Driving or fog lights anyone?

[Fubar1764]

Has anyone installed driving lights? I'm thinking that the light element of the indicator cluster might pull duty with a halogen or HID light, but then there's the issue of heat (drive faster, yes I know that hint already). My thoughts are a halogen as there's plenty of dispersement whereas the HID is a more focused beam.
The alternative would be to mount them inside the center cavity in front of the cooler.
Has anyone successfully added a fog light to their M100s? Thoughts anyone?

[TheBard]

I had a similar thought, and looked at outer or inner grills, but whilst having the exhaust worked on I poked about and decided that the loss of airflow would probably cause more hassles in this stop go DC parking lot, than the lights would be worth. Even slimline units would take up a fair amount of the limited grill surface area... Now you could always go for fender mounts, and hook/cut them in, but I'm too in love with the lines to add a front licence plate let alone add holes to that beautiful nose!

Last thought on the matter, how about a custom molded housing, a la world rally light pods that could be mounted to the nose/bonnet for winter driving, and removed for summer days. Could be cool, but again I ain't gonna try it

Ian

[John_W]

An Elan which was in the "for sale" bit at Donington (near the Chris Neil stand) had fogs fitted. They were the small variety, mounted quite neatly at the outer edges of the central (radiator) air inlet. The wire mesh had been cut to fit them. Maybe somebody took a photo of them.

I did not inspect them closely or get a picture, as I think the standard lights are pretty good and don't take the car out in nasty winter weather anyway. Although my car has never overheated, I don't fancy obstructing the airflow to teh radiators, although I think this would be less harmful than obstructing the oil cooler or charge cooler airways.

John

[Enright]

Do you mean that white one?
As I recall the foglamps were in the middle of the outer inlets (one in front of the chargecooler and one in front of the a/c rad).
IMHO, there's only one good way to do it, and that's to get a bumper off a scrapped car, get busy with the fibre-glass and make an M200 replica out of it:

[Doug]

yeah, Jack, you are better off putting in an adapter and HID lights than put fogs in the way of airflow. Fog lights never seem to light up that much anyway, and that low to the ground I'm not sure what you expect from them?

[Sy V]

I'm with Enners on this one...an M200 valance would be the DBs.

[Enright]

Where's Kuching when you need him?

Or might this "new project" be the final nail in the coffin of his social life, and possibly his marriage?

[Fubar1764]

I'm thinking of the lights because some fool ran into me 2 months ago. We were going in the opposite direction and he turns left in front of me. 23 y.o. kid without a college degree working 2 jobs whose wife just delivered #2. The father-in-law that hates him has only liability.
Rather than risk getting hit by morons too busy on their phones to drive, I'd rather attract as much attention as I can. I'd also rather not, uh, exercise the lamp pods unless absolutely necessary. Besides, the lines are so much cleaner with the lights down.
I think if I do this, I'd have to change out the cooler fan for a more robust one. I agree the charge cooler would NOT be the place to go! I'm leaning towards small halogens on the center inlet in front of the cooler. Grr. . .

[Andrew_Ennis]

The elan has 2 lamps per side on the pop up units. The outer being the dipped headlight and the inner being the main beam. The inner lights use a H4 bulb. This bulb is 2 bulbs in 1, ie. has 2 filments, but our install uses only one of the filments. Looking at the bulb the filment that is not used has a shield to prevent dazzling the oncoming traffic. My proposal is to wire this second filment to a front fog light switch. This will allow you to switch on the inner lights while on dipped beam giving you front fogs that are not main beam lights ie. do not dazzle oncoming traffic. You will also still be able to use the main beam lights.
Each of the bulbs on the front lights is 55w, using the above method with all lights on you would have 6x55W=330W of light power. That is an enormous amount of lighting power.

For even better lights, I installed Osram Silver stars which are fantastic. they easily give you an extra 50% light.

So all in all doing this mod will give you front fogs without all the install problems.
Thoughts

[Sy V]

Would the integrity of GRP pods take 6X55W - heat-wise?
Or are you proposing to wire them so that when you select full beam the "fog element" goes out?

[Fubar1764]

My purpose to doing this is to have fog lights operate with the running lights so as to be more easily seen by %&$*! drivers. Since Rita has to be in the shop soon thanks to said %&$*! driver, I'll probably ask them where they advise to mount the lights, if it's feasible at all.

[jbourgui]

Hi,

I'm driving the last days with these two ones. So far so good in Dutch weater conditions (about 10-15 degress Celsius). No effects on enginetemperature or else. These are in front of charge- and oilcooler.

These are Hella's

http://www.hella.com/produktion/HellaDE ... fahrer.jsp

click on 'Tagfahrlicht'. There is an Englisch version

The're not burning so far. But I think will 2x16W cause much heat?.

Jan-Paul

[Fubar1764]

Jan-Paul,
Those look great, but I wonder about cooling the turbo with the light in frong ot the intercooler!

[Enright]

I just had to share this little story:

After leaving Stoneleigh on Sunday I went to pick up a bumper that I'd won on eBay for a tenner. It needed to be collected from just North of Coventry and taken back to Nottingham (nigh on 60 miles away).

Only problem was - have you ever tried to fit something that's the size of your car IN your car?!?

Well I managed it: by taking the roof down, putting one end in the passenger footwell and putting the seatbelt round to secure it.

The damn thing was like a sail - sticking about 3 feet out of the top of the car, and directing the freezing wind into the cabin and straight AT me. I had to travel in the coldest night of the year like that, huddled over the vents with the dial at max heat and the blower on 4 - one of the most miserable journeys ever!

But hey, nobody died, and now I can get busy practicing fibre-glassing. Maybe come this time next year I'll have something "almost" unique (and pretty decent looking) to show for it. Any ideas where I can get some of those little square driving lamps?

[Doug]

Neil, nice OFF TOPIC story

you need some seat heaters!! a good winter project!

[Nige]

Neil,

Thanks for your help on the stand. Personally, I think the one 'not quite right' feature of the M200 front valance are the square driving/fog lights, they just look clunky to me. I think round would look better, or better still oval to pick up on the shape of the central intake. I have often looked at the range of driving and fog lamps available from Halfrauds, (made by Ring I think) there are oval ones and round projector units, and wondered about fitting them. I could always try it on the N/A as I don't have to worry about an intercooler!

Oops project creep again!

[Enright]

Aw come on Doug, I made it back ON topic eventually, I just took the scenic route!

Seat heaters are certainly do-able. I even have an idea where I could pick some up from cheaply, and a good idea how to install them (I used to be a buyer for a car seat manufacturer). Never thought that would come in handy...

Nige, you're welcome, and thanks for the reply. I'll have a look in Halfords. The ones on the yellow car above look great, as did Albert's at Stoneleigh. But I have an SE with aircon, and don't want to restrict the airflow on either side. IMHO putting lights in the middle aperture just brings them too central. So M200ish it has to be - besides, it'll look really cool to those in the know!

[Nige]

I certainly wouldn't put lights into the central aperture, the side ones as per the M200 is the way to go, I just wouldn't use square lights as I think round or oval would look better.

[Doug]

Neil, how about putting some of the new-style very small lights to the outside of the side openings in the GRP?

[jbourgui]

Hi,

Yesterday I fixed the last electrics. Here are the results

Jan-Paul