OK, I've gone through many of the posts in this forum, but haven't read about anyone's experience running the 100/80 H13 bulbs in a 2011 F150 with stock wiring and headlight assemblies.

I've run 100/80 H4 bulbs in 7" round Hella and Cibie headlights with zero issues, but have no experience doing it with plastic housings. I know the heat will be higher, but will it be enough to cause damage to the housing or socket? Has anyone here actually done this with success or failure?

My fall back will be something like the PIAA or Hella 60/55 bulbs with ~4300K color temperature. I had the PIAA H4 bulbs in an old Maxima, so I am familiar with how they work and how long they last (3+ years in my case). IMO, even though the lumens may actually be lower due to the blue filter, the whiter light made a difference for the better vs. the OE bulbs.

Too bad someone doesn't make a 70/65 bulb.

 

I'll say the stock wiring part is a bad idea.

You are going from a 60/55 W to 100/80 W.

60W @ 12.6 VDC is 4.76 A each or 9.52 A for the pair
With this being outside the ability to use a 10A fuse using the 80% rule ( size the fuse, wire and other items for 80% of the max AMP draw ), it is a 15A in the fuse panel ( no such thing as a 12 A ATM fuse ).

You would be changing this to
100 W @ 12.6 VDC = 7.4 A each or 15.87 A for the pair, you are already over the design limits of the circuit both in terms of the 80% rule on the fuse, but also in terms of over driving the wiring.

The 55W @ 12.6 VDC is 4.37 A each, which with the 80% rule puts it past the 5A fuse, so there is a 10 A in there. low beams are individually fused, as well as there is a FET on each one ( more on this in a moment ).

You would be changing this to
80W @ 12.6 VDC = 6.35 A each. Still within the fuse, but the remainder of the circuit might not be sized to handle it ( don't know if Ford uses the 80% of the fuse or 80% of the max A draw for sizing the wire ).

the FET is used to turn off an item before blowing a fuse, if a problem is seen.

The general use for the FET is a short to ground, when the circuit senses the direct short to ground, it will shut off to stop the fuse from being taken.
the other use for the FET is to turn the circuit on and off via normal operation.
the switch on the dash is no longer inline with the load, this is a switch to the micro controlled part of the SJB. This is to stop any issue with items like the MFS being a load carrying device, and maybe having issues ( carboned up contacts, etc ).

If you increase the load on the headlamp low beam, the FET might see the out of range AMP draw for the headlamp and shut it off. Never tried that, and it is not documented in the service manual ( that is the short to ground example ).

If you go ahead with this modification, use an external headlamp harness for the H13 bulbs. It should have the relays, make connectors for plugging into the factory headlamp harness to trigger the relay and the female connectors for plugging into the bulbs, and the wire with inline fuses for connecting to the battery.

This is the only part i can comment on, and it is supposition as to what would really happen with the FET on the low beam.
The high beam part of the equation is not going to turn out well with 100W bulbs ( high probability of melted wires ).

 

Wires are one part of your concern, another part is it can melt your housings.

 

All good points, and remember, just finding anything higher wattage in the relatively uncommon H13 configuration could be the biggest problem. There's just not a lot out there.

 

And they are not up to DOT-specs, either.

 

Thanks for the comments. Sounds like the stock wiring won't work and, even with relays, it's hard to say how the FET would work. And assuming the electrics can be sorted, there's still the unknown effect of extra heat inside the headlight housing.

Guess I'll just stick with what I have or maybe try a higher color temperature bulb, but certainly not the short-life Sylvanias.

As for not being DOT legal, well, I've run Cibie Z-beam Euro-spec headlights in 3 vehicles over the last 25+ years, and I've never been dinged for them at inspection time. Don't know why DOT is so far behind the times, because my Z-beams light up the road extremely well, and I rarely get flashed by oncoming drivers. Maybe DOT just doesn't like the sharp cut-off.

 

the Sylvania Silverstar bulbs would be even better than no-named blue bulbs

 

Cibie is not exactly a no name company.

There is more to Euro lighting than Hella and OSRAM.

 

I know all about Cibie, I was referring to \/\/\/

 

What I read, he did not want the higher color temp Silverstar bulbs, but more so along the lines of the Phillips Xtreme or the Crystal vision ones.

Don't think Mike is going to pull a BS no name out of his rear considering he wanted to go the Cibie route.

If you know all about Cibie, you are aware they are not cheap by any means. Some of the Cibie line makes Hella look down right reasonable.

 

I wasn't talking about Cibie...

 

Read the complete post, rather than your typical tl;dr.....

That is not a no-named blue bulb.
tl;dr more like can't understand.

You would have done better if you had a web site to copy and paste from...

 

Keep on hatin...