308 headlights

Hi Paul

Headlights on all 308's are crap frankly! They come from the "Eh Luigi,lita da candle and we see" days.

I'm in Oz and on my 84 308QV I changed the headlight globes to Narva " plus 50"types.....huge improvement and about $50.00AUD or so to do.

If you are upgrading the lights I strongly recommend upgrading the relays.....I did all mine using local Narva relays....works great and about $12.00AUD per relay


Cheers,

Pete

 

Go with HID kit, night and day different, plug and play no need to cut or splice any of the original wires, and can be convert back to original in 5min. I have one on my QV and love it.
Doesn't blind the on coming traffic and uses only 35 watts.

 

i put 100 watt off the road hellas in my 81 without changing relays or wiring and have had no problems. many other people on this site advocate upgrading both before increasing the watttage; your choice. jon s.

 

If you have sealed beams then definitly worth upgrading to Halogens. In the UK the legal limit is 55/60W bulbs. But things like the Philips Xtreme bulbs are worth investigating.

Unlikely your car has any relays in the headlamp circuit & its probable that the full current goes through the column switch.

You can/should fix this and put some relays in because it will protect the switch (which is irreplaceable) and also improve the performance of your lights significantly.

A 5% drop in voltage at the bulb causes something like a 15-20% drop in light output so its well worth doing.

Do a search & you will find some diagrams & threads around on this subject.

Enjoy your new car

 

Read these threads http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65424
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135375

See the posts by Dan Stern aka "scheinwerfermann" in the first link and read the tech on his website. http://www.danielsternlighting.com/ Briefly, you want Cibie H4 lamps and quality bulbs. Do the relay upgrade. Do not use overwattage bulbs with the stock wiring harness. Stay away from HID conversions since they are garbage. Good luck.

 

I've done the conversion and it made a huge difference. The Daniel stern site info makes it real easy.

 

After reading a lot of headlight threads, i went with the daniel stearns euro bulb type Cibies. This required relays, heavier wire and is very much worth it.

I have no experience with the HID, so cannot comment.

hth,
chris

 

Here's mine before and after the convertion. I have shown my car to one of the LA county Sheriff just find out about the legality, after I told him that it added safety to the car and driver where I as the driver can see 100x better at night and vise versa where other driver can see you much much more without blinding them. Sheriff replied, if it ads safety and not hurting or bothering anyone then he doessn't have problem with it. Again if I want to switch back to stock, 5 to 10 min top.

This has both high and low beams and has 5 years warantee.
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There is significant voltage drop in switch, relays, and wiring. Increasing the lamp wattage will put additional strain on those components which are already shaky. Replacing the headlight switch isn't fun and increasing bulb wattage only hastens it's demise.

To increase the brightness without changing the bulbs, do the relay modification. Four relays are energized by the existing wiring and switches. The voltage comes from a direct fused line to the battery. Voltage drop of several volts becomes negligible and the brightness of the existing bulbs is incredible.

Total cost about $20 for 4 relays and connectors. Total time depends on your ability to work with crimping and soldering the relay push-on connectors and drilling a few holes to mount the relays under the bucket.

The schematic below is from my 308 package.

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It's a Bosch relay, er now Tyco relay. Just email Dan Stern for the info...

 

Paul,There are few diff types of relay, this are just a few that I can remember on top of my head;
1)normally open
2)normally close
3)double contact
4)double throw
Not sure but I think you'll want the double contact so you'll have one for the high beam too.
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Reasonable question, sorry for detail brevity. I am too quick to assume everyone can look at a schematic and know the specs by reading it.

I buy from Waytekwire.com (top picture) but I stole the bottom picture from
http://www.boardrelays.com/Detail.asp?Product_ID=303.100_BU5083
Note the price differences. If buying locally double the prices.

Obtain four 12V (coil voltage) Automotive Relay (bosch type) NO (normally open) 30A relay (or better). Negative spike suppression is a nicety but not necessary. Having an integral mount tab helps. If you can get Bosch or Tyco great. I mount with stainless 10-32 screws and nylock nuts. And don't forget to buy 2 pigtail fuseholders for 15A fuses and some 12 gauge wire for the run to the battery. (14 ga would work as the run is short). And get a couple dozen female insulated push-on connectors for the relay. (think they're 1/4")
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You don't want double contact.

The NO is what you want.

You don't even need 4 relays if you want to be cheap/frugal, you can use one relay for both low beams and one relay for both high beams, as long as you keep the output wire lengths teh same so one side isn't slightly brighter than the other.

For my '61 Corvette, I bought a prewired double socket that both relays plug into, and use those two for all four headlights. Since I didn't want to cut the harness, I just bought appropriate matching connectors and slipped the relay harness right between the factory harnesses/connectors

Doug

 

Technically, SPDT relays work fine EXCEPT they introduce another element for confusion. Your mind will start to wonder, 'do I use this contact or the other one'. Buying the SPST Normally Open relays avoids any confusion.

Very true, and I'll frankly admit it didn't occur to me. And one could argue 2 parts are not only more expensive but less reliable than one. The only downside is having to put 2 wires into one connector which is an unreliable crimp.

Wiring sockets - most have a pigtail wire which requires making an inline splice. But this could eliminate the '2 wire crimp' by soldering. Inline splices, or splicing two wires in the middle of a cable bundle, can just look messy. Another possibility is a dual relay socket - picture taken from Amazon.

On fuses, don't combine them, i.e. use separate fuses for high and low lights. Having a fuse blow, it's nice to have the other (hi or lo) light still work.

To me, the ultimate goal is not having the next owner of the car fighting intermittent electricals and cussing the PO for a poor job and having to remove it. Also, wise to put a descriptive note in your service records.

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Yes, that is a socket like I used.

I solder EVERYTHING, splices, junctions, terminals, you name it. No chance of corrosion in the crimp, or loosening of terminal end to wire. It can be messier visually after it is tape wrapped, but if you hide it well enough, nobody will see it.

Or, just stuff all the wires in a split loom to hide the soldering/taping connections.

Doug

 

30A contacts are plenty adequate.
Math - 110watts divided by 14 volts equals 8 amps.

Using both headlights on one relay is 16 amps.
A 30 amp relay gives derating of 50%.
So anything above 30A is great but not necessary.

 

I too am an advocate of soldering, after crimping. Most electrical outlets will also have heat shrink tubing, which not only insulates the connection but looks good as well.

You may find it helpfull to visit the Daniel Stearns lighting web site, (as listed above). He has a great deal of information, comments about different bulbs and relays as well as great instructions.

Don't forget to replace the grounding wires and pay particular care with the cleanliness of the grounding connections.

Take care with the routing of the wires, watch the way the beadlight bucket moves and route the wires with gentle bends so that they do not want to try to bend at any of the connectors.

Along the same lines (avoiding fatigue in the wires), you might consider going with a more finely stranded wire because of its superior flexibility. I believe this type of wire is stocked at many marine hardware/electrical stores.

hth,
chris