High Powered bulbs for fog lights?

[WYOSVX]

I was driving a few nights ago really noticing that there is hardly any point to having fog lights on my car. Foggy nights are pretty rare here. What would be nice on Wyoming's long empty stretches of highway is super bright bulbs- like off road lights- in place of the fog lights for spotting suicidal animals waiting to leap to their death in front of my car.

Something beyond high beams.

Does anyone know if there is such a high powered bulb that'd fit and is the existing reflector adequate?

[svxcess]

I use H3 5000K HID lamps in my car. Lots of light on the ground and ahead

I disconnected my l projector low beams in the winter Great in snowy weather. Fog Lights are low enough not to reflect the snow into the windshield. Bright enough to be seen easily by oncoming drivers with no glare. Better viability.

High beams act normally

Look through my locker HERE (http://www.subaru-svx.net/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=2067)

Some members have put in HIDs in their high beam positions. Insane amount of light, but not focused and scatters everywhere. Oncoming drivers would hate you. Could work for you in tour situation

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[WYOSVX]

I have the HIDs behind the projector lenses and they're great. I had to turn down the angle, though, to not inspire road rage.

The HID projectors pointed high enough would do the job but I can't have that unless I can shut it off for oncoming traffic.

Thanks, will check your locker.

Edit:

Not sure what I have behind projectors. I have HID high beams, had my headlights redone- I'll have to look back. Not a lighting expert.

[WYOSVX]

Whew! Not much for keeping my SVX folder organized but I do have one and did find my ProLightz receipt.

SVXCESS, I like how your fog lights look and need light cast far and wide for seeing wildlife by the roadside. I don't suppose the reflector for the fog lights would focus its light the way I'd like it to since that's not what it's built for.

I have 4300k Morimoto 9006 HID bulbs, new projector lenses, Morimoto 3Five ballasts, relay.

Maybe I'll just angle my lamps a little higher.

[gearheadE30]

Yeah, you're not going to get what you want out of those reflectors without some major headlight surgery... a bulb won't change the beam pattern.

[SoobCrazy]

Oh, this thread makes my brain hurt and the engineer in me shed a tear. Let’s start with the WYOSVXs original post.

If you want to repurpose the fog lamp, you will need to remove the fluting from that portion of the headlamp lens. The textured bit of the lens is designed to bend the light from a filament-style bulb and direct it down on the ground, near the front of the car. If you want a pencil-beam in that location, no amount of HID/re-aiming/higher-wattage bulb will change the physics of the fluted lens. To answer your questions, yes, there are options to improve the lighting, and no, the existing reflector/lens is not adequate.

In Washington state and several other states, it is illegal to install “HID retrofit” kits in your car, and for good reason. For the same reasons your fog lamp’s reflector and lens are inadequate for a pencil-beam, the low beam projector in the SVX headlamp is designed for a filament-style bulb. The way light is emitted from a filament is a fundamentally different shape than HID bulbs (a straight line vs. an arc of electricity). By putting a HID retrofit kit in place of a filament bulb, the light emitted will be scattered all over the place, not at all where the design engineers expected it to be. This is why you have to re-aim headlamps after installing HIDs. NOT because they put out so much more light (they can) but because all that light is unfocused and misdirected. By re-aiming the lamps, you are taking light off the horizon (where it is most effective at night) and aiming it down right in front of your car (where it does you no good at all and actually hurts your night vision, and therefore reduces your reaction time).

Same deal with HIDs in the high beams. Instead of a tightly focused beam waaaaaay down the road, you are shooting light off into outer-space and down onto the road in front of the car.

gearheadE30 is right, to get any sort of improvement out of our headlamps, you essentially need to surgically install HID-specific projectors. It is not that expensive to do yourself (especially after you factor in how many sets of cheap Chinese HID retrofits you will end up buying over the years, figure $2-400 in parts for your typical HID conversion). I plan to install HID projectors in my German, glass headlamps once I get back to working on the SVX.

I would NEVER put a re-based HID bulb in my car, it is a FAIL on every level. There is no point to try to justify it, it’s illegal in several states and dangerous to you and other drivers.

I'm not trying to bash you guys who have already retrofitted your SVXs, just trying to let anyone who stumbles across this in the future know the truth about this subject.

http://www.theretrofitsource.com
http://www.lightwerkz.net

[wdb]

HIR bulbs are a direct replacement and improve output considerably without making them into light bombs that annoy oncoming drivers. I've run the same set in my STi for 10 years, so unlike high wattage halogen replacement bulbs these actually last a long time. They also run at the same wattage as stock. All 4 bulbs in the SVX can be replaced with HIR's. Here's the link to rallylights.com, a great local outfit that sells HIR bulbs.

http://www.rallylights.com/all/lights/light-bulbs/hir1
http://www.rallylights.com/all/lights/light-bulbs/hir2

As others have noted however, different bulbs will not turn the fog lights into driving lights.

There are also quite a few LED options available today, many of which don't take up much space at all. You might consider mounting something small in the lower grill area. The rallylights folks sell some of those too but they tend to be pricey. There are literally hundreds of places to buy LED light bars so shop around if you decide to go that route.

http://www.rallylights.com/all/lights/driving-fog/l/led