4" Rectangular Universal Metal Driving/Fog Light Clear

[efx]

I was wondering if anyone has used any of these after market fog lights? I want to add some cheapo lighting up front. These are small, rectangular and clear which is what I'm thinking of. I know we don't have much fog here, but since I only have the oem sealed beams I figured these might give me a little more lighting up front without getting too extreme with type or pricing. I haven't checked the clearance or anything under the MK1 yet, but I think they have a 3,4 and 5 inch lights of this type on this page. I still have to look up front to see what kind of space there is. Let me know what you guys think and what you have used. I know there are more better and expensive ones, but I would like to know if anyone has used the less expensive ones and what results you may have gotten from them. This is just an example of what I have in mind, but I want to get your experiences since the MK1 doesn't have any oem fog lights. Oh yeah, these use an H3 12v 55w bullb? Not sure how good that is.

I went for a short drive tonight to get a feel for the new cluster lighting since I had not driven at night after changing to the LED's and well, now I have to get the front brighter because the lighting sucks and my cluster is so nice and bright now. Here's a quote from my friend who saw the lights tonight..."you got a new car now".

eBay Motors: 4" Rectangular Universal Driving/Fog Light lamps Bumper (item 220401199182 end time Apr-29-09 09:54:10 PDT)

[poopeeroo]

just buy new h4 headlight housings

[mr29180]

change ur head lights to hid.. problem solve

[efx]

Yeah, that's the other thing I still hadn't decided on which one to get, that's why I was also looking at these...so you get pretty decent lighting with those H4 headlights then?

[efx]

I decided to just add some cheapo lights up front to help the OEM lights. I still need to add the switch and check them to make sure they point correctly. I can't believe what a pain the install was. The wiring is very simple though. I decided to skip the small ones since I saw them on another MR2 and I just didn't like the way they looked. I may get some ebay HIDs and put them in these later just for fun. I know someone else did something like that so that's where this came from. I forgot his name. The case is some kind of plastic and the lens is glass, and the reflector is metal, but the shiny part seems a bit soft. Meaning I tried cleaning one finger smudge and well, that didn't go too well, it just got more messed up and a bit of the shiny part came off. What do you expect for this I guess, but seems to work. So I'll try to explain a bit since this was my first set install.

I took pictures of the back to show that these use an H3 bulb 12v 55w. I had no clue what they used, it doesn't say on the packaging. I only needed to drill two holes for each light, one for the bolt (5/16 not 1/2 like the instructions say) that holds everything and a smaller one for the two wires (3/32) coming off the light. One is the ground wire and the other goes to the switch. You can pretty much wire them to your lights directly if you really want. Anything that was going to annoyed me happened. Not finding the right washers, drill bits, file, and the damn thing not staying put.

I want to get a different switch before I finish it so that's why I didn't install it yet plus I may need a bit more wire to get inside the car. I decided to install it on the middle of the turn signal. So I just used a ruler to see where both edges of the lower light met at the screw of the turn signal, just using the screws as my reference for the end of the lights. I was trying to keep them in between and also aligned with the bottom of the cover so that they would not stick out under the car either. There's just no easy way here so you just have to figure this one out yourself. I used the little plastic that came with the lights as a guide to the edge of the metal and as you can see that thing isn't even straight. I also used the same mounting bolt for my ground and just had to add the ground loop connector to it. You have to do this after you mount it unless you want to drill a hole where you can fit that through. After drilling you get some pretty sharp edges so there's no need to look for a ground any further than that. You just have to run one wire from the farthest light to the other and then up to the power or switch. The wiring was the easy part I guess, since I used the headlight fuse to test them.

Now, as you can see from the side pictures is that the light was a bit high meaning it kept pointing up. The holes are fine, but the plastic opening doesn't allow me to move it much and the angle of the metal and just the way things are there makes it a pain in the butt to get that straight. So I just dremeled out some of the extra material to allow the bolt to move farther back. I also had to use washers to point the light in a more straight manner. These adjustments are just a pain since the back is not flat. Granted these are not the greatest lights, I thought I do this small write up so if anyone else wants to install something like this you now have a better idea of what you may run into. Personally I don't like the way these lights adjust, but I have to make them work so your lights may be a whole different experience. I just wanted to keep the cost down and keep this as simple as possible, but at least make it look decent. At least they don't look bad I guess. I still need to get them adjusted a bit more. Oh yeah, this took me a while to install though. Lots of double checking and looking for a few things.

[efx]

Okay here's the switch I used for these lights. I call it the switch from hell since it was hot and I got a really bad headache messing with this thing. I bought it at autozone, but if you can find it cheaper somewhere else go for it. I can't believe these things, you used to find a switch for like 99 cents now it's a couple of bucks. Anyway, I figured I use that empty plastic there and put the switch there since I didn't want to make any other holes anywhere. You can also just put your alarm LED there instead so it's more viewable and just add the switch under the radio in that little square blank too. You would probably need the mini square switch since that's also smaller if you put it there. I figured this would be on all the time at night so I wanted to keep the light to a minimum. Plus now the steering wheel blocks it from my eyes so I can't see while I drive which is fine too, but it looks nice though.

Disregard the wires I changed that to this...

Pin 1 (top) short ground to a screw behind the switch on that same side to the right. This one will allow the led to come on only when the switch is turned on. I had to play with this since the original switch only had two leads and no LED.

Pin 2 (middle) this is the one going to the new lights and it's a positive. The other wire coming from the lights is the negative already connected to the body. The instructions on the back of the switch packaging said that it should be no more than 10 amps I think. Make sure to use the middle one to the lights in order to complete the circuit. I tried running this wire to the switch, but this just didn't work this way. So I just ended up running it to the front to the lights.

Pin 3 (bottom) also a 12v positive with the fuse on it. Okay, here's the part that may change the way this works. I just tapped into one of the headlights fuse with this wire. I ran it to the front of the car as well. This allows the lights to run only when you I use my headlights whether I leave the new switch on or off. If I turn the new switch off, the lights will stay off regardless of the headlight switch. If I leave it on which I do since I like my new lights, they turn off when I turn the headlight switch off. This allows me not worry about leaving them on and draining my battery. It's not a super load and they have been working fine. I didn't feel like running another independent 12v line. It was just easier this way. I noticed there are some empty fuse slots on the front so I want to use one of those. I don't know if the autoparts sell that type of connector so I can add a blade fuse though. At least this project is done until they fall out or I find a better housing or some new lights, but I'll just leave them on for now and see how much they last. I got to say, for cheapo lights, they work pretty good once you get them pointing right where you want them. This part is tough with this mounting. The others have a metal bracket which I thought look kind of weird at first, but now I now for aligning them those brackets work much better than this one. They use the same one bolt mounting like these but have a small u type of bracket that allows you to move up or down and you can just twist it to get them straight. Simple setup, but now i know that would work much better.

I saw some similar fog lights not driving lights at autozone that look just like mine but yellow lenses and they had the other brackets. I am not crazy about how the glass cover is held though. I think if you hit a hard bump that may break easily. Don't know. Last but not least, be careful about running a black wire that has that 12v running through it. Why couldn't they keep it red like everything else is beyond me. I just ran the red through the wall and used that black on the front just to be safe.

[RIOT]

foglights help tons