rallyup91

I recently purchased new headlights with crystal clear lenses and superwhite H4 bulbs. I was driving the other night with my brights on and they started to flicker sporadically. My regular lights work fine, its just my brights that do it. Whats up?

camaronewbie

Did you do a new harness for the lights? I'm no expert here, but I read alot where the factory wiring is hardly sufficient for the standard 55watt halogens. As I understand it, most folks put their new lights on relays, so that the light switch activates the relay, and then direct battery current goes straight to the lights through the relay, rather than having that current draw through the entire factory lighting harness which is insuffient for the power draw. If you do a on headlights, you'll come across alot of threads discussing wiring of new high energy lighting systems.

rallyup91

Yep, they came with wiring adapters that connect to the stock plugs to the headlights.

8t2 z-chev

how many watts are the brights? by flicker do you mean
they go out completely and then come on again or do
they just dim a little?
Years ago i tried some french "cibie"H-4s on my car and
though they did not flicker,they did cause the headlight
wiring to heat up a bit so i added relays...

rallyup91

They go out completely and then come on again rapidly. They are 12v 60/55watt bulbs. And its just the brights that are doing it. Glad its not the main head lights, cause then I would be in trouble!

camaronewbie

Might also have your alternator tested - I had a flickering issue with ALL my lights a few weeks back, turned out my alt was overcharging which caused a flicker. Autozone/Advance will test for free on the car.

Even with stock lighting, I don't know that I wouldn't upgrade my wiring with relays. Let's face it, the stock wiring barely handles stock lights, and it's 20 years old now - everything deteriorates after 20 years. I plan on doing my lights with relays this fall and I'm just running stock Silverstar lights. Those adapters just change out the pin designation but don't upgrade the wiring any - your still using the old stock wires to get the power to the lights - a relay setup I would think would help, and certainly not hurt - only takes about an hour to wire in, and relays are only about $8 each.

ASE doc

All new vehicles use relays to control headlights. European and Asian OEMs have used relays for this purpose for decades. Only US automakers in their pursuit of cheapness dragged their butts to get on board. The relay system directs power to the headlights directly from the battery eliminating the high load from the switch and wiring. On newer vehicles it allows control of the headlights by an ECM.

I run 270 watts of head lights including my brights, in Hella H1 and H4 units, and they brightly illuminate as far as the human eye can see. With the relay system I designed, the stock headlight wiring doesnt even break a sweat. I also run a 240 amp Powermaster alternator and an Optima yellow top battery.