Bob, Dan, et al,
I've sold these kinds of conversions for years. A couple of cautions and
recommendations. 1st, the normal Q-I headlite conversion uses 60 high/ 55
low watt bulbs. This is a very dramatic upgrade to your present sealed beam
stuff (even if it's halogen). The optics are vastly superior (my experience
is Hella). By increasing the wattage to 100/80 you will not see a great
difference in output. Certainly its brighter but not nearly as much as you
might think. That balanced with other considerations argue against the
100/80 or even 100/55. You would do well to use a headlite relay for any QI
conversion, but you must with the high wattages. You will otherwise be
pushing the limits of the wire and switch's capacity. I've even seen the
lamp plug melt/burn/corrode. I'm not an engineer and I'm sure someone knows
the lumens increase of going from 60 to 100 watts, etc. I do know to divide
watts by volts to get amps and that there's more to consider than only the
alternator. Other systems are affected. I recommend no more than the 60/55
set-up.
My .02 Peter C
At 11:22 PM 12/22/98 -0500, DANMAS@aol.com wrote:
>
>In a message dated 98-12-22 08:07:34 EST, rdaniels@snet.net writes:
>
>> I followed up on a recent post and got a price quote (shown below) on these
>> headlights for a TR6. The question is, can the stock Lucas Alternator
>handle
>> the overwattage (80/100 watt) conversion.
>
>Bob,
>
>According to the owners manual, the USA TR6 came with 50/40 watt headlights,
>so you are adding 100 watts total load to the alternator with your new lights
>(assuming you won't be running both the low and the high beams at the same
>time, which some set-ups do), which corresponds to 8.3 amps. During the life
>of the TR6 production run, according to a variety of sources, there were
>primarily four different alternators used: 15ACR at 28 amps, 16ACR at 34
amps,
>17 ACR at 36 amps, and from Comm no CF1 on, 18ACR at 45 amps.
>Dan Masters,
>Alcoa, TN
>
Peter Caldwell
MGC-GT , 100-4, '31 MM8 Cammy, Innocenti S,
'52 Champ, '60 L-R 109 SW, 3 '64-73 L-R 88's
nosimport@mailbag.com
Contact for: The Columbia County Bonspiel
Curling on 13 sheets at 5 clubs in WI
Feb. 5 - 7 1999
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