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Considering adding high power driving lights, I've had these sitting around since the last car and never got them mounted so I decided to hold them up on the front and see what I think:

Wide position

wide.jpg

Narrow position

narrow.jpg

How far they stick out which is the part that really bothers me

narrow2.jpg

Since these mount with a single bolt, I'm thinking of just sticking the bolt through the opening in the grill and backing up the nut with a large washer to spread the force and keep it from pulling back through. The alternate I'm thinking about is to use a small rectangular light in the upper section of the grill which would require cutting the grill and making some kind of mount. It would look a lot more factory but is a lot more work and money since I would need to buy the other lights. The lights shown above are not a street legal light, they shine out about 450 meters and really provide a lot of light, good for spotting deer in the road. Might consider changing the reflectors to a fog pattern to have legal light.

Edited by Greg_E
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The more I look at it the more I think narrow and a little lower, though this beam pattern really needs to be higher to see over bumps in the road. Waiting for bolts to arrive and then I'll probably bolt them up and drive to see if I get any whistles or if the fuel mileage goes down. I think I might also change to a 35 watt lamp which should still reach out far enough without blinding people I can't even see. The 35 watt lamps also last more than twice as long.

After that all I need is a turbo, all wheel drive kit, and extra long travel suspension to have a full rally car. Oh and the $50,000 to build it would be nice too. ;)

The low end Optilux lights (still Hella) have some small round driving lights that should mount on top of the EU license plate holders (if they are centered), the smaller US plates are a little too narrow to do this. The Hella FF200 (same as I have) might also fit well on the plate mount and would make it easy to mount the lights.

Edited by Greg_E
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After wading through the laws in New York, I'm still left confused about adding these lights. In most other states I'm fine as long as they only come on with the high beams, and are more than 16 inches from the road and less than 42 inches from the road (high). Some states require a maximum of four lights on the front and any time so I'll have to hope the fogs turn off automatically when the high beams are on, good states don't even limit the amount of light you can have. Of the reading I did last night, the New York laws are the most confusing with the mid-west laws being the most liberal and easy to understand, even California was easier to understand.

I did order 35 watt lamps which will cut the light output in half, should still be plenty of output, also less draw on the charging system so I should have better fuel mileage with these lower lamps.

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Got them mounted to the grill about two spaces lower and in the narrow area right next to the plate. Need to order a decent switch and figure out how to get the control wires through the firewall. Also need to pull the bumper cover off again so I can get the harness intsalled so all that stuff will need to wait a while. Sorry no new pictures, but I did notice one thing... On the bottom of the light it is stamped SAE which means it is type accepted and makes it a lot easier to call legal in the USA, I may not need to use those 35 watt lamps after all.

For those following along, there is a major harness going through the firewall at the top behind the battery on the USA driver's side. If you don't have power mirrors, then there is a place for a snap in switch next to the instrument light dimmer potentiometer that you need to cut out. It looks like a Carling Technologies V series switch can snap right into this space. Also need to find a good spot to grab the high beam "signal" so I can turn the driving light relay on with the high beams (only).

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Hi Greg,

seems you like you put a lot of work in your Spark :)

I enjoy reading post of Spark drivers, because i do a lot on my Spark aswell.

so why don't you make your one profile topic, so that you can post all your work in one topic.

In the section spark club Nederland we made profiles to.

Here we can post al our updates ;)

good luck with your lights :)

greetz, Martijn

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Good luck with these, like weetsj says, you are putting alot of work into them. In the UK at the moment the latest thing for lights are DRL or daylight running lights. I have been looking at a few options for these and think I have found a set that would look almost standard on the UK style front bumper. I was thinking the ones below would probably be the right shape for the area I have marked on my pic.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mercedes-DRL-6-LED-Fog-light-Daytime-Running-Light-W212-E-CLASS-L-Day-Light-/110966454703?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item19d61db9af

2010ChevroletSparkfront-1.jpg

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Those are cheap enough to try, but I question how long they will last. Hella makes some nice ones, but they are stupidly expensive. I saw some really nice ones similar to that shape by a known company, but I can't remember where. Might have been KC or IPF. Since the USA models all light the lowbeam I'm not going to look into DRL, if they didn't have it I would add some kind of LED like Audi uses. I might consider putting something in the headlights in that little cup reflector on the lower inside corner of the lights. On the USA model there is nothing present but I think it is supposed to be the EU city light. If that isn't the city light then I don't know what it is supposed to be doing.

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Got these connected and working yesterday but I also had a mysterious short that I can't track down. Lights worked in the garage, blew the fuse when out on the road and continued after getting home. Pulled a couple things apart today and didn't find the short and lights are working again. Have to see if the short happens again, think it might have been with the wiring inside the light fixture and moving the wires around may have removed the short, have to see how long it lasts.

Need to get fresh pictures.

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Considering adding high power driving lights, I've had these sitting around since the last car and never got them mounted so I decided to hold them up on the front and see what I think:

Wide position

wide.jpg

Narrow position

narrow.jpg

How far they stick out which is the part that really bothers me

narrow2.jpg

Since these mount with a single bolt, I'm thinking of just sticking the bolt through the opening in the grill and backing up the nut with a large washer to spread the force and keep it from pulling back through. The alternate I'm thinking about is to use a small rectangular light in the upper section of the grill which would require cutting the grill and making some kind of mount. It would look a lot more factory but is a lot more work and money since I would need to buy the other lights. The lights shown above are not a street legal light, they shine out about 450 meters and really provide a lot of light, good for spotting deer in the road. Might consider changing the reflectors to a fog pattern to have legal light.

WAY COOL looking :rockon:

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Greg, seems like you and I are thinking along the same lines, because I like the rally car look, too. I was thinking of adding driving lights and mounting them on each side of the license bracket, but they might bounce around too much. I'll probably take it to Will County Auto Crafts, Inc. (www.willcountyautocrafts.com) to have this done, as well as getting the windows tinted. They've been around the Joliet,IL. area for a long time and they've done work on other cars I've had over the years. I used to do stuff like this myself, but age has gotten to me and I can't do the things I used to, like hanging over fenders and crawling around under cars.

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The FF200 lights are SAE approved driving lights, so if they are connected to the high beams they should be legal in most areas. You can just mount them though the plastic grill, these don't weight enough to really bounce around too much on anything that can really be called a road. Lowering them to the solid plastic part would be OK as long as the bolts clear the metal bumper, need to remove the foam bumper piece in order to bolt them up, then re-attach the foam. The high beam wires are white, and the left high beam attaches to connection number 26 (see fog light thread), the right might have been 27 but I'd have to verify it before being certain. Tap the white wire below the fuse box, run it to the driving light switch, output of driving light switch goes to driving light relay which turns the lights on and off. Carling Technologies V series switch fits next to the instrument dimming wheel after cutting the plastic. This panel can be removed by reaching up inside the inner fuse box area of the dash and pressing the latches inward. Doesn't look great, but doesn't look horrible either.

Check out http://www.rallylights.com/ to get the lights, Autobarn on Amazon may also have them. If it isn't raining too hard when I leave tonight, and if I leave late enough, I might grab some video of the drive home... Last time I filled up the tank I went to a different brand and now my car is running horribly so I need to burn it out before filling with the usual brand of fuel.

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