Any experience with headlight harness upgrades?

[cadjak]

I was thinking about upgrading the lights on my '94 Ford van. I could use some more lumens out front and a lot more light when backing up at night. I came across a lot of discussion of a headlight harness upgrade.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...ys/relays.html

Has anyone here given serious thought to this upgrade? I have ordered a finished harness from gosracing and am a little nervous about what I might be doing to the electrics in my truck.

http://www.gosracing.com/inc/sdetail/1983

I will stay with my stock 9007 Halogens for the time being. I may switch to GE Nighthawks, but I don't like the shorter life of the high performance bulbs.

It dawned on me this would be a good place to get some feed back about these issues.

For backup lights I am thinking about some 55 watt Hella halogens and tying then into the trailer light socket that I am not using.

[Lynx_Arc]

I had a mustang years back I put 2 100 watt halogen driving lights in the grill. I didn't buy a harness but instead used 12 gauge wire and a 20 amp relay and tapped in the headlight harness for power for the relay while wiring the 12 gauge wire directly to the battery with an inline fuse. I may be cheaper than buying a harness if you can get the proper crimp on ends to wire to your lights.

[Flummo]

A 5% voltage drop in the wires causes a loss of about 20% light, when the voltage drop is 15% the light you get only is half of what it should be. In the last year or so I have measured the drop on every car I have had the bonnet opened on, and none of them has actually been anywhere near as good as only 5% drop... So as far as I know, anyone who want good light with halogen will need better wiring than the original harness. And as far as the rest of the electrics in your truck are conscerned, there is no need to worry. The thing that may cause "problems" are systems that detect broken lamps, and I dont think you have that on a -94?

So just sit back and wait for your new harness, when you get it quickly put it in the van and go for a midnight drive. Be amazed by the diffrence in light even without changing the lamps.

[IsaacHayes]

Hmm. All the wiring is excellent in my car compared to others that are even newer than mine. Perhaps thats part why my bulbs are nice and bright still. I do want to some day wire another relay so my lows stay on when highs come on.

I should measure my wiring and see if I have a big voltage drop or not..

[Diesel_Bomber]

I've not only given serious thought to such an upgrade, but have done so on several vehicles(Good money to be made on the side doing these, and customers are so happy that they don't have to buy $80 bulbs that burn out every month). The difference is incredible, go for it. Even if your car and wiring are brand new, check your voltage drop, you'll probably be surprised. A 5% voltage drop @ 14.5v is only .725v; it doesn't take a large drop to make a big difference in light output.

Oh, and get your headlights aimed. No matter how bright your flashlight is, if it's not pointed at what you're looking at it won't do you much good.

[bones_708]

I have and used to have many old trucks. On them it works well, but you ussualy need to uprade the lamps for best effect. The newer the vehical the less likely it is to make a big difference. 80's ford truck, works great. 90's???? Don't know.

[VWTim]

Harnesses with relays is a must do on all my cars. With most factory wiring running the power all the way thru the headlight switch there's a bunch of loss

[TJJP77]

Actually you won't be doing anything bad to the electrical system of your van - you will be improving it. Most vehicles (I'm not positive about your van though) run all of the headlamp circuit's power through the headlamp switch - this places an undue load on the switch and often leads to switch failure (many vehicles have been recalled for this if the switches are failure prone as it can lead to a fire).

By using or making one of these harnesses, your headlamp switch no longer bears the load - it simply commands the relay to divert power from the battery right to the headlights. So, not only do you get less power loss to your lights, the upside is that your headlamp switch should basically never fail after the conversion. I've done this (along with a headlamp upgrade) to my Jeep and the results are simply amazing.

Chris
Newb...

[cadjak]

I did it, and you all were right. An incredible increase in brighness with stock bulbs and even better with GE Nighthawks.

[warlord]

I used a harness when I upgraded to HID. It was plug and play; a no brainer.