Auxiliary lighting questions: Grassroots Motorsports forum: Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

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Sept. 23, 2011 12:32 p.m. stealthfighter1 Reader

I have a comute of about 35 miles each way, and I leave my house very early when it's dark . I have two jobs and on the days that i work a double i don't drive home untill around 10:30 , which means i get home around 11-11:30 .Florida , or at least the part i live in is very foggy in the mornings and sometimes at night . i want to add a set of auxilary lights that have a long range and work well in fog and rain situations . i've used the hella 500ff with great success . i'd use oem foglights since my car is an e36 that originally had them but due to intercooler charge piping they no longer fit in the bumper.

what is a good place to find lighting used or inexpensive in good conditions?, what other lights would you recommend? , i will want the light to be yellow , and would like an opinion on what would work best, yellow bulbs or yellow film?
Sept. 23, 2011 12:46 p.m. HappyAndy HalfDork

Have you considered amber headlight bulbs? A lot of halogen bulbs can be found in amber if you look around on the interwebz. I run one amber and one regular on my car, it looks odd but works.
Sept. 23, 2011 1:06 p.m. 92CelicaHalfTrac SuperDork

I actually have a $15 set of Harbor Freight driving lights on the MX6, yellow lenses.

They seem pretty bright so far. (A real review will come later once i fix the radiator. Again.)
Sept. 23, 2011 1:21 p.m. N Sperlo Dork

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:

I actually have a $15 set of Harbor Freight driving lights on the MX6, yellow lenses.

They seem pretty bright so far.

I have four Harbor Freight fog lamps across my roof and they are extremely bright. They cannot be used when any other vehicles are within visible range in front of me. If you put them at or around bumper level and aim them downward, they would be OK, but I think a bit too bulky for your application.

Celica's would probably be better, but you could likely replace the bulbs with brighter ones. Mine had 50w and now they have 100w. Just had to cut that little tab off and they work great.

EDIT: For safety, if you modify lights keep in mind it causes a fire hazard. Make sure you relay and fuze the installed lines. Very easy to do.
Sept. 23, 2011 1:27 p.m. 92CelicaHalfTrac SuperDork

They are slightly bulky.... not sure how they would work on an E36.

I know there's sources for small true projector housing fogs, stick some HIDs in there. Would be easy to mount, and give off plenty of light with a good pattern.
Sept. 23, 2011 1:34 p.m. 92CelicaHalfTrac SuperDork

Something like this?

http://www.amazon.com/Pilot-Automotive-PL-2720B-Projector-Light/dp/B00266BUXM

Search google shopping for "Projector fog lights" and tons of options come up. The pilot style is very popular among the Miata crowd.

These get good reviews as well: http://www.kbcarstuff.com/Fog-Light-Blazers-Xenon-Projector-Lens-p/fog-bz.htm?clic...

This guy has the Blazers with a 3000k HID retrofit. This pic is fogs only:
Sept. 23, 2011 1:37 p.m. N Sperlo Dork

In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac:

I'm familiar with those. Had some mounted on the brush guard of my ranger back in the day. Their good old skool reliable foggers. A good choice. As I said before, Id upgrade them. Much slimmer than what I have on the truck.

The p71 lower lamps came from advance auto.