Kelvin,
I do not know why you are surprised about the lackluster "great country"
technology. Consider how slowly they adopted radial tyres, disk brakes,
monocoque, automotive paint, etc. But to the headlight subject I thought
you might like this story. When I was playing with motor cars in Malaya I
was friendly with a chap who had a genuine Jaguar SS100. He got really
annoyed with people who did not dip their main beams. At the airfield
there was a crashed Beaufighter and he took off its landing lights. These
he mounted on his badge bar with a instant on-off switch. Whenever he
encountered a non-dipping car he let fly...he said it burnt the paint off
the offending car.. Mighty dangerous but we were like that then - and his
battery got sucked dry!!!
At 09:37 AM 8/15/02 -0700, Dodd, Kelvin wrote:
>Bill:
>
>First off, what year and type of car do you have?
>
>Second, how serious are you about lighting?
>
>Third, what HID headlights do you have?? I didn't know that they were
>available for 7" sports car applications, but I havn't been keeping on top
>of the new types of lights.
>
>For some obscure reason I am a lamp nutter. It may be something to do with
>loving pro-rally, or maybe just night blindness. I like driving lamps that
>will burn the fur off a cat a 200 hundred paces.
>
>So if this isn't an area of interest, please delete now.
>
>
>
>Normally I suggest using the best 7" halogen H4 headlights you can find. I
>stick with the standard 55/60 bulb, as the 100 watt ones don't last very
>long in comparison.
>
>It takes some serious driving lights to improve over a good pair of
>headlights. The three areas you can get improvement on are:
>
>Range: Requires a pencil beam lamp which will only illuminate one lane
>
>Cornering: Requires a wide beam lamp pointed outwards
>
>Fog/Snow: Requires a short cut off beam, mounted low that cuts under the
>fog and does not reflect as much as the headlamps.
>
>I am admittedly old school and don't have any useful experience with the
>modern batch of projector lamps, but am willing to learn if someone wants to
>chime in.
>
>This is my experience.
>
>For high speed cornering, driving lamps aimed wide will work better than fog
>lights as the fog lights have too short of a cutoff.
>
>Fog lights are useful for fog (duh) if mounted low, and for low speed
>cornering if mounted higher. Most driving lamps on the market look nice,
>but don't do much for you.
>
>The hardest part about mounting lamps is to ensure that they are stable.
>The large serious lamps all required an upper stabilizing strut. Smaller
>lamps can be bumper mounted, the easiest way is to drill the bumper, also
>the tackiest. The best way to mount a lamp on a British sports car is with
>a fabricated bracket that attaches solidly to the bumper horn. Check out
>the factory brackets for the MGA for an example.
>
>Knowing more about what type of car you have, and lamp type would help with
>mounting specifics.
>
>
>back to the serious question. Back when I was rallying, the only useful
>lamps available were at least 7" in diameter. Watching modern rallyists
>they are still using big lamps, so I'm guessing that even with the
>popularity of projector technology, the bigger the reflector, the better.
>
>I used to run a pair of 7" SEV Marchal 700 series lamps on my '70 MGB, set
>into the recessed grille mounted on steel brackets which filled the center
>of a split front bumper. The front bumper matched the split rear bumper.
>Ok, so I was a kid then, it seemed cool to me.
>
>The smallest driving lamp I now run is a Cibie 450 rectangular unit which is
>about 9" X 6". It has enough range to improve on the modern headlamps in
>my Pickemup truck. I'm looking forward to getting a B back on the road so I
>can do something silly with my accumulation of Cibie and Marchal rally
>lamps.
>
>Right now I'm converting my newly found Rover SD1 back to it's rightful
>Euro-spec headlamp units. Comparing the technology of the original 1976
>design H4 high/low, with seperate H2 pencil beam to the pathetic 1960s dual
>5 1/4" federal spec sealed beams is a very bad joke. Sometimes I wonder
>about our great country.
>
>The SD1 also comes with factory front and rear fog lamp locations that were
>also not fitted with lamps so the cars would be safer for the federal
>market.
>
>I'm interested in hearing from folks regarding more modern lighting, the
>good, the bad, the ugly.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bill Meyer [mailto:wcameyer@msn.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 5:00 PM
> > To: The MG List
> > Subject: Supplementary Lighting.
> >
> >
> > I have two questions:
> >
> > 1. I use extra lights to supplement the HID headlights I use.
> > Right now, I
> > use halogen driving lights aimed a bit wide to light up the
> > side of the road
> > to detect pedestrians, animals, etc. and to see around
> > curves. Fog lights do
> > not reach as far, but do spread wider. Would these be a better bet?
> >
> > 2. Presently, I have driving lights mounted on a badge bar.
> > On my other B, I
> > wish to mount just the lights, without a bar. Are there
> > bumper clips for
> > this, do I have to drill the bumper, or what??????
> >
> > Bill
>
Regards
Barrie
Barrie Robinson - barrier@bconnex.net
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