Aux Lighting - Warning lots of pics

OK lets see some pics and write ups on your aux lighting... here is mine

I want to start by saying thanks again to Mike (LegacyPGT) for all his help on the install and welding.

I purchased 2 Hella 500 driving lights and 2 Hella fog lights and put 100w bulbs in them all.
This is the car before doing anything to it.

 

The bumper was removed to mount the mounting bars for the light bar. Mike cut notches out of the bumper beam to take the moutning bars and then welded them all the way around and painted them. The last phot here is Mike welding the spacers on the light bar (light bar is just a piece of angle iron, much cheaper than buying one) so it would clear the bumper skin. This was so the mounting bars did not stick out when the light bar is removed.

 

The bar mounted on the car before paint and then the bar removed and the plate mounted back on the car. Nothing can be seen with the plate on the car. It is all hidden behind the plate... all part of the design.

 

The light bar was setup to be removable so I put in a hitch wiring connector at the front of the car and was rivited to an alum plate behing the plastic. Then I ran the wiring up to right behind the battery where I mounted a new fuse box and relays for the lights and any other thing I may put on the car later. The only spot I could find that I liked for the switches was near the IC sprayer switch. The amber light is the master switch that turns all the lights off and the other two switches choose driving and/or fog lamps.

 

I then did all the wiring for the light bar. The fogs are on the outside of the bar and are going to be my "cornering" lamps and then the two driving lights in the middle. The system is grounded through the connector and the bar is also connected to ground. So this is the end product of weeks of thinking and work to get something that I liked.

 

And here it is on. I have not aligned anything yet but IT WORKS!!!

 

more pics!! lol

 

Have some patients... can only write this stuff so fast.

 

Haha..you finality decide to get it.

Very nice :yumyum:....but are you planning to drive somewhere very dark? :biggrin: j/k

 

cool as F

 

that's damn bright. any pics from behind the dash?

 

Not yet. After I get them aligned and find a place with a good long area to point them I will get some pics up. I just finished wiring everything yesterday.

 

You funny guy. I ended up not buying the Rally Innovations bar because I thought the lights would "bounce too much" so Mike and I did a full custom install to the bumper beam. Those lights should not move at all.

As for a dark place to drive... Michigan U.P. and oh lets see... Ice Races night time could be fun... hehehe.

 

I need shades just to read this thread!

 

Thats awesome!

Where are the switches from?

 

thats alot of switches. looks good.

 

Awe, I want some!!! nice writeup.

 

Very nice job... They look great.

 

Awesome!

 

Very nice. I finally got my FF1000's driving lights on my car from last years group buy. They are fawking BRIGHT! A bitch to aim tho(ask Mike)

I get flashed quite a bit, usually by the lower riding cars. Most cars, minivans and trucks never flash. I want to flash my high beams back. But, since they are no where near as bright as the 1000's. I don't =/

 

Got all the lighting stuff through PTC Factory Outlet in GA. Mike recommended them and they seemed like a good bunch.
http://ptcfactoryoutlet.com/products-hella.html

 

Don't have the lights on it yet but I put my Rally Innovations bar on last night. Have a pair of PiAA 520 SMRs still to mount. Hopefully before the Ice Race.

The bar is actually attached to a mounting bracket that spans the underside of the car. The front of the car is towards the left, the drivers side bracket in the foreground and the passenger in the background. The close up is of one sides bar mount to the mounting bracket. It also has adjustable stand offs with rubber bumpers that push against the license plate. Hopefully this will cut down on bouncing.

 

Looks great Amy. Been waiting to see how it came out with the color you got. Better have those lights on by Ice Races!!!

 

OK I took some photos of the lights from the drivers seat, during the day into the garage. Kids are sick so I am not sure when I can get out and aim them and do night shots, hope soon. In order: Low Beams, High Beams, High Beams and Fogs, High Beams and Driving Lights, All On. At night at a long distance the differences will really show.

 

Your future is so bright, you gotta wear shades!

 

That rally inovations light bar is HOTT!!

 

Let us know how the bar hold up to the weekend. I may consider that one if I don't have a cahnce to fab one up myself.

I like mlgez's bar, but I'm not willing to take a welder to my bumper just yet.

 

Well, as far as sturdiness goes, I nailed it on the pavement pulling quickly out of my driveway this morning and couldn't find anything damaged or out of whack when I got to work. It's not too low to the ground, I have a gravel driveway with a pretty steep approach angle and I was going too fast. The underside of my bumper is pretty scraped up from before I got the RI light bar.

Now I just have to mount the lights and see if they bounce on bumpy roads.

 

Nice job on both installs! I was just researching this actually. I am planning on installing some Hella 500 fogs in the stock location on my '02 and installing a set of Hella 500 driving lights on a light bar. You should see how insane some people are on NASIOC with lights. They are afraid of the dark!

ScandiaWRX, what did that light bar from Rally Inovations run you and where did you get it if you don't mind me asking?

 

That might not work out too great...

 

I got it directly from Rally Innovations by e-mailing them my request. The bar was $269 and the color change was an additional $25, black is stock. I toyed with getting gold but thought it would be a bit to blingy, so I went with gunmetal grey. They also gave me free shipping but not sure that's a policy. Their prices on lights were competitive so I had them send them with my order, $173.65 for the PIAA 520 SMRs.

I'm hoping that lack of snow up north will cut down on wear and tear on lights and what not from off course excursions.

 

Amy's bar should protect the lights a lot too.

That bar only mounts two lights, correct?

Esper, those look just like the fogs/driving lights I was running on my SE-R when I punched a bank off an ice race (like door-to-door sanctioned racing) course that I was *ahem* touring (umm, at 70mph). Cracked one lens, that was all the damage to the car. Took a biiig truck to pull me back over the bank and onto the track again though.

 

The RI bar normally does only mount two lights but when I ordered them I asked them to space the mounting holes outboard a little more to give the license plate a little more room. What they did was they shipped it with an additonal flat bar (painted the same color as the bar) that mounts to the stock holes. The bar has outboard holes for spacing the lights farther apart. I have to say the didn't charge me anything for this request, amazing. I was thinking I could add the 6" PIAA outboard like I wanted then maybe down the road add some smaller 3" cornering lights bolted in the stock holes where the bar mounts. They would fit below the license plate, I photoshopped the plate out of my earlier pic.

I may leave the bar off for now and mount lights normally, I'm still thinking about it.

 

Here's a pic of the light bar with the lights added and a new front plate bracket (bottom pic). I made a new bracket so it attaches to the lower part of the light bar, thanks to a reminder from State Trooper that the plate in its stock position was partially blocked by the light bar (pretty party lights). The shiny things at the top are stainless plates that I made to attach to the former license plate brackets. The top of the light bar then braces to those plates to keep it from bouncing too much, there very little stress on this area. The bar is great for deflecting cones, as you can see in the bottom pic.

 

Yeah, when I made the light bar for my Sentra, I relocated the license plate to mount off of it.

And of course, promptly forgot to renew the tabs. As a wonderful officer of the Plymouth police department explained to be turing a brief roadside consultation. Those guys don't come cheap though.

He was going to find *something* to pull me over for though, I could tell the second I saw him look over at me at an intersection. That car's a moving violation in so many ways, he could have made life a lot worse.

 

good thing you dont have a front mount intercooler... no air would get through... ha ha h ha

 

Wow that looks really sharp! I like the custom plates too

 

Here is mine...

 

Now those are some high beams.... sorry I know, bad joke.

Nice setup.

 

Yeah, I'm sure that throws a lot of light, and the high placement can be very effective.

The problem is, if it's raining, snowing, foggy, or dusty, those lights are going to going to light up the snow/rain/fog/dust and pretty much blind you, which is why it's nice to get the lights mounted down low.

 

Normally I would DEFINETLY agree with you. But in this instance and I have no idea what makes it any different to the rest, the only time I have trouble driving with them is in a blizzard, otherwise the light reflected of the rain and normal snow is not really an issue, it certainly lights them up, but I'm still seeing a damnn ssight furthter then without them....as for the blizzard, I'm not sticking my arse out there! LOL

 

*Update*

Since last year I've added a little more firepower to the front of my wagon. I bought a pair of the Hella FF1000s that Vector had for sale and put 130w bulbs in them. I keep the covers on them to keep them from getting broken, I already had to replace the glass on one of the PIAAs, and to resist the temptation to use them on road. Turing them on, in addition to the existing lights, would be illegal. The light bar does not have provisions for mounting lights on top but we drilled holes through the top bar to do so. It seems to be holding up o.k.

 

Noob question time: Illegal? Is there a limit on how many lights the car can have on while on a public road? :dunno:

 

I put a pair of ff1000 in the bumper, I think im going to order up a 2nd pair for the rhino since they are only $90 per pair on clearence.
View attachment 7926

View attachment 7927

 

I've always taken this to mean you can have any combination of 4 lights on at once, i.e two low beams and two auxillary or two high beam and two driving lights. Don't know if I'm right but I'm pretty confident that lighting up 6 or 8 at once would draw unwanted attention. I am also very careful to turn of my high-beams as soon as I *think* I see someone coming. Careful aiming is very important.