Hello everyone! Sorry if this is an item that is beaten to death but I recently (yesterday) inherited a 2002 Blazer ZR2 with 32K miles on it and am wondering if there is anything I can do to make the headlights brighter? The fogs are great but I find myself not being able to tell if the headlights or domes are on. They dont seem to be putting out much different?

What are my options Chevy Gurus! Whats easy to do for someone who doesnt do too much to cars?

 

First if the housings are scratched and hazy you can polish them or replace them. Next install some silverstar bulbs, and finally put a relay kit (make your own or buy one) so the bulbs draw power directly from the battery.

 

I've used the silver stars with good results. Relay kit is an excellent idea as well.

 

Any links to a relay kit? ANd what is the install difficulty? Any DIYs?

 

Want better output from your lights?

Power for the headlights is controlled by a switch on the dash. This is *not* a great place to tap into the system, for two reasons: The headlamp switch uses tiny, high-resistance contacts to complete circuits, and the wire lengths required to run from the battery to the dashboard and all the way out to the headlamps creates excessive resistive voltage drop, especially with the thin wires used in most factory installations.
In many cases, the thin factory wires are inadequate even for the stock headlamp equipment. Headlamp bulb light output is severely compromised with decreased voltage. The drop in light output is not linear, it is exponential with the power 3.4. For example, let's consider a 9006 low beam bulb rated 1000 lumens at 12.8 Volts and plug in different voltages:

10.5V : 510 lumens
11.0V : 597 lumens
11.5V : 695 lumens
12.0V : 803 lumens
12.5V : 923 lumens
12.8V : 1000 lumens ←Rated output voltage
13.0V : 1054 lumens
13.5V : 1198 lumens
14.0V : 1356 lumens ←Rated life voltage
14.5V : 1528 lumens


The Europeans take a slightly more realistic with their voltage ratings; they consider output at 13.2v to be "100%". The loss curve is the same, though. When operating voltage drops to 95 percent (12.54v), headlamp bulbs produce only 83 percent of their rated light output. When voltage drops to 90 percent (11.88v), bulb output is only 67 percent of what it should be. And when voltage drops to 85 percent (11.22v), bulb output is a paltry 53 percent of normal! It is much more common than you might think for factory headlamp wiring/switch setups to produce this kind of voltage drop, especially once they're no longer brand new and the connections have accumulated some corrosion and dirt.

How to re wire 98+ headlights
Headlight Rewire How-To 98+ - S-10 Forum

You can use 12 or 14 gauge wire also.

 

Personally I wouldn't go any less than 12 gauge and I use 10 gauge on the kits I build.

 

I know it says 98+, but how much different would it be to do on a '95? My headlights suck! Half the time I'm not sure they're even on. If there's a car behind me after dark, their lights put a shadow in front of the blazer.

 

If you (like my first gen) only have one bulb per side treat the high beam and low beam like a bulb for each beam in that diagram.

 

For sealed beam headlights:
HOW TO: Headlight Rewire - S-10 Forum

 

Hey Neo can you res up the schematic? You say 10 ga. Are the relays dedicated for l/r or h/l? And what about day time running lights?