As above really, has anyone got one of these fitted to their mk3's? just wanna get the best out of my headlights really and would like some response on them.

Martin

A mate of mine made his own uprated headlight loom and the difference between mine and his mk3s was quite noticable, a lot brighter. If you're after the best then they are definitely worth it.

well worth doing..should be a very noticable differance in output

good stuff!

Hell of a difference.

i agree but you are not solving the problem you are bypassing it

why are you bypassing it?

if its wired up well , its as good as it gets imo ..proper safe way to get battery voltage to the bulbs , plus the option to run high watt bulbs without killing the switch

why are you bypassing it?

if its wired up well , its as good as it gets imo ..proper safe way to get battery voltage to the bulbs , plus the option to run high watt bulbs without killing the switch

yep if you want to tun higher watage bulbs great but the prob is resistance in the original conectors firstly i would clean up all connectors related to the lights and clean up the fuse holdres and fit new fuses ...but what do i know i have only been an auto electrician for 12 years

Edited 13 October, 200817 yr by bort

Its a good mod i did it on my old GT but by the time you have bought the parts including decent bulbs its about £40. This time I'm going to buy some HIDs which are about £100 and are brighter then an uprated loom, heard the mk3 lenses project the light ok too with the HIDs.

yep if you want to tun higher watage bulbs great but the prob is resistance in the original conectors firstly i would clean up all connectors related to the lights and clean up the fuse holdres and fit new fuses ...but what do i know i have only been an auto electrician for 12 years

Err what are you on about? You're taking voltage direct from the battery into the relay and straight out to the lights. The original loom is only used to trigger the relays... The reason this is required isnt due to dodgy pins on the plugs, its due to a voltage drop running power from the battery all the way through the loom, through a 10 year+ old light switch, then back out down the headlight wiring loom to the lights.

The headlight switches dont work as well when they age, reducing the voltage to the lights. Also relaying the lights has the advantage of extending the life of the headlight switches as they dont have to supply as much current.

Edited 14 October, 200817 yr by rubjonny

you suply voltage not current. the bulbs draw current ......if rou was to put resistance in the uprated loom the bulbls would dim .....my point is like you say ithe prob is due to the age ...but dont bypas it sort out the problem.......this is why i dont answer many posts .because there is always sombody that knows f u ck ing better

yes mate, and with a reduced voltage due to an old loom and an old switch, you will also get less current and dimmer lights. unless you reeplace all the wires and the switch you wont be able to fix the problem will you!

thats the point of the uprated loom, it has lower resistance doesnt it

plus, have you ever opened a headlight switch, its not going to offer the optimum even when new.

Edited 14 October, 200817 yr by rubjonny

have a read here and educate yourself

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/relays/relays.html

quoted from the above website

Relays: WHY AND HOW TO UPGRADE YOUR HEADLAMP CIRCUIT

By Daniel Stern with special assistance from Steve Lacker

THOUGHTFUL CARE & CAREFUL THOUGHT REQUIRED

The success or failure of your lighting upgrade efforts rides on the quality of your parts and the quality of your work. It matters how carefully you route wires to avoid chafing insulation. It matters how well you solder connections (crimps and sloppy or 'cold' solder joints corrode and die). It matters how well you shield added wiring from road spray. It matters that you use fuses in the new wiring to protect against vehicle damage due to a new or old electrical fault. It matters that you use high-quality parts that are designed to stand up to the rigors of automotive usage. Such components must be resistant to a wide range of temperatures, road splash, fumes found under the hood of every car, severe and prolonged vibration, etc. It will pay you to select only the products of companies with well established reputations for quality and durability; your $2.25 bargain no-name relay could easily kill you when it fails on a dark road somewhere, leaving you with no lights. Do not purchase vehicle components based solely on price!

The techniques described in this article will yield excellent results only if the work is carried out carefully and to a high standard, with quality parts and materials and without corner-cutting or sloppy work.

WHY USE RELAYS?

Power for the headlights is controlled by a switch on the dash. This is *not* a great place to tap into the system, for two reasons: The headlamp switch uses tiny, high-resistance contacts to complete circuits, and the wire lengths required to run from the battery to the dashboard and all the way out to the headlamps creates excessive resistive voltage drop, especially with the thin wires used in most factory installations.

In many cases, the thin factory wires are inadequate even for the stock headlamp equipment. Headlamp bulb light output is severely compromised with decreased voltage. The drop in light output is not linear, it is exponential with the power 3.4. For example, let's consider a 9006 low beam bulb rated 1000 lumens at 12.8 Volts and plug in different voltages:

10.5V : 510 lumens

11.0V : 597 lumens

11.5V : 695 lumens

12.0V : 803 lumens

12.5V : 923 lumens

12.8V : 1000 lumens ←Rated output voltage

13.0V : 1054 lumens

13.5V : 1198 lumens

14.0V : 1356 lumens ←Rated life voltage

14.5V : 1528 lumens

then take note of the message at the top of the page

DONT GIVE OUT DUFF ADVICE !

Edited 14 October, 200817 yr by steveo3002

Update...

I got my uprated loom today (cheers Pshears)

the lights seem a lot brighter, i will take a multimeter to the lights tomorrow and compare the stock loom with the new loom and note what differences in voltage and amps that the headlight are drawing now. gonna remove headlamps and washt them out also.

glad to hear you listened to good sense :)

please do post some info on before /after

why are you bypassing it?

if its wired up well , its as good as it gets imo ..proper safe way to get battery voltage to the bulbs , plus the option to run high watt bulbs without killing the switch

yep if you want to tun higher watage bulbs great but the prob is resistance in the original conectors firstly i would clean up all connectors related to the lights and clean up the fuse holdres and fit new fuses ...but what do i know i have only been an auto electrician for 12 years

I'd agree with you in part on that, as I did that on my old mk2, new switch (cost silly money), renewed most of the contacts, cleaned up what I couldn't, and it made a slight difference. Fitting new bulbs made a bigger one, but at the end of the day, the headlamp wiring loom goes all over the place to get from battery to bulb (particularly on a right hand drive car). Similarly, yes the wires are rated to carry enough current to light the bulbs up, but not a lot more. So the way the loom is made does tend to strangle the current delivery a fair bit. Or put in scientific terms:

Resistance = (Resistivity * Length) / Cross sectional area

The reason relaying it all through a standalone loom works so well is you use heavier wire and shorter lengths.

I've had the same Steve-O loom on my last 2 Polos, and my old Panda 4x4, I was skeptical at first but it's very much a case of don't knock it til you've tried it. Think Karl said you're across to Homebrew HQ at some point? I'm not using the loom at the minute so if you want to have a borrow of it and give it a try and see what you think I'm more than happy for you to.

One thing that everyone forgets when they discuss these things is the earth return path. Go from the alternator to the relays, to the bulbs and then straight back to the alternator. Don't bolt that ring crimp to some crappy, rusty old metalwork, go to the body of the alternator.

Mine normally gets a trip through a clean shiney self-tapper into a virgin bit of inner wing.

A car's not your own til you've made a few holes in it :)

yeah any sound clean bit of bodyshell is fine for the earth....its where the battery is earthed to lol

keep em as short as possible is the best way...dab of grease over the ring terminal for good measure