I know the light output has always been below par on the IS cars. I've upgraded bulbs with little to no difference. Has anyone upgraded the ballast or is it even possible.

 

TRS (TheRetrofitSource) is one of the leading brands in automotive lighting, they have higher watt ballasts available like the 55W. Vland also released full LED headlights for Lexus IS models 2006+. I will be receiving mine mid to end of Dec so I will update on how that is compared to stock (I currently have 2011+ OEM lights on my 08 F)

 

It's more the lens and projector quality than the bulbs in my opinion. I havent needed to change bulbs yet so I can't speak to different brands.

 

i have bought bulbs from TRS along with bulbs from Diode Dynamics. I'm a little nervous about opening up my lens to replace the projector, because i have never done the bake method before.

 

If you do go that method, I was skeptical at first but honestly it isn't that bad. I actually did mine about 3 weeks ago to fix the vertical adjuster. There are many threads on here on how to go about it, my main concern was melting any part of the housing or lens, but at around 220F for 8-9 mins, it doesn't harm anything. Just gets hot enough to loosen up the glue that's holding the lens in place. If you do decide to go that route, PM me and I can give you a little more detail on how I went about mine. Especially the resealing process cause I didn't do it right the first time and got condensation. Had to open it back up and redo the whole process. Learned from my mistake though!

 

Ballast won't do much. The lens swap with a slight mod to the cut off shield will yield much better results. I get the blue cutoff line with doing that and adding the CBIs in.

Here was my thread. https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...-retrofit.html

 

If only there were a business you could ship lights to, to have this done. Working 70 hours a week running a waterjet leaves no time to mod lights on my own.

 

 

thank you for that. I will have to get in touch with him.

 

Someone else you may be interested in contacting would be https://www.lightwerkz.net You can look on their page and request a quote.

The guy that does the retrofits is named Cesar. I actually work at an automotive lighting and upgrade shop and we have used Lightwerkz and have referred customers to them as well. I have always been impressed. There are hundreds of independent people who do Retrofitting and it is quite the lucrative business. I would advise you to find someone who communicate effectively and who will stand behind their work.

As for the bulbs, they will make a little difference but as stated above changing out the projector lens will make the biggest improvement. The factory projector lens has small dimples in it to help diffuse the light. Going with a clear projector lens will improve the light coming out of the projectors.

Going with a 50/55 watt ballast is possible and will improve the light output by about 20% however it will decrease the life of the bulbs you use and you also risk damaging the reflector inside the projector housing.