2007 Sprint Headlights

I could appreciate extra illumination at night around the country lanes. I have fitted H7 Xenon 55w (50% brighter bulbs), but would like to know if I can run higher wattage without melting any plastic , i.e. 75w bulbs. Main agent non-committal about this.
Thanks for info.

[oldndumb]

Be careful. There is a lot of marketing hype out there regarding lights. Do your research.
One site I've found useful is Daniel Stern's. If you can not find what you are looking for, just e-mail your question to him.

Lights

[Pcdabbler]

I used a thin strip black plastic tape on the lenses on mine for a trip around Europe, so the lights didn't dip the wrong way. On arriving back, the plastic lens underneath the tape had been deformed by the heat. I'd be very careful about using higher wattage bulbs !

[Fullchat]

I have 2 questions;

Many of the contributors to this site talk about a HID conversion. How good are they and how do they fit. I have done a site search in the UK and found a kit for £255 for which I would want a substantial improvement.

What would the feesability be of converting the dip lights to main and dip along with wiring and relays, so in essence having 3 main lights? Anyone tried? Would the units take the heat. Would the alternator cope? :???:

[BallaRAT_ST1050]

Hey all,
I've done a little research on upgrades to the '06 Sprint's lighting system.
A couple of things I can share - you definitely need to do some re-alignments to get the most out of the standard set up.
Do an upgrade of the bulbs to 'Osram SilverStars' or the like.
Don't go 'blue' or any other colour light ( 3500k to 4500k is the best colour temperature)and don't increase Wattage.
HID retrofits are a great upgrade but can be price prohibitive (in Aussie a single light kit costs about $500 AUD), these lamps don't have a filament inside and work by igniting Halide gas in a tube (H7). HID lamps last up to 10 times longer and produce up to 3 times more light while only using 35watts.

FullChat - one of the thing to keep in mind about your idea of converting the 2 dip lights to mains is that the inside of the lens housings is different for Hi / Low.
The dip beams have an internal 'shade' or cut-off that prevents them from being high beam( that's why you have such a straight cut-off on the upper edge of your dipped beams
Think of it this way - the lamps are the same, the lens is the same, the height is roughly the same.So you'd have to dismantle your headlight assemble and remove the 'shades' in the 2 low beam light ( yicks!!!! - I'd hate to break something)
Hope this all helps
Mark

[ This message was edited by: BallaRAT_ST1050 on 2007-06-13 23:57 ]

[NotSoFast]

Ah, my favorite Sprint improvement subject. HID is the way to go the hi beam as BallaRAT says. The improvement makes the hi beam almost what it should be. Much more light only uses 35 watts vs 55. I would use HID on all if I could find a way to mount the other two ballasts.

I did a lot of research on HID before buying. You need to buy quality bulbs and ballasts. Generally the kits that are sold for motorcycles are poor quality. All the info that I read indicated OEM ballasts(Lexus, BMW etc) or high quality sealed ballast(preferably Japanese).

I purchased a set up with a D2S bulb and a compact Japanese ballast that has worked out very well for me. We have strted selling them in the shop I work at and the customers seem to agree.

[NikosR]

THis comes up at least once a week in this forum...

Stressing that IMHO there's a fundamental design problem with the Sprint's 3 projector lights, I'll just repeat what I have done, which has left me with acceptable lighting.

1. Fitted good quality conventional H7s (Osram Silverstars) in the low beams

2. Converted the high beam to HID using the lowest Kelvin temperature bulb I could find. I placed the ballast box in the space under the grey trapezoidal plastic cover underneeth the screen.

3. Carefully re-aimed all three of the lights.

I would stay away from any 'solution' involving increased wattage.

[Fullchat]

Advice taken. Osram Silverstars in the dip beam and a 6000K HID coversion in the main.
The HID puts the rest to shame and has definately improved the long range with nice white light.
I would be very tempted to go with the HID on all lights but positioning the ballast resistor would be awkward.
Just need to set up the beams properly now.