Re: and the Audi gods said, "Let there be light!", V8 Headlights

[marriott@Summa4.COM]

tjs5@lehigh.edu (THOMAS J. SMULL) said:

> When the moment of truth arrived, I blew the 10 amp high beam fuses
> immediately.  I have 15s in now, and they seem to be holding.
> The results are very impressive - an order of magnitude better than
> what I was living with before.  They look cool, too.


ekwong@vollmer.com (Ed Wong) said:

> Is there a company out there that I could upgrade the lighting system 
(Low
> beam, high beam & fog) on a V8?  These lights are pretty lame. If I 
change
> them to a higher wattage bulbs do I need to upgrade the fuses also?
> 
> 

Howdy,

I may be misinterpreting these posts, but I hope you folks aren't 
"boosting" the fuses in the panel while leaving the stock harness intact.

The fuse is supposed to be the "weak link" in this circuit. If the circuit 
is overloaded (too many amps) the fuse will fail to protect the circuit. If 
you change the fuse but not the wires (guage), a malfuntion could have the 
harness failing to protect the new "bionic" fuse. btdt note:  i had a 
harness burn up after a previous owner "repaired" a damaged circuit by 
replacing the 15A glass fuse with a 1/4-20 screw. Not quite the same as 
this application, but stranger things have happened. ymmv.

Best results come from rewiring with (fused, of course ;-) relays. Use the 
existing wiring harness for the "sense" wire to trigger the relay. Go 
directly from the battery to the relay, to the load, with new wires (of the 
proper guage size for the amp load). This also usually gives another 
performance boost. Operating voltage at my 9004 bulbs through the stock 
harness was 12.05 V. Running through the new harness that also supplies my 
driving lights gives me about 13.3 V. This gives ~22% increase in light 
output (of the stock bulbs). It doesn't help the pattern of the cr**py aero 
reflectors, but with the 9007 bulb switch and re-aiming, it helps . . .

hth,
James



James Marriott, BSME
work:  Manchester, NH, USA  marriott@Summa4.COM (603)625-4050 x 2539
home:  Auburn, NH, USA      marriott@grolen.com (603)483-8587

'64 Falcon Sprint Convertible--balanced & blueprinted 260 V-8
    GOES great. Stopping?
'86 4000S        the better half's commuter
'87 4000CSQ      H-stock auto-x und daily driver, Kanc-1 veteran

If ignorance is bliss, then I'm          _____
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