So i got some pilot lights mounted behind my grill and the light output is ****ty at best. I believe they are probably 55w is there a brighter bulb i can get or no?

 

What do you call poor light output ?

Is it they are fog pattern, and are designed for low cut off and a wide pattern and you really want a driving lamp which is a narrow beam out further ?

If you mount a fog lamp pattern that high off the ground behind the grille, the grille might block too much of the light output, and the cut off is just above a bar, and the beam is blocked by the grille.

Got a picture of how they are installed, and what the model is on them ?

 

the output isn't bad but i was wanting a little bit more. it has a color to it almost like when a house lamp runs on half power if you've ever seen that. they're pilot PL-2202C. i mean i figured for $45 they would be alot brighter then this.

 

So they are supposed to be driving lamps with a narrow long beam pattern, they look like this :


If they look like they are dim, what are you using for a ground ?
If you are using the base of the lamp mount ( like some of the cheaper kits do ), you could have a poor ( i.e. high resistance ) ground to the lamp, and it cannot reach full brightness due to this.

Do they use the cheap bullet connectors ?
I have never been a fan of these connector types, they can warp out of shape on the female side if you are not careful with the assembly.

$45.00 for a set of driving lamps is not that much, and I would not expect too much from them. A good set of PIAA or Hella lamps like that style are going to run ~ 300.00, reason being they are built better, and they take the time to do reflector design, and include a full harness that takes power and ground from a known good source, and have actual connectors on them, all costs money to build.

 

i have them and a pair of fogs wired together, and i grounded them to the base of the fogs which are mounted directly to my front bumper.

 

1. How are they wired to the fog lamps ( series or parallel ) ?

2. How good is the ground for the fog lamps ? ( i.e. amount of resistance body ground to the lug on the bumper )

 

you're over-analyzing it.

the fog lights he is using uses a tiny 55W H3 bulb. compared to a 9007 bulb, the H3 only puts out 750 lumens when a 9007 puts out around 1600. Unless they are mounted close to the road, you wont see much night action. I had two H3s mounted behind my grille for years and offered ZERO additional nighttime visibility. I used them as DRLs though

 

ss is actually right. I rewired the lamps with a ground to my battery and they are much much brighter. I did find that with both my new driving lights and my fogs that for some reason the output was quite a bit lower. so i ran my driving lights separately and am doing the same with my fogs.

 

Your lumen numbers are off by a bit, along with you are leaving out reflector design. Lumen does not take into account reflector design.

The sylvania Silverstar H3 bulb is 1310 +/- 195 lm ( Hella's H3 bulb is a higher lumen, about 1400 ).
The Sylvania Silverstar 9007 bulb ( 60W / 55W ) is 1350/1000 +/- 15%

There could be some lumen delta between bulb manufactures, but when installed in a narrow beam reflector it should be more than obvious.

My Hella grille I changed to the Sylvania H1 Silver Star bulbs ( 65 W / 1410 lumen ) and they over power the 60W high beam silverstar headlamp bulbs on high. My headlamps on high look like the delta on the low beam to fog lamps ( 9145 bulb ), they seem to fill the sides of the road.

Not sure where you got a 55W bulb puts out such a low lumen, but that bulb has an output lower than a 893 / 37.5 W fog lamp bulb ( 990 lumen ).

 

cross posting in action on my part.

good to hear a new ( low resistance ground ) helped matters, the description of the house lamp running during a brown out is what triggered that in my mind, good description.

If you had them on the same relay, and just spliced off the same battery to relay connection, that could be a case of too small of wire, even with the new ground in place.

If you are changing them, try going to 14 AWG wire, it will help over the 16 AWG ( 18 AWG ) wire that some of the light kits use.
I know going to 12 AWG with a relay to the battery on my headlamp made a difference in the brightness of the light with the silverstar bulbs. I did not have my lumen meter when I did it, might go back some day and put it back to factory to get the numbers.