No, but if you genuinely are interested in a usable fog light, the lower intensity halogen bulb won't reflect as badly as a HID bulb in use during actual foggy conditions.

Most guys here mod to look cool, so 6K/5K HID's or 6K/3K HID's might look cool when crusing on a friday night.

But if you actually want to see, a 4.3KHID/3K halogen setup might be more useful. SOunds dull, and not at pretty, but it's simply biology really. Our eyes can't see well into the blue spectrum of light so staying around the 3-4K range would prove to be a "brighter" light when compared to same wattage 5-6K setups.



I'm running Luminics "JDM yellow" bulbs in mine. I think they are higher wattage than stock, so i've been meaning to pull a bulb and see if it's melting my connector. The headlight lens gets noticable warmer with the fogs on, and i frequently flip them on just to melt snow/ice off my lenses even when it's a clear day.

Been 6 years with the same bulbs...guess they haven't melted yet. (but i only use them when needed)

 

so ur saying a 55 wat halogen yellow bulb is more brighter and useful than a 3k hid bulb?

for me tho i don't like running anything higher than 55wats for halogens. too hot for me even tho theres no "damages"

 

Are you guys running "dual" color H-4 bulbs (white low/yellow fog), I used to have some of those and can't find them now.

 

Most HID eBay kits use H1 bulbs that are uncoated so they shine light well in all directions... Maybe not the ones you want to see.

A proper H1 bulb running at stock wattage will work perfectly as designed for the stock housing. If you use a proper 35/55W fog light HID kit you should get more output per watt of energy consumed.

I would go LED if you are going for a look as they use much less juice and generate less heat per lumen then a Halogen bulb.

Most light comes from the 4300K color in the band of visible light. Although, for fog the yellow is farthest from blue and provides more light for you to see in that unique situation. Lumen output is best at 4300K.

 

Remember it's not wattage that always counts it's the current it draws (50W halogen vs LED vs HID, which has the least/most draw?).

 

From most to least would be Halogen, HID, LED

 

That depends on it's intended use. Keep in mind, that statement was regarding using fog lights....as fog lights.

HID's are more intense, but if you genuinely want to use a fog light in foggy conditions, the intense HID light may not be ideal because the droplets of moisture tend to reflect and scatter light where you don't want it.

Bright sunny day, HID win's hands down. An actual foggy, dreary day...the halogen lights as designed may prove to be a "better" setup just due to reflecting less light off suspended water droplets back into your eyes and causing glare

That make sense?

 

I've never seen those.


I kinda like running the yellow high beams though. I've used them down some dark roads and they really do light the hell out of everything.

 

Halogen would draw the most, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make.


Searching around, it seems that the halogen H4 bulb draws 55w for the fog light anyway, so my concern is a moot point anyway, but lets just figure out the current draw

55W/12V = 4.5 A

So two fog lamps would draw about 9A in this case.

Now lets say someone tosses in 100W halogen fog light bulbs (these do exist).

100/12 = 8.3A

So that circuit, which was originally designed for 9A of current draw through normal operation now is going to draw 16.7A. If the wire size was spec'ed for the 9A draw, it may be possible the wires are undersized, and that;s whan you get melting headlight bulb sockets and insulation and such. That's what you should be running new wires, and relays and using the stock harness to turn the relays on/off.

But after searching, seems 55w/60w is the stock wattage of the standard H4 bulb, and that's what I'm running.

And HID's do draw less, and most LED's (the ones without added resistors) draw even less.

Most guys here swap the fogs to HID anyway, so melting harnesses is usually no an issue with the lower current HID system. I don't think i've ever heard of someone wanting to swap in an 100W H4 halogen bulb here, so don't think we've explored the limits of the factory wiring harness....yet.

 

55/60 W is correct for H-4, the ones you see that say 80/90w are actually the same draw, they are just measured by a European standard. At least that's what I have read.

 

I've read that too, but the engineer in me can't really let myself accept that without doing a little background research on what that standard is and how it differs.


I just stuck with the standard 55/60 and moved on. Granted....i've also read that a lot of aftermarket bulbs sometimes draw more than rated as well.

 

Can't go wrong with Philips.