spudgun

my old s4 had xenons which even on dipped makes my imprezason full beam look sh*te!
ive got headlight protectors, and i got new bulbs fitted by my dealer, which he got from scoobysport( brightwhites or summat like that)
anyway, if i want xenons, is there a particular type i should buy, and where do i get them.
also, if i have a driving light conversion, prodrive or scoobysport( which is best?), can i have my spots on in normal night driving? at the mo i drive around with my front fogs on coz its nice for focus owners to know whats charging up behind them, but can i do this with driving lights? stupid question, but can u have the driving lights dipped?

Paul M

Ive been looking into to this recently, from word of mouth a PIAA conversion seems to be most favoured, however best to buy from someone like Graham Goode, rather than Prodrive its a lot chaeper. However, PIAA do an 80Pro serieslamp with a H4 buld that could be rigged for a dip/main configuration

Doc

If you drive around with your front fogs on you really should be driving a BMW.

I would go out and get some asbestos clothes if I were you.

chiark

Fixed penalty for misuse of foglights = £20 fine. Don't do it, it's annoying for most other road users.

For driving lights, Rob C has put together an excellent site detailing his choice and rationale. Quite an eye opener - why are the kits soooo expensive from our favourite suppliers?

Rob's page can be found at

Dave T-S

Spudgun
Please tell me you don't live in North Essex.....

Paul M

I've just ordered my PIAA kit from Graham Goode at £212 + vat, hope,1 its worth it and 2, it comes with lamp covers they look pretty!!!!! Not sure how I can be obsessed by a piece of white plastic with black lettering but there you go, I need to get out more I think!!!!!!!

GEJL

Sort of stating the obvious, but the cheapest way I've found of improving the standard dipped beam is to keep the lenses clean! I put some superwhite bulbs in mine (not expensive ones) and got increasingly annoyed over a couple of weeks how crap they seemed. By then cleaning the lenses I reckon I increased the light output 50%... Given recent weather, I'd say it's a daily job. And no, the power washers don't get rid of the grime.

Another BTW is that you can now get a gas discharge kit from Demon Tweeks to fit in your existing lights. Costs around £900 though.

Chris L

To add to what Guy has said, obviously keeping the lights clean will make a big difference, but even if you don't like using it on your windscreen, RainX works well on headlights too. It also makes the power washers a bit more useful, as the lights don't collect so much dirt in the first place.
Chris

spudgun

yes i do live in north essex, ive got a red mica MY00, and princess has a silver MY95.
i washed the headlights by hand today and suprise suprise, they work a lot better! so much for the headlamp wash system!
will now stop driving round with fogs on, but hope my driving light upgrade can be made to come on when dipped.no i shouldnt be driving a bmw, i turned an m3 down in favour of a scooby, and im mighty glad i did.will be getting scoobysport upgrade in new year.
thanks fellas

Dave T-S

Glad to see you are stopping driving round with front fogs on, because anybody that drives in the opposite direction to me round here with dazzling (they all dazzle) front fogs on gets to find out how good my 360w PIAA setup is

BTW - if you want to increase light output - throw those plastic headlamp protectors in the nearest dustbin.....

[This message has been edited by Dave T-S (edited 20 December 2000).]

spudgun

who did your lights dave? are they scoobysport? i wouldnt dazzle u much anyway, i travel at warpspeed, u would probably think it was a flash of lightnening!
have u tried dragon autos in colchester for anything? apparently they are getting 4wd rolling rd in jan and fitting unichips etc.

GM

Spudgun,

If you want to have the driving lamps on with dipbeam you do need to get the H4 bulb version. I have the Prodrive kit (which uses 120W H3 bulbs I think) and they are bright - if you get them set up so that they do any good, they'll dazzle people much more (and at much greater range!) than foglamps If you need to dip headlights to avoid dazzling people, then you'd need to switch off the driving lamps anyway which is why they're relayed up so they go off when you dip the headlights Oh, and I think its probably illegal not to anyway

G

Paul M

Well I've fitted the PIAA kit, finally at 8.45pm and I dont have a garage, which made it interesting in the dark, I do have a broken collar bone which also made it painful, but it's done now!!
Thet reallt are quite bright...pretty impressive actually or in other words....Jeeeesus they're bright.

spudgun

gm, when you had the prodrive kit done, did they improve your normal driving lights too, or is it just the fogs which are binned and replaced with driving lights? even on decent roads, i find the normal headlights rubbish, and really miss xenon lights. do prodrive/ subaru dealers do these, or scoobysports?
cheers

GM

Spudgun,

The Prodrive kit just replaces the fog lamps with driving lamps, it doesn't include anything to upgrade the headlamps. My car has the Morette twin head lamp conversion as well as the Prodrive kit (it was originally the dealer's demo car and had a bucket load of extras fitted). This isn't that popular an alteration as it makes the car look a bit strange. Main beam is pretty good, with the driving lamps on its amazing! Dip beam is pi55 poor though.

My last car was a Sport (also bought 2nd hand) and it had really good headlights, both on main beam and on dip. In retrospect I guess the previous owner must have uprated the bulbs although I never checked to see what spec they were - they did have a very white light though. I must admit that it wasn't until I started looking at this BBS and some of the Scooby sites before I bought my Turbo that I discovered the standard lights were so poor!

GEJL mentions gas discharge units from DT in his post in this thread - don't know of any other suppliers.

G

Dave T-S

Spudgun
I did my own lights (and Carolyn's).

Got PIAA's from Graham Goode. They are tricky to fit yourself (ask PaulM!!).

Scoobysport do Cibie's not PIAA.
Cibie's use H2 bulb which is rubbish - PIAA use H3 which is much better....

Try getting into the habit of cleaning your headlamps daily with a rag - yes scary concept I know - the washers are rubbish in comparison.

Haven't been to Dragon Autos - they are 30 miles away - I live in the REAL North Essex - there is life north of Colchester

Kev

Hi all...

I've got the PIAA conversion and PIAA superwhite bulbs in the h/lamps and don't regret the cost at all. I suppose it depends on how long you have to drive with main beam on, I use mostly unlit A & B roads to commute and find them a must.

One tip, make sure you go for the "pencil" beam and not the "driving" beam I tried both and ended up with what the dealer said was best in the end . . . and they have clear lenses and match the clear h/lamps of the 99-> cars. My web site

Paul M

Not having seen the pencil beam, I've gone for the driving beam even with the Xenon bulb upgrade in the standard dip/main lights the PIAA's are superb, I'd guess at around 400metres of absolute daylight resolution.
It took me about two hours to install most of that was cuting out the old blanking plate and finding a cable run for the what are quite short relay-to-lamp cables.

Dave T-S

PaulM
What old blanking plates??

Oh yes, the wiring loom that doesn't fit if you run the earth to the battery like it says in the instructions!! You probably did the same as me and used the bolt on the bonnet slam panel by the radiator for the earth.

Paul M

Dave TS
Well they're not really blanking plates I suppose, when the lamp mount is bolted through the GGS adapter plate, it cant be mounted onto the car because the nut holding the lamp mount fouls on the black plastic thingy (tech. description obviously) which the standard fogs mount through, so I had to cut a recess into to get the lamps to fit flush.
I found the relay-to-battery cables fine in length, I had probs with the relay-to-lamp cable lengths. I've positioned the relays in front of the battery and behind in the near side lamp.
Rob C mentions the cut out of the black plastic thingy on his web site I believe

firefox

If anyone needs the PIAA mounting plates/brackets..

Let me know

J.

PhilH

Can someone please clarify:

Does the Graham Goode PIAA kit include or require mounting brackets? If they're extra what's the additional cost likely to be?

Phil

Dave T-S

PhilH
GGR PIAA kit does not include brackets, they are £20 per pair plus VAT.

PaulM
More ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream.....
I bolted the PIAA adaptors to the Scoob factory fog lamp mounts, drilled a hole right through both for the single PIAA lamp mount, then did the lamp nut up from behind the bumper.....you can then adjust them by tightening up the nut from behind.

rjc

Dave,

If you bolt through from behind it is a lot harder to adjust the lights correctly. In my MY00 car access to the nut would be very difficult as well.

Where do people mount the relay in a MY00 car? The PIAA kit says stick it on the 'slam' panel above the LHS headlight. What is a slam panel?

Rob C

Paul M

Dave TS
WIsh I ahd the chance of choking a cat with cream!!!!!

Know what you mena about bolting through the back plate, but I figured it would be to hard to get fully tight and vibration-less. Ive also put a pair of fibre washers to act as dampers between lamp and bracket as well, hopefully to reduce vibration a little.

Paul M

PS Wish I had a chance of spelling wish I had chance correclty

Richard Gledhill

And correctly correctly

Paul M

DOH!!!!!!

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Spudgun

You a 5dr??

spudgun

nah, puff. its a 4 dr red mica MY00.