Upgrading Headlights on a 94 Suburban

[mrstang01]

As part of my plans for the OBS Suburban I just got, the headlights are very poor. I want to upgrade, and sent a question to Daniel Stern Lighting. They recommended I upgrade the grill to a 98 Sealed beam style. From the brief research I've had time to do so far, it looks like this is the opposite way than most people go for upgrades.

What do you folks think please?

Thanks,

Michael

 

[motomech]

I think you need to post some pictures of what your talking about.
I thought the 94 and 98 grills were the same?

Do you have a work truck model? With the glass headlights?

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I'm guessing he has the Aero lights. My dad has a 99, and they are horrid. A BIC lighter strapped to the grille would be an upgrade.

If that's the case, I would think that putting the work truck grille with sealed beams would be better. Mind you, don't put the sealed beams in. Use upgraded E-code conversion lights with H4 bulbs.

I did the E-code upgrade on my VW Fox back in the day, and the improvement was substantial.

 

[ntsqd]

If the sealed beam grill uses the tiny 150mm lights (H4703) rather than the more common 165 rectangular quad headlights and Susquehanna Motorsports is out of the only H4's known to exist in that size (they only had 200 pair when I bought my set), then it may not be much of an upgrade.

A friend rebuilt a front end total of about that vintage. He used some of the "Free Form" reflector - unfluted lens aftermarket headlights. I've not driven the truck at night, but he's said the lights are pretty good.

 

[mep1811]

upgrading headlights

I would avoid Daniel Stern. I purchased a headlight harness that was defective. He was hard to get a hold of and made all sorts of reasons why the defective harness was my fault.

Susquehanna Motorsports are much more responsive and answer the phone and are willing to talk to you about your lighting needs.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Another option is to use the Hella 90mm round headlight modules. I have a quad light setup on my Focus. I find the low beams aren't much better than the factory lights were, but then the factory lights were decent to start with. The high beams are much better than the factory lights. They aren't focused as well as a big driving light, but with 100W bulbs, they throw a good amount of light.

They'd definitely be an upgrade over the factory lights on a GM. Only trouble is you'd need some sort of trim ring to blend them in. My setup was a kit with a triangular bezel to fit the Focus.

 

[mrstang01]

The 94 has the composite lights with the 9005/9006 4 light set of high and low beams.

 

[86cj]

I have a 1998 Chevy with the silverado front grill, I have done two things to mine. In 1998 I added a Painless kit to allow the low beams to work when the high beams are on, that made lights satisfactory for me.
Recently I polished the plastic lenses to brighten things up a bit, it's getting old........