I would recommend the headlight relay kit, I got the Chinese made Putco 230004HW and delta headlight housing with H4 bulbs. Huge improvement.
Kind of tempted by led headlights.
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If you're looking at housings on eBay, make sure it says the face is glass and not plastic. The cheap plastic ones are junk.
Agree. And Autopals are junk too and have a crappy beam pattern. The Hella E-code housings are the best; nice sharp cutoff and have great beam focus where it needs to be.
I dunno, plenty of folks (myself included) think they're a nice upgrade from sealed beams. The CIBIE aficionados swear everything else is garbage. Not looking to start a whole flamewar on the topic though.
I've had great experience with Autopal.
I think there is another version of them that's not so good though. Kind of a Ricky Racer design.
an FYI, years ago there was a guy on a forum with an XJ and he had a lumen meter.
He compared the output of his regular old headlamp bulbs before and after the harness upgrade.
35% improvement.....
I recall there was a non e-code version that had a poor pattern.
I picked up 1.3 volts at the headlights when I did the relay upgrade, which is about right for 10-feet of the rather undersized 18-gauge wire listed in the wiring diagram. Ohms law puts that around a 20% improvement in power. Picked up 3 volts when I did the motorcycle - now that was a very noticeable improvement!
Thanks to all for your answers. I installed the harness upgrade to my Hella H4 conversion headlights, and wow what a difference. And, as suggested, I didn't need to change the headlight switch. I'm going to replace the switch though and get one of the connectors recommended by the answers. Great responses--thanks again.