Has anyone in here safely used higher wattage headlamp bulbs? What is stock wattage on the mini?

 

The stock H7's are 55W.
I'm using the 65W H9 bulb on a H7 base hybrid that www.danielsternlighting.com sells.
It's much brighter than the 55W H7's and the rated life is as good as stock.
I don't think I'd chance going to 80W or 100W.
I also have a 35W 796 halogen backup bulb instead of the stock 21W bulb
without any problems (and two of them in my wife's car).

 

aeromax,

The daniel stern site is loaded with great information. Not only about bulbs but also about proper aiming of the lights and why different color bulbs can be a bad idea.

 

I'm well aware of daniel stern's website, and I've read a lot of info on there. I'm not doing anything crazy with my lights like hacksawing ebay HID kits in there and stuff. All I want to do is order some amber h7's to throw in my high beams, and I found some that are not too expensive, however they are 70w and I wanted to make sure they wouldn't fry out my harness, or melt my reflector, etc, etc.

 

stock is 55W....you should not step up wattage. just going to 65W you are increasing the current load 18%....Thats egnough to diffrence to blow a 10A fuse. Most people don't do a proper circuit load analysis and have no idea what they are doing...or not doing when they start fooling around with things. Not saying that the 65W bulbs are going to blow up your BC1, I am saying that unless you KNOW, not what someone tells you, but you know what the impact of a mod is, and you can do the math...then you probably should not do it.....stick with 55W bulbs

 

Where did you find out about the hybrid bulbs? I can't find any info about it on his site. What is the purpose behind it? Are H9's simply brighter? What was the cost?

 

Yeah, H9's are basically the same as H7's except for a little plastic piece that is supposed to prevent them from going into an H7 socket (can easily be dremeled). H9's are 65w while H7's are 55.

 

also, H9s are 2200 lumens while H7s are only 1500 lumens...
more lumens/watt ...more efficient

 

I am running OSRAM 65W hi-beams with no problems. Bought them from Daniel Stern lighting about a year ago after he sent me several personal emails explaining upgrade lighting options for the MCS. Highly recommend to check out his site.