upgrade that is cheap and will make your low beams really effective ... just get a regular clear no-coating high beam bulb from a reputable manufacturer like Philips/Osram... and..... (first a little background) the 9005 is the high beam the 9006 is the low beam the 9006 has a COATING on the tip that BLOCKS all light from coming out .. so that its indirect ... the 9005 has no light-block coating on the end of the bulb like the 9006 does ... (ok, now on to the mod) the 9005 has two tabs inside the connector to block you from plugging it in ... cut those tabs off .. now it plugs into your low beam harness ... then.. since the O-ring is a slightly different size .. you can try putting some hardware shop O-rings on there .. or you can just leave it alone .. you may find that it fits perfectly without any mod ... <edit> you will probably have to file a little bit of the plastic in the connector as it is made slightly bigger to keep you from plugging it in... just take your low & high out.. compare them... mod.. test fit... repeat.. until they are interchangeable in the low beam spot.... </edit> as for blue bulbs and such... if you want improved appearance to others at night.. then cool, the coated bulbs do this nicely.. because, THAT is the PURPOSE of those bulbs (unless of course you are talking about ionic coated beams producing yellowish output for better visibility in rain/fog)... as far as a visibility upgrade.. they are total bullshit.. unless you are going from a stock wattage bulb to an overpower coated blue bulb... but then you run the risk of melting surrounding plastic parts / wiring harnesses / etc.. and coating + over-wattage proves nothing.. as you are changing two things at once... over-wattage = more light... coating = less light... over-wattage + coating perhaps = more light... but the simple fact of the matter is, coating = reduced lumen output. period. sure.. your mileage may vary in certain scenarios. and the placebo of the blue color temperature may make it seem as if the lighting is better. but given an equal set of bulbs, one coated and one not.. the one without coating will produce a greater lumen output. so, anyways. back to the mod. the high beam bulb itself is not significantly higher wattage than the low beam (65W vs 55W). the real difference in lighting comes from the fact that the end of the bulb does not have the typical grey/black coating on the tip of it to block light output. now...... whether there is a made-in-china blue bulb out there that already has this coating removed from the tip................. anyways.. this is not meant to start a flame war against the HID-look bulbs... as many would say that the hyperwhites tend to look rather cool in some applications  ... so lets please not get all worked up on that tip ....9005 in 9006 is the cheapest, easiest way to get a MAJOR boost in your lighting without worrying about frying anything....
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#20
02-17-2004, 06:33 PM
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Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
Here are two articles from an expert....
Dangerous, illegal, blue headlight bulbs What's All The Fuss? Various companies and individuals are selling halogen headlamp bulbs with blue or purplish-blue glass. There are lots of spurious claims made for these bulbs. They're falsely advertised as "Xenon bulbs" or "HID bulbs", the blue glass is claimed to "force the bulb to perform at a higher level", and there are seemingly endless amounts of pseudoscience aimed at enticing buyers who want better performance from their headlamps. In fact, these bulbs reduce headlamp performance while increasing dangerous glare. How and why are blue bulbs dangerous? Many of them degrade roadway safety,” both yours and other drivers'. Some of them can be physically hazardous. Here are the nuts and bolts of why blue bulbs are a bad idea: White light is made up of every color of light mixed together. But the colors are not all present in equal amounts. The output spectrum of filament bulbs, including halogen headlamp bulbs, includes a great deal of red, orange, yellow and green light, but very little blue or violet light. Blue bulbs have colored glass (or a filter coating applied to clear glass) that allows only the blue light through the filter — this is why the bulbs appear blue. Because very little blue light is produced by a halogen bulb in the first place, it is only this very small amount — a tiny fraction of the total amount of light produced by a halogen bulb filament — that ever reaches the road. Blue and violet are the shortest wavelength/highest frequency colors of visible light, and, as such, they scatter the most readily. This is why the sky is blue rather than any other color from the sun's white output spectrum. Blue light doesn't just scatter most readily in the sky, but also in the eye. To observe this effect, try this informal experiment: Next time you see a dark blue storefront sign or a row of blue airport runway landing lights after dark, notice how blurry the edges of the sign or landing light appears compared to adjacent lights or signs of different colors. Decades ago, hot rodders would install "blue dots" in their cars' taillamps. These small bits of blue glass cause the taillamps to appear not red with a blue dot in the center, but rather pinkish-purple, because the observer's eye easily focuses on the red but has trouble with the blue, which remains out of focus and appears to tint the entire area of the red light. How can there be more glare if there's less light? Informal tests by the US Department of Transportation's Office of Crash Avoidance Standards found that a standard-wattage 9004-type blue headlamp bulb reduced the road lighting ability of a standard headlamp by 67%, and increased glare for oncoming and preceeding trafic by 33%. This apparent contradiction arises because of the way the human eye handles light of different colors. The short-wavelength colors (blue, indigo and violet) are very difficult for our eyes to process and focus on. Compared to uncolored bulbs, Blue headlight bulbs are able to produce more glare with less light because of the difference between the "signal image", which is what an observer sees when looking at an illuminated headlamp, and the "beam pattern", which is the light viewed from behind the headlamp facing forward, as by the driver of a vehicle. In order for headlamp light to be used by the driver, the light must travel forward from the headlamp to an object, bounce off the object and return to the driver's eyes. As light travels through the atmosphere, it spreads and diffuses according to the Inverse Square Law: The intensity drops as 1/(distance)2. That is, a given headlamp will illuminate an object 2 feet away with 1/4 of the intensity found at the front face of the headlamp, an object 3 feet away with 1/9 of the source intensity, an object 10 feet away with 1/100 of the source intensity, and so on — and then this loss is redoubled because the light must travel back to the observer's eyes. Remember that the blue filtration prevents the bulk of the light being produced from reaching the road, so the light "stealing" effect of the Inverse Square law becomes greatly magnified: Less light by which to see. On the other hand, light travels directly from the headlamp to the eyes of the oncoming observer, so the "back to the driver's eyes" redoubling of the Inverse Square law does not take place:More glare. Therefore, for any given distance between the headlamps and the observer, there'll be considerably more light to cause glare than there'll be to allow the driver to see More glare. Note that some types of "blue" headlamp bulbs are actually legal and not necessarily unsafe; you can read about them here Does the scattering tendency of blue light affect headlamp performance and road safety in other ways? Yes, in two ways: Because blue light scatters very readily in the human eye, casting a beam that's blue-tinted by any amount in a rainy, foggy or snowy environment causes increased perceived backglare for the driver of a car equipped with blue headlamp bulbs. Also, blue light per secreates increased glare for oncoming traffic. That's because blue light does not trigger a strong pupil-closing response in human eyes. It is yellow light that stimulates the human eye most strongly to constrict the pupil. Due to the comparatively weak pupil response to blue light, the human eye is very glare-sensitive to a blue signal image. With the yellow light filtered out by the blue bulb and prevented from reaching the observer's eyes, the pupils remain wider open than they should, and the eyes are hit with a blast of difficult-to-process blue light. Isn't the same amount of blue light reaching the observer's eyes whether or not the bulb is blue? Although the same amount of blue is emitted by a halogen bulb whether it's got a blue-filter coating or not, in the "no filter" case, the remainder of the output spectrum—consisting largely of yellow light—triggers a pupil-closing response in the eyes of oncoming traffic, helping to reduce the short and long term effects of headlamp glare. This glare-protection response is severely compromised when the oncoming signal image is blue. What about real Xenon headlamps that are blue from the factory? Genuine arc-discharge (also called metal-halide HID) headlamps run with a very purplish-white character similar to an electronic photoflash, because the same technology is at work—an electrical arc jumping through an atmosphere of Xenon gas. But despite the purplish appearance, this light is actually white with a discrete blue component. That is, most of the light from a Xenon headlamp is white, and there is also blue. The emerging understanding is that there may be not only a split between the glare-sensitive and non-glare-sensitive amongst the populace, but also among those particularly sensitive to blue, violet and/or near-UV light, and those not particularly sensitive to these wavelengths—with these sensitivities NOT necessarily being linked! This helps explain why some find High Intensity Discharge headlamps menacingly painful and consider them hazardous to share the road with, while others consider them no problem at all. Researchers are currently working on tweaking the output spectrum of automotive HIDs to eliminate the useless-for-seeing spike in the high blue which causes this reaction in blue-sensitive individuals. The blue signal images from HID and from blue-tinted halogen lamps arise from two wholly separate phenomena, and therefore can't be directly compared. The main thing is to keep in mind that the blue signal image of an HID headlamp is a throwaway byproduct of a light source that also emits a great deal of white light, while the blue signal image of a blue-tinted halogen lamp is the meager blue ouput left when all the rest of the light has been trapped by the filter. Are these blue bulbs illegal? US, Canadian, European and Japanese regulations all call for "white" light. There is no one specific light color that is defined as "white" light; rather, there is a large range of output spectra that are considered "white", and the "white" light is permitted to exhibit visible tints of blue, yellow, green, orange or red. Various regulatory bodies are considering narrowing the "white" standard so that it is less permissive of blue tinting. Such has been the spread of blue headlamp bulbs that many police agencies have purchased in-field beam color testers—they use these on headlamps that look too blue to be legally considered "white". What about blue-tinted headlight bulbs that I found at a local auto parts store, or on the internet? They're sold as being "DOT Approved". Are these legal? Probably not. There's no such thing as "DOT approved". DOT does not "approve" products as the European regulatory body does. Rather, the manufacturer of an item of motor vehicle equipment is legally obligated to self-certify that his product complies with all applicable regulations. For some items of equipment, such as headlamp bulbs, the certification takes the form of a "DOT" marking on the bulb base. However, there is no legal obligation for the manufacturer to submit his product for government testing before applying the marking, and many companies go ahead and apply the marking even to bulbs that do not comply with the law. The relevant regulations (US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 108 and 108.1, and ECE Regulations 8, 20, 37, 98, 99, 112 and 113 all call for "white" light, defined as discussed above, so the statement of DOT compliance itself is false for a bulb that emits a light color obviously different from "white". Why is there even a market for bulbs like this, if they're so illegal and unsafe? Many motorists have been confused by marketing claims for the blue bulbs, which falsely and incorrectly equate the blue bulbs' performance with the very expensive arc-discharge ("Xenon") headlamps found on top-line luxury cars. They have been led to believe that by replacing their car's headlamp bulbs with the blue-coated bulbs, their headlamps' performance will be increased. In fact, quite the opposite is true; their headlamps' performance is decreased by the use of blue bulbs. There is psychology at work in the marketplace, as well. Many of these blue bulbs are sold at very high prices in extremely attractive packaging. It is well known to marketers that the motorist who pays $35 or $45 or even $85 for a set of "special high performance" bulbs will probably perceive a performance improvement even if there is actually none. Some motorists believe that the blue light makes their car look "cool". This would fall into the same category as the dark plastic headlamp and taillamp covers that are snapped-up by certain drivers for their appearance "enhancement" value, despite the fact that these covers, like the blue bulbs, are illegal and dangerous. What about bulbs sold as "Xenon" that have clear glass? Probably no word is used to refer to so many different automotive lighting products as "Xenon", which is an elemental gas. A "Xenon lamp" is a gas-discharge (or High Intensity Discharge)-sourced lamp without a filament. It produces light by maintaining an electrical arc in a highly pressurized environment containing elements—including Xenon&mdashto make the arc emit a great deal of light. But, Xenon also has a place in lamps with filaments. The addition of a certain proportion of Xenon to the atmosphere in a halogen bulb allows the use of a filament designed to burn hotter, thereby emitting more light, without the rapid burnout of such a filament that would occur without Xenon. But it's not a case of more being better; beyond a certain percentage, Xenon actually reduces the lifespan of the filament. Halogen headlamp bulbs containing Xenon, in general, are not a gimmick or a scam, if they've got clear glass and are produced by a reputable company. All of the newest bulb designs being produced for new headlamps—such as the H7, H9 and H13 bulb size—include Xenon. Results have been good, with the H7 achieving a higher luminous flux (amount of available usable light) from a given wattage than was achievable with halogen bulbs that didn't include Xenon. So after a few years' experience with H7s, the manufacturers have moved to increase the performance of older, traditional bulb types. One of the techniques used to get such an improvement is to add Xenon to the bulb's atmosphere. There are other valid techniques as well, and not every bulb containing Xenon (or advertised as containing Xenon) is necessarily a performance upgrade. ---- What is Selective-Yellow Light? It's what happens when you subtract blue from an auto headlamp: Blue is the shortest wavelength and, as such, scatters the most readily. (To prove this to yourself, find a dark blue store front sign or something else that's a dark, pure blue against a dark background in the absence of white light. From any appreciable distance, it's almost impossible for your eyes to see the blue lighted object as a sharply defined form...the edges blur significantly.) When blue light strikes water (rain, fog, snow) it scatters in all directions and makes on-road vision very difficult. Blue also is a very difficult color of light to look at if it is at all intense...it stimulates the reaction we call "glare". So the French figured to remove the blue from the output spectrum of their vehicles' front lamps. White light with the blue component subtracted is known as "selective yellow" light. It is a pure yellow color with little or no orange component--hence the French yellow headlamps. There haven't been any recent comparative studies. Yellow lamps were subjectively ranked as better in poor weather and lower in glare than white ones, and this matches my own experimental experience with fog lamps that produce yellow light. But is the effect real or just an illusion? One problem with this conclusion as drawn from the French experience with selective-yellow headlamps in France is that when the question was being considered, the lamps that were being compared with white lamps reduced the absolute intensity of the beam by about 12 percent. This fact may have had a part in reducing the glare. Because the requirement for yellow light no longer exists (though such light is optional in many countries) we probably will never know the vagaries of the answer to this question. A good fog lamp has almost no upward light and a very sharp cutoff. (And a well-placed fog lamp is mounted low to the ground, to maximize vertical separation between the driver's eyes and the cutoff of the beam pattern, thus throwing light "under" the fog blanket from the driver's perspective.) Now, selective-yellow light is, subjectively, a better color for a fog lamp because the main part of the beam (below the cutoff) creates the effect of less-glaring backdazzle. The only condition under which selective-yellow light (or any kind of yellow light, for that matter) has actual, physically greater penetration power is in what is called "blue fog", in which the water droplets are many, many times smaller than the droplet size found in common atmospheric fog. A fog lamp is not defined as "yellow", but as a lamp that produces a very wide bar of light with minimal-to-no uplight and a sharp horizontal cutoff, and the determinant of a good fog lamp is amount of uplight (less is better) and sharpness of cutoff (sharper is better), not beam color. Selective-yellow light can improve fog lamp performance, because it is lacking in the high frequency/short wavelength blue light that reflects readily off atmospheric moisture (frozen or not) and into your eyes. I prefer selective-yellow fog lamps, though I would certainly take a good white fog lamp over a poor selective-yellow one. (My preference is for good selective-yellow ones!). Modern methods of obtaining selective-yellow light, such as the placement of a yellow-pass dichroic filter on the bulb envelope, on the reflector or on the lens, can create more problems than they solve. The blue-appearing lenses in many Asian-made fog lamps ("ion crystal", "gold irridium", and other nonsensical marketing names) are coated with a multilayer dichroic interference coating which passes selective-yellow light "on axis", which means "straight ahead". Unfortunately, these coatings tend to glow blue when viewed off-axis, which has caused problems with people getting pulled over for illegal "blue" lights 'cause the cop sees blue. Many lamps involving dichroic filter coatings on the bulb, reflector or lens tend to create "blue haze" above the beam cutoff or, in the case of a driving or SAE headlamp beam, scattered throughout the beam. That's because of the irridescence of these coatings, which causes or aggravates secondary-reflection problems where none would exist absent the coating. With the mirrorlike dichroic coating reflecting images of the glowing filament, light gets where it doesn't belong. None of these effects help the performance of your lamps at all! Headlamps should be white, and it is best to stick with regular, clear bulbs! Blue light is NEVER used in performance halogen lighting, ONLY in poseur items. What about these various methods of getting selective-yellow light? Until the mid 1990s, headlamps in France were required to produce yellow light. This was accomplished in one of several ways: With a headlamp lens made out of yellow glass, with a yellow glass balloon in front of the bulb either as part of the bulb or as part of the lamp unit, or, more recently, with a yellow-pass dichroic filter coating on halogen bulbs. When we talk about light color in an automotive context, we need to address the question of legality. Under US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 108 and Canadian Motor Vehicle Standards 108 and 108.1, headlamps as originally installed on motor vehicles (and as installed by anyone other than the vehicle owner) must produce white light. Let's stop there for a moment. What is "White"? FMVSS108 contains a reference to an SAE standard that defines "white" light in terms of wavelengths. But it's not just one set color. The standard includes a wavelength aggregate RANGE that is considered "white". That's why arc-discharge headlamps, with their decidedly bluish cast, still are considered "white". It's why "blue ion" or "crystal blue" bulbs with blue-pass dichroic filters sold to poseurs who want to try to pretend they have arc-discharge lamps are NOT considered "white". To read all about blue light, click here But more relevant to this discussion, the light can tend towards a yellow tint to a certain degree and still qualify as acceptable "white" light. Osram, Narva, Philips and other established European bulbmakers have been offering partial-tint selective-yellow bulbs alongside their ranges of clear/white bulbs and full-tint selective-yellow bulbs for some time now in Europe. Such bulbs are beginning to appear in bulb formats used in many US headlamps. Philips North America, for instance, is marketing a line of bulbs that have a light dichroic filter coating on them to tint the light yellow. They are sold under the "WeatherVision" name. Such bulbs can, in certain kinds of headlamps and under certain atmospheric conditions, subjectively improve poor-weather visibility. There is no concrete physical improvement, though, in most conditions, and most headlamps create the "blue haze" mentioned above with bulbs like this. The yellow-tinted light doesn't glare as much in rain, fog, or snow, but you don't see as well in good weather. There also are European-type (H1, H3, H4, etc.) bulbs with a heavier dichroic filter or a yellow glass balloon over them that produces full-tint selective-yellow light. Under FMVSS108, these wouldn't be acceptable. The laws vary from state to state. New Jersey and several other Eastern Seaboard states allow nothing but DOT-spec white headlamps. Most of the states either don't specify (and hence officially don't care) what sort of headlamp you use, as long as it has a high and a low beam. Most states say either that the headlamps must be "white" or that any lamps facing forward on a car must be "white, yellow, or amber". But white is the correct color for a headlamp. To guarantee compliance with all laws and not raise the ire of your local police in the US and Canada, headlamps must be white. Auxiliary lamps (fog, driving, etc.) can be either white or selective yellow, though it should be mentioned that there's no reason for a driving lamp to be any color other than white..
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#21
02-17-2004, 06:41 PM
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If you want information on headlights, color temp, legality, qaulity brands, etc...check out this STICKY thread in the Exterior/Body Kit/Lighting forum. It will explain this and more, including in depth info on the Silverstar's you just bought
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul...d.php?t=177538
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#23
02-17-2004, 07:16 PM
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Re: Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
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Jason
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#24
02-17-2004, 07:28 PM
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Re: Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
Quote:
Quote:
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#25
02-17-2004, 08:50 PM
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Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
I got Cool Blue headlights only because I didn't have enough money for the Sylvania Sylverstar's. My buddy has them on his '00 Camaro and they're pretty nice, I like mine also.
__________________
***90 Civic EX 4 Door***  Quote:
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#26
02-17-2004, 11:37 PM
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Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
I got the silverstars free off a friend who worked at autozone. Customer bought them, then realized they were the wrong ones and brought them back but he package was already opened. They are suppose to throw them out but he got them for me hehe. But if these ones burn out I will gladly pay the 60 bucks to buy new ones in a heartbeat. Its not a huge improvment, but I can see alot easier with the lowbeams now.
alexdog69: I have also heard about using the highbeams in the lowbeam sockets, I have two highbeam bulbs I got out of a junkyard civic just so I can try it someday. My friend did the same mod on his ITR and said it helped a decent bit for the price you pay.
__________________
89 Si #77 and now with 2003 STS winnAr mod!  LadyNRedSi: the integra is a spotless cow habibswd: i'd sooooo milk a spotless cow ...wow that was a old conversation
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#27
02-18-2004, 07:38 AM
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Re: Re: Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
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low beams = 1 bulb per headlamp on this mod doesnt change that.. so, they should not be insanely bright to the point where you should be blinding people .. as the low beam will still just be the normal 1 active element per side only .. but they will be quite a bit brighter you should adjust them after doing this ... they will still be run with the same optics in the housing .. the fluting on the lens ... and the placement of the bulb .. and when you put the high beams on .. you will get 2 x 9005 per side .. i think that if you had an SUV (ie MDX) this mod could potentially be a problem for other drivers..
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#28
02-18-2004, 05:36 PM
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Gotcha...might give it a try...or just break down and buy the Silverstar's
Thanks for the response. Jason
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#29
02-20-2004, 05:42 AM
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I give up!!!
 ...LOL....okay, seriously now, lol...for the people that care and don't want to click the link and read the sticky thread on lights...most PIAA bulbs have a 1 year warrenty, so you don't need to worry about "if it blows out." Just make sure to ask and make sure the place you buy them from honors the warrenty. Most shops that sell PIAA's do. Just remember to save the reciept, lol.
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#30
02-22-2004, 07:57 AM
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Re: Sylvania sylverstar xenons???
Ive found the ST's to be one of the best bulbs ive ever installed vs those juvenile bright blue bulbs everyone around here in my city seems to praise. If you want a real bright defined light i recommend ST. As soon as i do the SiR front end conversion i will install those and rid my POS halo projectors.
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