Aux light idea

[jac04]

However, for those on a budget, it can be done for significantly less.

Yes, it can, but the results will be poor at best. Using low budget projectors with a retrofit HID kit may produce a lot of light, leading you to believe that it was an awesome upgrade, but scatter & hot spots will make it downright dangerous for other drivers. Cheap retrofits are not even close to being on the same level of performance & safety as factory or the legal Sylvania HID systems. Plus, they are illegal.

[albersj51]

I disagree. My personal experience has shown otherwise. A friend of mine has a 5-series BMW that had standard halogens. Had he purchased the OEM Hellas, it would run $1100+. He went with a company called Depo that has a knock-off version for roughly $200. I helped him install and adjust these properly and the light output, beam and cut-off are excellent. In fact, the cut-off on these is actually better than the factory ones on mine. As far as illegal, no, these are 100% legal and do not blind other drivers on the road. We verified this before he drove it around.

Buying the proper housing with an adjustable projector lens (not a standard lens where the light is bounced off of the reflective backing) should give you no problems.

I've seen the Honda's where they stick HID's in a non-projector housing and yes, those are hideous, dangerous and illegal. I am by not advocating this by any means.

I'm sure there are some truly crappy ones out there, so buyer beware. However, if you research it, and get the right parts, you can put together a good system on your own for far less.

Yes, it can, but the results will be poor at best. Using low budget projectors with a retrofit HID kit may produce a lot of light, leading you to believe that it was an awesome upgrade, but scatter & hot spots will make it downright dangerous for other drivers. Cheap retrofits are not even close to being on the same level of performance & safety as factory or the legal Sylvania HID systems. Plus, they are illegal.

[jac04]

I thought we were talking about the 7" round lights on a series rover. Not sure what a 5-series has to do with it. Either way, if you piece together a HID system in place of a 7" round headlight with cheap components, the legality will be questionable at best. There are legal HID lights that are direct fit for the 7" round lights, they are just expensive. You get what you pay for (or spending the $$ on legal lights is cheap insurance when the old lady that just ran into you says to the police officer "his lights were blinding me, I couldn't see a thing"). I guess we could just keep going back and forth, so I'll bow out now.

[yorker]

Has anyone tried wiring the relay for aux lights in parallel with the high beams? In other words, I'd like tge aux lights to come on with the high beams, but the aux lights need to be on a seperate circuit.

Any issues with this idea?

Just a suggestion but you might want to update your current headlights' wiring first? I've often seen people complain about their Rover's headlights only to find out they are running 30 year old tungsten bulbs with 45 year old wiring and while running the heater and the windshield wipers... Redo the headlight harness with a good set of relays, make sure you have good halogen sealed beams from a reputable source. Consider upgrading your alternator. If you have a IIa with the lights in the radiator panel you might want to think about bumper mounted auxiliary lighting to help spot deer. You might not have to spend a ton of money to get a pretty significant upgrade in lighting.

[mongoswede]

Just a suggestion but you might want to update your current headlights' wiring first? I've often seen people complain about their Rover's headlights only to find out they are running 30 year old tungsten bulbs with 45 year old wiring and while running the heater and the windshield wipers... Redo the headlight harness with a good set of relays, make sure you have good halogen sealed beams from a reputable source. Consider upgrading your alternator. If you have a IIa with the lights in the radiator panel you might want to think about bumper mounted auxiliary lighting to help spot deer. You might not have to spend a ton of money to get a pretty significant upgrade in lighting.

+1

Some general improvements for medium outlay of cash can have phenomonal improvements in electrical performance. On other vehicles I have replaced the battery power and grounding straps with 2 gage welding cable and copper crimp ends. This wire has very little resistance drop....you will find all electrical components work noticeably better. Also the original rover wiring rely's on 2 or 3 fuses. It would not be difficult to lay a modern headlight harness into a rover and still use the stock switches to turn them on and switch from high to low. The actual wiring is fairly simple and you could use one relay for each side and proper gaged wire for even more light output. Swap your original light housings out with the 5" aftermarket H4 units and the difference between a stock rover and yours will be night and day.

If you want to add driving/fog lights in the harness is very similar to the headlight harness only you will pull power off of your hi or low source in the headlight harness to power your aux light relay. One word of advice: don't ever use crimp locks...they are cheap and dirty and not properly sealed and make a mess of a wiring harness.

[transalpian]

I'm already running Halogens through a relay.

You may want to focus on upgrading your existing headlights before investing in aux lights. Hella makes a very nice replacement 7" round replacement headlight. Run the lights directly off the battery using relays. It makes a big difference.

Does anyone know if the Hella replacement lights (above) can take larger bulbs? On the RN page, H4 100/80 bulbs are shown "in connection" with these conversions, but I'd like to know for certain.

[jac04]

Does anyone know if the Hella replacement lights (above) can take larger bulbs? On the RN page, H4 100/80 bulbs are shown "in connection" with these conversions, but I'd like to know for certain.

Yes, the Hella lights take H4 bulbs and the 100/80 bulb will fit, but I would not recommend using it. The problem is that the Hella Vision Plus lights being sold in the US meet DOT specs and have a poor beam pattern as compared to the Hella E-Code 7" round lights. The DOT lights allow for quite a bit of scatter. More info here: http://www.rallylights.com/Vision_Plus_Information.aspx

Hella makes a 100/55 H4 bulb. If you are simply looking for high beam performance, then get this bulb.

I would suggest getting the E-Code 7" round Hella lights:
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=739 I have run the E-Code lights on all my Rovers with both 60/55 and 100/55 bulbs. The 60/55 bulbs are fine for all around use and the 100/55 bulbs offer great high-beam performance. Just make sure that your wiring & relay system is designed to take the wattage of the lights.

[yorker]

I'm already running Halogens through a relay.

What about your charging system though? Lucas Dynamo?

[mongoswede]

IPF makes much nicer headlamps then Hella. The quality of the reflectors and durability of the lens is much much better then Hella. I believe they offer a 7" replacement.

[jac04]

^^ Did a little research on the IPF lights and you're right - it looks like IPF may be the way to go along with the special IPF bulbs.

See here:

http://www.expeditionexchange.com/ipf/

[greenmeanie]

I thought we were talking about the 7" round lights on a series rover. Not sure what a 5-series has to do with it. Either way, if you piece together a HID system in place of a 7" round headlight with cheap components, the legality will be questionable at best. There are legal HID lights that are direct fit for the 7" round lights, they are just expensive.

You need to check your state laws on that. In many places converting any vehicle that did not originally have an option for HID is illegal regardless of how much you spend.

I have had Audis with HID and I have halogens on my trucks. I can't say the HID gets me excited enough to think it necessary. I'll add +2 on Yorker's comment. This link makes interesting reading.

[mongoswede]

^^ Did a little research on the IPF lights and you're right - it looks like IPF may be the way to go along with the special IPF bulbs.

See here:
http://www.expeditionexchange.com/ipf/

i run the "special" bulbs in my saab along with the E code headlight lens's...they work very nicely. 80w low/ 60 watt high eqivalent to a much higher wattage halogen bulb.

[transalpian]

i run the "special" bulbs in my saab along with the E code headlight lens's...they work very nicely. 80w low/ 60 watt high eqivalent to a much higher wattage halogen bulb.

So these have a higher wattage low beam than high beam? Tough to really see from all the online info.

[mongoswede]

So these have a higher wattage low beam than high beam? Tough to really see from all the online info.

yes. The thought being that the low beam is already being limited on light projection so they put more light out on low beam to compensate for the pattern cuttoff. They work very well and my E code lens's have a very defined pattern that works well.

[transalpian]

Ordered the ipf lights and bulbs this morning. Will report back on the results.