This is what they look like when lit (ignore the two bulb brightnesses). I think it looks kind of dumb.
With the brakes on:
The blinker essentially flashes the entire outer lens. Half of it gets bright/dim, the other half turns on/off… I didn’t like this look at all.
I noticed that there were unused bulbs in the centers of the outer tails (the centers of the inner tails are used for the reverse lights, and the inners are the same part as the outers.) So with a little planning and some solder, i rearanged some things and it looks MUCH MUCH better, IMHO.
sorry for the super shitty pics, i don’t have a tripod…
Brake only:
Tails only:
Brake+tails:
Blinker:
It took about an hour to do and i didn’t have to buy anything, however, i had already purchased some clustered LED replacement bulbs for the taillights… Doing this with standard incandescebulbs would be a bad idea because you would be doubling up the current draw on some of the factory wires. The LEDs, however, draw only a fraction of what a standard bulb does, so i was not worried about the wire gauge…
I like it soo much better, i just need to get an electronic flasher unit or a resistor, because now there is one less blinker bulb…
The only thing that required any ingenuity was that while the bulb socket was on the outer taillight, there was no plug for it. Raiding jams smashed up computer yielded a standard power plug that i cut apart and slightly crushed the tin female receptacles so that it was a snug fit. a good amount of heat shrink tube and some electrical tape and now i had a winner.
I like DIY, but sorry I cant exactly tell due to the photos. Your reverse lights arent flashing now are they? (They are the inner circle on the inner lights correct?)
I went without the relays for the time being. All the lotus guys do it that way, i think it will be fine… It spikes for so short of a time, that as long as the fuse doesnt blow, i am not concerned about the wire heating up to the point of starting a fire in 3 short seconds… I still don’t know if the high beams are going to work, because i haven’t fired them up yet… still waiting on bulbs.
I don’t have any wiring diagrams, but high beams usually relayed, correct? Or is the full amperage current running through my selector stalk?
They are relayed in all good designs. I have yet to see one that runs the full + through the stalk. So yes, relayed. I set the ones on the 951 up with individual power wires to the relay’s and ballasts. The stock stuff triggered the relay’s which pulled clean power directory from the battery for the ballasts. (Everything fused of course) With seperate grounds.
yeah, like i said, lots of elise guys are running off the factory harnesses, but i have all the wiring should i choose to run to the battery… I was looking at it though and it is very hard to run anything into the front of the car without pulling it entirely apart.
I want my high beams to be independant of the low beams. The highs i got are such a ricer color that i want to be able to rock just them as “city lights”, so i was going to put a small switch that activated them under the dash, however, i don’t know if they are interlocked with the headlights, making it necessary to have the headlights on in order to turn on the highs… seems to me, tho, most cars you can turn on just the highs by pulling on the stalk for “passing lights” so i hope that i can just grab that wire and run a toggle switch in parallel.
Just FYI unless you reaim your highs (to be completely useless as highs) you’re going to piss of ALOT of people running them as city lights. Aka I’m going to blind you back. Dont the Elise’s come WITH city lights?
A) they will be aimed down
B) they are such a high color temp that they won’t blind anyone. They are pretty much useless for lighting purposes… but i have 8000K bulbs in case i need to have highs. the bulbs i am putting in today are… 30,000K lol.
Dont the Elise’s come WITH city lights?