Driving Light Options...

[Pilot]

Can the MKII/MKIII driving lights be easily installed in a MK1? What are some other driving light options, round lights or...?

[jsnod25]

see "Headlight Conversion?" here

[Pilot]

Originally Posted by jsnod25

see "Headlight Conversion?" here

I have seen that link--but it pertains to modifying the existing headlights and does not address adding, down in the radiator intake opening, driving/running/fog lights such as:



or fog lights such as used on newer MR2's, such as

[mr3]

Go for it.

[jsnod25]

oh, i didnt know you were talking about fog lamps/auxilary lamps, yes, that shouldnt be a problem, but just dont piggy back off the exsiting lines for your headlights. Run a new line from the fuse box, and add a new fuse where you have an empty spot... also add a switch in the dash on an empty area or somthing... you dont want to rob power from your lights, and you dont want to draw extra power from the exsiting fuse... but I too have thought about it as it does get mighty foggy where im at. Lemme know how it goes if you do it. and show pics of the install too.

[YellowJacket]

I kinda liked the way this guy did his on this car... nicely integrated into the grill.

[jsnod25]

*sniff* *sniff* my old home state.... i miss you Wa.

[ToyotaTechGeek]

i think it all depends on your level of skill/ability. i am about to tackle my aux lighting soon. i know i will be fabbing bracketry, but i think i may make my lighting quick-release for a few different reasons. i don't think the MkII lights nor the rounds will be easy to integrate since they are both kind of round going onto/into an angular-lined vehicle.

[Pilot]

Originally Posted by jsnod25

... but just dont piggy back off the exsiting lines for your headlights. Run a new line from the fuse box, and add a new fuse where you have an empty spot... also add a switch in the dash on an empty area or somthing... you dont want to rob power from your lights, and you dont want to draw extra power from the exsiting fuse... but I too have thought about it as it does get mighty foggy where im at. Lemme know how it goes if you do it. and show pics of the install too.

Can I tap power off a fuse box in the front trunk compartment or do you think I need to run a line back to the battery?

[YellowJacket]

Originally Posted by Pilot

Can I tap power off a fuse box in the front trunk compartment or do you think I need to run a line back to the battery?

if it were me, I wouldn't put any additional load like those lights on any existing circuits that were not designed for the extra amps. I would run it direct to battery with a cabin switch and then fuse it at the battery.

A little more work, but not much, and its the right way to do it. All you do is find the holes in your frunk to enter the cabin, run along under the the carpet, remove the door foot sills, and behind the back firewall carpet and through the firewall hole to the battery...

[85SuperGZE]

I hid mine behind the grill, and used the holes for the a/c condensor tubing to bolt them to.(a/c condensor removed).....
they are rectangle white driving lights.

[toyotaspeed90]

if you use the power from you headlights, make sure you use an external relay for the driving lights.

these are old photos.... didn't plan on putting them on the car but I got them for like $4 so I figured 'meh'....



since I already had the battery in the frunk, it was easy to wire. Used the relay that came with the fog lights, main power went to the battery, ground to the wiring ground in the frunk, then the trip wire went to the positive wire switch for the running lights. I hardwired it, so I removed the switch.

[85SuperGZE]

I did wire mine from the battery, and used an empty slot in the fuse box in the frunk for the fuse and a empty relay slot for its relay, aside from the switch behind the drivers seat next to my amp(easily reached) you cant tell that they are not supposed to be there.

[Pilot]

I installed HID kits in a Buick Reatta (same type sealed beam lights as in the MR2) and in my Park Avenue. I bought the least expensive kits available on Ebay (about 45.00 delivered) and, for the Reatta, the least expensive H4 bulb conversion housing (non-projector). I aligned the lights per my mechanic's instructions by placing the front of the car 20' from my garage door (at night), measured the height of the center of the headlight to the ground and made a corresponding mark on the garage door and then made a mark 4" lower. The center of the beams were set to hit the 4" lower mark. They have worked wonderfully, for about 2-years, without any problem and the light is SO MUCH superior to halogen lights. I'll never look back. Everyone that sees them suggests they look great.

Is there a lot of stray light as some have suggested if you don't use an expensive projector housing? I am not a scientist, so I can't say for sure, but I can tell you not one motorist has given me a "headlight flash" in two years suggesting they were being annoyed by too much stray light in their face.

I do have one, albeit minor reservation. On those dark moonless nights on a country road, there have been a few occasions I wished I had bright lights. So, for my MR2 project, I am considering installing 4" round long distance driving lights in the radiator opening below the grill that will be relay activated off the high beam power line to the headlights with the power feed for the 4" lights from a separate at a fuse-box source.

Will all this be as good as the super-duper + - $400.00 HID lights from some other source? Probably not, but I suspect I could not tell the difference and if something burns-out after the two year warranty, the replacement parts will not cause a migraine.

What is my budget for this HID conversion? $76.00 and 30-minutes labor. See links below.

HID KIT, 48.00 DELIVERED

Diamond cut headlights (non-projector) $28.00 DELIVERED

I am still sorting out which 4" round light will give me the most bang for the buck for my driving light project. One I am looking at here will cost about $65.00, delivered for the kit including wiring and relay.

[TonyHuynhTwo]

Yeah I definitely wouldn't recommend buying the least expensive kit on ebay and just sticking them into a conversion housing. These kits are both single beam and of course not designed for use in the headlight housing your suppossed to use in them. There is no beam pattern with this set up at all. Even the bulbs that come with the ebay housings will give you a crappy beam pattern. The "diamond cut" reflectors and grooves on the back of these headlights, are only for show purposes. The factories in china do not design these headlights with the aid of computer software to control the beam direction and pattern like the car manufacturers and qualified aftermarket headlight producers (sylvania, GE, etc.). A lot of the more honest sellers on ebay will have on their headlights disclaimers, telling you that these headlights are for off road use only. Putting HID's in any MR2 besides the spyder is of course illegal because these cars never came with an HID set up from the factory (yes even the revision 6 system is illegal). There are no such things as DOT or SAE certified conversion kits. The law is simple if the car never came with the xenon lighting system to begin with, than they are illegal.

So anybody that breaks the law knows if your going to do something illegal than do it smart. There are only three smart ways to have an HID lighting system in the MK1 and MK2 MR2's in order to prevent Johnny Law from pulling you over; the revision 6 system, the pegasus headlight option, or splicing a pair of projectors from another car's headlights into the conversion housing. Let me reiterate that these are still illegal systems. An additional note: Never buy the kits with color ratings above 6000k. The K is a color rating (it's suppose to represent the color of plasma from stars if they burned at this particular temperature) the higher the K rating the bluer they are. I love blue lights (had a 10K set up in my celica) but that is one sure way to get you pulled over good beam pattern or not.

The revision 6 option is probably the easiest and best option to go for when doing the conversion. But the prices are absolutely ridiculous. The set up raises your headlight about 1/2 way of the usual height and has two headlights on each housing (left and right). You can either set it in a fixed position or buy a special part so that it will always open at the correct height. This option allows you to run a Xenon system with both hi/lo beam. When choosing to go this route you have to make sure that you choose the option that has projectors for at least the lo beam headlight (hi and lo beam have different "headlight housing"). You can then choose the HID option and by now you should realize that you're going to be paying an arm and a leg for this system (should be over $600 with both options).

Then there is the pegasus option. This set up has only a low beam option for the HID set up, making this the worst way to go. This set up looks like the conversion kits on ebay except with a "real projector" in the housing. This is the only real plug and play set up. It takes about twenty minutes to set up and most of the time that will be deciding where to mount the ballasts. Even though you will probably never get pulled over with this option; if it happens and the cop takes a closer look at your headlight and thinks they look out of place; he will use a piece of white paper to determine the color (the light reflecting on white paper gives you the best indication of color); then screw you by asking you to flip on the high beams. HID or no HID every car in the U.S. has to have hi beam. Which is why I pointed this out as one of the flaws for cheapest kits on ebay. My friend bought one of these set ups from NORCAL and hit a pot hole hard and asked me to fix his drivers side headlight as the projector in the housing became misaligned. I couldn't open up the housing to adjust the projector, so i emailed NORCAL and he told me not to open up the housing. So I thought about breaking the lens to open it that way. Again I emailed NorCal about buying seperated housings from him so I could put the projector in the new housing. Which then proceeded to NORCAL trying to sell me a brand new pair of housings (so i have a slight bias against this seller). A pair of housings goes for $200 without the HID's and I think around $300-400 with them included (again only low beam available).

Now the last option is the set up that I myself am running. This set up requires that you obtain a set of conversion housings from ebay, a pair of bi-xenon projectors from another car (I used one's from an audi), and any old hid kit. The end product is similar to the pegasus housing, the only difference is that now you have a hi beam. I ended up making a pair of these for my friend also after the pegasus headlight incident.

Whenever you put HID's onto your MK1 or MK2 you take a risk, simple as that. You might be pulled over simple as that. But if you take steps to reduce your risk than you won't have to worry about it as much. I doubt very many people if any, running those set ups have ever been pulled over for illegal lights. The majority of cops don't know which cars came with what lighting system so the goal of those set ups is to mimic factory quality lighting. When you shop around for an HID conversion just remember to add the cost of an operational violation to the price of those cheaper kits with no cutoff, no beam pattern, and no high beam. I have been running HID's on my cars (only one of my cars came with factory HID's) for four years. The first three months of ever having these kits I was pulled over three times for illegal lights and ticketed once (the ticket was $150). My set up was the same as Pilots and I had my lights aimed to the floor. Ever since I started using projectors in my HID systems I have never been pulled over for the same problem and times were I have been pulled over for speeding the cop didn't even look twice at my headlights.

On some cars the HID systems come without projectors but the whole housings were computer designed to produce similar or better results, with regards to beam pattern and cutoff, than projectors. But there is absolutely no sealed beam housings in the world, without a projector that have been designed and produced to work with an HID system.

[tksmr2]

Heres mine.. They are pilot fog lights with glass housings. I love them b/c they are small, and have a black oval housing. I just had to cut one small section of my grill for them to fit. They bolt to the strip on the bottom of the bumper.

[jsnod25]

well there goes my high hopes....

[Pilot]

Originally Posted by tksmr2

Heres mine.. They are pilot fog lights with glass housings. I love them b/c they are small, and have a black oval housing. I just had to cut one small section of my grill for them to fit. They bolt to the strip on the bottom of the bumper.


http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h5...d/DSC00391.jpg

Is the grill the sole support for these lights or are they mounted some other way?

[Pilot]

Originally Posted by TonyHuynhTwo

Yeah I definitely wouldn't recommend buying the least expensive kit on ebay and just sticking them into a conversion housing. These kits are both single beam and of course not designed for use in the headlight housing your suppossed to use in them...

TonyHuynhTwo,

But for those of us that do not wish to spend 400.00+ to have an HID system, the inexpensive system is a DEFINITE improvement over the stock halogen lights.

The diamond cut lights may not be engineered for HID lights, but I can tell you from experience they produce a nice tight pattern that is easy to adjust and aim. As far as a LEO bothering you because the system may be "illegal," I believe the secret here is to have the lights properly aligned so they do not melt anyone's eyeballs approaching you--such as a LEO. I have never been headlight flashed once, in two years, and I have passed a LOT of LEO's.


So, for those that can afford to pay 400.00+ for what may be a better HID system--they should go for it. For the rest of us that want a significant improvement to their existing halogen headlight system and want to spend about $75.00 and 30-minutes time, the economy outfit does work and it when properly adjusted (which only takes a couple of minutes) will not bother other motorists.

[tksmr2]

Originally Posted by Pilot

Is the grill the sole support for these lights or are they mounted some other way?

No.. no.. there is a small bracket that bolts to the light housings that bolts to the metal strip that runs along the bottom of the bumper.