Additional/Secondary Fog Lights

Taliano

Newly Enlightened
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Mar 1, 2009
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One mod I've been wanting to do is to add a second pair of fog LEDs to my car. The purpose is a little complicated and needs explained. They're not just so I can have more light at night.

I want to have a pair of DRLs (daytime running lights) for more noticeability in the day time. I don't want to burn my HIDs in the day since it would be a waste. I would use my fogs, but they are contingent on my low beams... that is, they can only be turned on when my lows are already on. So I really have no DRLs for the day. This is why I want to add a pair of 'secondary' fog LEDs to my car. They would never be on at night with my other lights, but would be on in the day when my other lights are off. They would not be for the purpose of illuminating the road, but only to make other drivers notice me for safety reasons.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Remember, I prefer LEDs due to their effectiveness as DRLs.
 
Can't quite tell if you're thinking of making your own or buying LED DRLs, but Hella has several really nice LED DRLs (many of which have dual intensity; they can be wired up to dim down and serve as LED parking lamps when you turn on the car's parking lights or headlamps). None of them is cheap; all of them are OE-quality. You should be able to see most styles here, and Valeo (Cibie) also has a super 4-emitter LED, sized and shaped to fit directly in place of their Fogstar small round fog lamp, which is used on a ton of different makes and models all over the world. But in typical Valeo fashion, they make it almost impossible to buy. I have a pair of them here on my desk, don't remember what channel I bought them through, but about the only site I can find for them at the moment is this Japanese one, not too useful.
 
so is the OP looking for fog lights or indicator lights/DRL as mentioned? Fog lights are for using as supplemental lights to the low beam to illuminate the road. Calling day-time visibility lights "secondary fog" sounds like a misnomer.
 
I just called them 'secondary fogs' since they would be lower than the headlight level and would kind of look like fogs. Technically, you're right, they wouldn't be fogs at all. They would be additional lights as DRLs. I was thinking of mounting them in the 'mouth hole' of my front end (if I can), again, for daytime only without my other lights on. They don't have to be super bright... just flashy and noticeable.

And no, I don't want to make them myself. I am looking for two small weather-proof units that I can just wire up. I know a lot of places to look, but your advice is an extension, and therefore is valuable.

My car is a 2006 Acura TSX.

Thanks for your replies and advice.
 
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Why not rewire the foglights to be independent? You'd have to look up the specific wiring diagrams, but I know that with a lot of cars, you can splice a wire so that the foglights are independent of the low-beams.
 
Why not rewire the foglights to be independent? You'd have to look up the specific wiring diagrams, but I know that with a lot of cars, you can splice a wire so that the foglights are independent of the low-beams.

You're right. I would love to do this. I can ask people on another car forum, and there is a huge thread on it there. It's very possible. The problem is that I am very cautious of taking advice from a forum to cut wires in the relay. Many people on that thread who explain how they did it are too ambiguous and broad. So I'm not exactly leaning toward following it.

I'm still going to pursue this independent fog mod though.
 
If the 'fog' lights on the TSX are worth using in actual fog, they won't be good DRLs.
Oncoming traffic isn't supposed to see the light from fog lights, and they aren't supposed to put any light above the horizontal.

If you don't want to mount anything extra to the front end, you could: wire the fog lights in series, raise the aim, wire them to operate only when the engine is running-and with the headlight selector in off, and now you have your DRLs.

http://www.hondanews.com/categories/743/photos/9225
http://www.hondanews.com/categories/743/photos/9224
http://www.hondanews.com/categories/743/photos/9234


or don't change the aim, replace the H11s with H9 in series. (but this is more work to fit H9s to H11s)
 
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