So I was digging around the Candlepowerforums and I saw the recommendation to upgrade the wiring to the head lights.
Now the 1988-1992 Corolla 4-door/wagons have a pretty antiquated lamp system, i.e. the 9004 dual beam lamps that rely on the faceted lens to scatter the light for the beam distribution and 9004s are notoriously under powered(45 watts of low beam compared to 55 watts of more contemporary lights' low beams), and the aged wires means you get even lower power after the voltage drop.
Don't get me wrong, the standard lights acutally uses a relay system, so the light switch on the steering column only activates a relay signal to turn the lights on, that's why if you turn the lights to "on", something clicks under the hood before the lights come on, which is better than many cars which have lights directly routed to the switch on the dash(eg, large dials).
But the wires going to the lights are still of thin gauge, and after 17+ years of service you might be only getting 35 watts of power from each light and we wonder why we can't see squat at night.
One nice thing about the AE92 sedan/wagon lights is that despite the out-dated platform the lenses are........GLASS
If you ever look at 1993 Corollas the VAST majority of them have extremely fogged up lenses, because they use LExan plastic lenses that die over time. So a 1993 Corolla won't benefit from the wire upgrade without buying a complete new set of headlamps from Toyota which is very expensive(300 at least).
So after trying all the after market bulbs(wasted money on Silver Star, Silver Star Ultra, Night vision from Philips, etc), I realized that the problem is with the aged wiring. So I purchased a plug-and-play
heavy duty harness kit from a reputable dealer, installed it in 5 minutes, and the result is......
instantly brighter light with regular Xtravision bulbs.
So if you have a 1988-1992 Sedan/Wagon with the rectangular headlamps, a harness kit is the way to go. The ncie thing is worse come to worst, a goos harness kit doesn't cur or splice any wires so you can plug the old plugs back in and no harm done.
Disclaimer: be sure to buy the kit from reputable makers, since cheap relays and shotty wiring can die on you and the results are catastrophic. if you are good with wiring then you can do it at your own risk.
But yeah, these AE92 lights are begging for better wires to run properly.
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