Feeler: Who would be interested in a headlight rewire kit group buy?

[Struc]

My defogger relay wiring got messed up and was causing some very strange problems (Wires got rubbed through and were shorting out), so I ended up pulling up my wiring harness in the front corner (passenger side) of the car to splice in some repair wiring, and in the process was realizing how weak our headlight wiring is.

About 8 years ago I bought a headlight rewire kit for my Spyder, and did a short write up on the benefits of it on that car. You know how everyone says you should rewire the fuel pump to get more oomph out of it - same concept here. Use the existing wiring as a ON/OFF trigger for a relay that has a direct connection to the battery.

So, here is the kit: Headlight Rewire Kit
Here is a better description of what it is: Product Description

It's $62 shipped. I've preliminarily contacted the company, and think I might be able to get it down to around $45 shipped. Problem is, they are trying to hook me into 50+ qty to get that price. Still working on that - not sure I'd be able to get that many takers.

Here is the write up I did 8 years ago when I installed it on my Spyder.
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Well... I finally got around to doing my headlight rewire today. The results were very encouraging. First, the testing:

Battery charger set to max setting (50A) for a good strong 13.5v at the battery with the headlights on. Light meter placement was 24" from the headlight lens (had the light pickup placed on a tape measure, which was pushed against the bottom of the lens). Then, I moved the light meter around until I found the brightest part of the light. All numbers are in Foot Candles. Light measurements taken with a "el-cheapo" ($69) Extech Light Meter. Everything, including taking the light measurements, and doing extra ground wiring back to the battery (for the heck of it) took under 3 hours.

51W Sylvania 9006 Bulb (stock, average replacement bulb)
Before Rewire: 925 Fc
After Rewire: 1175 Fc

JC Whitney "Diamond White" 80W 9006 Bulb
Before Rewire: 1200 Fc
After Rewire: 1450 Fc

Needless to say, the results were very noticable to the naked eye. I'm quite impressed with the difference. Also somewhat interesting that both bulbs increased brightness by 250Fc.

I couldn't measure the high beams unfortunatly. The "el-cheapo" light meter only went up to 2000Fc (which the lights were beyond), and I couldn't get far enough away from the lights in my garage to take any readings. I'm sure the results would have been similar, however.
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The numbers don't really mean anything in comparison to other products, but they do show a noted increase in brightness for both bulbs I tried.

Yes, you could probably build your own for cheaper, but probably not *that* much cheaper, and to me, it would be a pretty big PITA.

So, I'm not taking anything other than opinions, yea or nah. Post up if you think you'd be interested in buying one. Not commitments at this point - just trying to gauge if there is enough interest in this to try and put something together.

 

[ktmrider]

Bought one of those kits for my folks Crown Vic ( notorious for crappy HL output ).

They work extremely well, nearly doubled the lumen output but again the CV and MM have super poor stock harnesses.

One note, make sure to use some type of quenching diode on the coil leads of the relay. Direct battery voltage wipes them out fairly easily.

Oh as I have the very well-lit 93 headlights I would not be interested, just thought I would provide a real-time experience with that product and company.

 

For what its worth, I priced out the parts for those of you reading this. Some prices from google shopping, others from my favorite electronic store ( http://www.allelectronics.com/ ).

~14.00 for the bulb pigtails (4 of them)
4.50 for the relays
3.00 for the dual socket relay plug
~6.00 for the bulb female connectors off your factory harness
0.50 for the split loom
4.00 for the wire
0.10 for the ring terminals

I haven't a tired clue in my head what the pink thing is... Anyway, this comes to about 32.10 and we haven't included shipping for just getting the parts (6-15$) if you can't get them locally.

I am in for one if you can get the price down, else I will try to make one my self later this year.

 

[Barnes]

I wonder if this would work on my Camry. I have terrible light output on that thing.

 

[curtis]

I wonder what this would do for a HID ballast. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif

By the way where did you get the light meter? I want one.

 

[toybreaker]

... carefull! ...

Many Japanese model headlight systems are a switched ground system.

> This includes the Galant Vr4 models

 

[Struc]

Quoting geno:
I haven't a tired clue in my head what the pink thing is...



It's a dual fuse block - one fuse for high beams, one for low beams.

Quoting BarnesMobile:
I wonder if this would work on my Camry. I have terrible light output on that thing.



They have a harness for pretty much every type of bulb out there, so I'm sure it will work. I'm not going to limit the group buy to the 9006/9005 bulb combo, if the Camry has different bulbs.

Quoting Curtis:
By the way where did you get the light meter? I want one.


No idea, but if I can find it, I'd be happy to sell it to you. I've never used it since I did the write up 8 years ago. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Quoting toybreaker:
You must be cognicent of the way the factory laid this system out when you wire in an aftermarket set-up!
Installing this type of kit into a vr-4 (or other switched ground system) will require some additional thought.



Both the ground and power wire from the stock harness are used to trigger the relay, so I'm not sure where the problem would be. I'd assume my Spyder is wired the same way, and I've never had a problem. However, I'm certainly no electrical engineer, so if I'm wrong, I would be happy to hear about it.

 

[IncorpoRatedX]

i skimmed this thread, but this is what I bought for my HID's

is this not what you guys are talking about for the most part?

click

 

[toybreaker]

^^^ Good find, Josh.

It's only rated at 50w, and fused at twenty amps, so it's going to be marginal for the factory set-up which I *believe* is 55w x2 for the low beams and 65w x2 on the high beam circuit.

Probably works bitchin' on hid setups, (one of their advantages is a low current draw once stabilised)

... but it may not be so good for the factory set-up, and I would definately not recommend it for higher current draws that traditional aftermarkey upgraded bulbs will draw.

 

[toybreaker]

Quoting Struc:
Quoting toybreaker:
You must be cognicent of the way the factory laid this system out when you wire in an aftermarket set-up!
Installing this type of kit into a vr-4 (or other switched ground system) will require some additional thought.



Both the ground and power wire from the stock harness are used to trigger the relay, so I'm not sure where the problem would be. I'd assume my Spyder is wired the same way, and I've never had a problem. However, I'm certainly no electrical engineer, so if I'm wrong, I would be happy to hear about it.



I ain;t no engineer, just a grease monkey who has seen the train fall off the tracks a time or two when folks get "creative" with wiring.

To anyone who looks at a diagram, the circuit is plain and the hook-up will be obvious ...

... to those who just bodge sh*t together, bad sh*t will happen with a quickness ...

Upgrading the wiring is not a bad idea per se, it just needs to be done with some thought, or you;re introducing additional failure points.

Quoting ktmrider:
One note, make sure to use some type of quenching diode on the coil leads of the relay.



^^^ Wise words from a wise man, these!

The field collapsing in many cheap and cheesy relays will produce several hundred volts back up the trigger wire, and this fawk up the factory relay with a quickness

... leaving you in the dark ...

 

[Struc]

Quoting Alpha Male:
i skimmed this thread, but this is what I bought for my HID's

is this not what you guys are talking about for the most part?

click



It looks pretty much the same, but I'm pretty sure it's just for the low beams, so you would need 2 of them. One for the 9006 low beams, and one for the 9005 high beams. Maybe they would consider making one with both? With shipping, it would probably come in $10 cheaper.

And Toybreaker... it appears to be plenty beefy by the specs.
"This harness is made with 14 gauge stranded wire and features a 40 amp relay and a fused power and ground to draw current directly from your car's battery or power point."

 

[toybreaker]

I'm not here to argue /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif



I build my own. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Struc]

Sorry... Wasn't trying to argue. Just point out something that maybe you didn't see in the ad. Your input is certainly welcomed!

 

[alansupra94]

So someone correct me if I am wrong.

This would be benefical to an aftermarket H.I.D. setup and would NOT help out a stock blub setup?

Thanks,
Alan

 

[Struc]

This would help out either, but much more the stock bulb setup.

Did you read the testing I did in the first message?

 

[alansupra94]

I did but to be honest my brain isn't functioning too well today. After 2 days of interviews for 8hrs I think I might be permantly retarded.

 

[Struc]

Well, as an update, I didn't really get much response from this, so I went out and bought a cheap Ebay kit to see what kind of quality it would be compared to the unit I bought 8 years ago.

It's "made in China" to the core, but doesn't look all that bad. Here is a link to one: Ebay Headlight Rewire kit

For the archives, you can search on Ebay for "Headlight booster" and find them. Any of the ones for 9006/9005 bulb combos will work. Best part is that they were only $20 shipped. The 2 relays needed are built into a single box, which is kinda nice. Also comes with 2 20amp fuses, which some of the cheaper kits did not.

I'll install it today possibly, and let everyone know how it goes.

 

[Struc]

Installed the kit on the GVR4 today, as expected. It's actually higher quality than I expected.

The bulb connectors are high temp ceramic, which the more expensive kit were not.

The only thing wrong with it is that all of the bulb connectors were for 9005 bulbs. To use the 9006 bulb, I needed to cut out the "key" inside the bulb's connection socket with a utility knife so it would fit the connector properly. I emailed the seller to see if this was a mistake, or they are all like that.

Wired the battery terminal to the 60A ABS fuse spot, since I had long since pulled that wire and taped it off anyway. Was a handy spot to get the highest voltage from (battery relocated to the trunk).

I couldn't find my light meter to do a comparison like last time, but I assume it's a similar increase by what I saw - maybe more.

So, for $20, I'd highly recommend the kit.