Originally Posted by
Raptor05121
They do consume less energy (to an extent) but some do not put out the lumens of stock bulbs. I know some guys like to swap out corner/brake lights thinking they have more power. That's not true. A stock 3157 puts out about ~30 lumens. Unless you had a high-powered LED, it wont put out that much, and the downside is your exterior lights use a focal plane to reflect and magnify that light, so they need the spherical light source of an incandescent bulb. Simply swapping LEDs in your taillights will give you less light and less reflective light (candela). The only proper way is to retrofit some LEDs in there that adhere to the same reflective principal. Here are mine:
As you can see, I painted the interior black to darken the red tint (without compromising the reflector's job). I have an array of LEDs soldered to a PCB, cut to fit my taillight. I also have two LEDs on the side to accompany the job for clearance issues. They are tied into the main ones so they have dual illumination of brake/turn as well. Overall I'm at about 150% illumination compared to the 30lm of a 3157.
As for headlights, you have to decide how much money you want to spend. If you want lights that will blow away that Merc that passed you, you'll need at least $300 for a proper retrofit of HID projectors. It is labor-intensive (~10 hours, need dremel, glue, and an oven). But it is worth it. Almost 3x the light output, less draw (35W compared to 55/65W), and a cleaner output. I love my projectors.
Don't even consider PnP HIDs from eBay. You get what you pay for. Don't be surprised when they ballast you paid $35 (which handles 30,000 volts AC current) suddenly catches on fire. I've seen it.
If you want to stick to Halogen- Sylvania makes the Silverstar Ultra in H13, and also good are the Philips XtremePowers and GE Nighthawks.