All,

The wife and I did a 500 mile trip the other weekend. A good five hours driving atound LA (lower Alabama) at night and I knew the MINI's high beams had to be suplimented. So I looked around, BMW $500!!, PIAA ricy and $400!!, no way. I looked at Hella's (a favorite) but there were no chrome housings available.

Here was my beef. I wanted LIGHT, chrome, and a real parabolic reflector. I like it all old school. MINI's shoul dhave big chrome drinving lights. So I went dow and looked over the local Jeep accessory store. Yes Jeep, they still believe in chrome. All the parts are well built to take off-road use and most importantly, they are relativly cheap on parts.

Well I found to KC Daylighters for $100 ever. This is the Kit and it provides tow beautiful chrome pencile beam lights. They are also 200,000 candles each!!! This was my style.

So a trip to ACE hardware and a few hours later and this is the result:

I love them, they are switched to the high beams so they come on when you put on the highs. Here is a pattern comparison.

Xenon lows:

Xenons and stock highs:

Xenons, stock highs and the KC's:

I love them. I've mounted them to the Al bumper so that there are absolutely no shakes or jiggles. Please visit my online album if y'all'd like to see more of the install.

KC Daylighter install

Later all.
Ian

 

News headline:
With driving lights that stick out 10 inches beyond the bumper, this MINI is no longer the shortest production car in the US, but it's now the brightest.

Great how too. Thanks for the info!

_________________
[img]albums/album25/ama.gif[/img]VinceAndJessica.com
Alta pulley, Stebro exhaust, Pipercross intake, Progress rear anti-sway bar.

 

Pretty cool looking. Placement looks nice as well.

I'm not positive on this - but 200,000 candles each doesn't equal 400,000. Same terms as using off camera strobe equipment - one 2000 Watt second flash has more output power than 2 1000 watt second units...sorry for being a lighting geek.

_________________

 

Ian,

I used to run KC Daylighters on a 4x4 I had back in the 80's. Awesome firepower, but 100% ILLEGAL for street use. Be vewwy careful when your hunting wabbits with those big dawgs. John Law luvs to bring in the rev'nue.

 

You could save ships in the fog!!!!! (I like 'em!)

 

I had a pair of those on a CJ-7 that I used to off road with in Wa. State many yrs ago. They will light up the surroundings
They look great! Nice install.

 

Any idea what the current draw is for something like that?

 

that looks great, now do u think it would be possible to mount those onto the bottom grill? i would love to do that.... any idead on mounting possibilities and instuctions on how to maybe do it. also, does anyone know of a link to Cat lights??

 

1. Yeah you are right about the 200,000x2 not equaling 400,000. Still I like the sound of it

2. Yes these are off road use only, so they could draw heat. However IMO highs should nto be used when someone's in front of you anyway. So I believe if I am responsible with their use I'll be fine. Plus here in GA the cops are not a rabid about this stuff as they seen to be on the west coast.

3. they draw something like 16amps total. There is a 20 amp fuse in line. The bulbs are 100w each if that helps (I think H3's?)

4. You could mont them lower. But my experience (and I've mounted a pair of somethings on every car I've ever had) is that the lower you go the shorter the life span of the light. Either it's a rock, wife 'feeling' a parking element or some othe thing that kills lower mounts. If you look at the bumber there are just a few really good points to mount from. I think that I chose the best. However it is easy to pull off the front bumper (like 10 min total time) so pull it and look.

I'll post closer pix once I clean up the mounts next weekend.

Ian

 

Candlepower ratings are unreliable figures. You can have a million candlepower light but if it isn't backed by a very good reflector and lens, it really doesn't mean much. A more stringent rating is reflective range. A well made 50,000 candlepower light will out perform many lights that are rated at 3 or even 4 times that. That's what you pay for in higher priced lights. Generally speaking, the lower the price of the lights the less satisfactorily they'll perform and the quicker they'll deteriorate. As with most things in life you get what you pay for.

>>but 100% ILLEGAL for street use<<

The lights are only illegal for street use if they come with more than 55w bulbs, or if you upgrade the bulbs beyond that. They do make a 100w bulb for offroad use only.

 

All good points. these come with 100w bulbs, I may back them down. THe reflector is parabolic. These are litteral pencils. I believe that this is the simpelest design? However looking at the construction and performance I believe that the numbers produced and sold account for the low price of these units.

Still JMHO

>>Candlepower ratings are unreliable figures. You can have a million candlepower light but if it isn't backed by a very good reflector and lens, it really doesn't mean much. A more stringent rating is reflective range. A well made 50,000 candlepower light will out perform many lights that are rated at 3 or even 4 times that. That's what you pay for in higher priced lights. Generally speaking, the lower the price of the lights the less satisfactorily they'll perform and the quicker they'll deteriorate. As with most things in life you get what you pay for.
>>
>>>>but 100% ILLEGAL for street use<<
>>
>>The lights are only illegal for street use if they come with more than 55w bulbs, or if you upgrade the bulbs beyond that. They do make a 100w bulb for offroad use only.
>>
>>

 

>>, wife 'feeling' a parking element or some othe thing that kills lower mounts.

sorry that was too funny and i just had to laugh

 

If you're curious about how well the lights work, find a dark straight (at least 1 mile long) stretch of road that you can stop on that has reflectors along it. Don't use your covers, but block off the driving lights (a piece of paper taped over the lens or even a paperbag slipped oon the light....unless you have a seperate control switch.
Turn your high beams on and make a note of the farthest reflector that lights up. Try it again with the lights uncovered, but with the headlights blocked out and compare. This will let you know how far the lights are reaching. The distance to the farthest lit object is your reflective range.

You'll be surprised at how far just the standard high beams on the car will go out. It just doesn't look it because the beam's dispersed over a wider field. That's when the spots take over. They fill in the void at greater distances (200+ yds) because of the concentrated beams.

With those large reflectors tied in with 100w bulbs they should reach out at least 5000 ft., possibly even up to 6500ft or more. If you back down to 55w bulbs, you'll lose some of the range, but I don't think you'll really be affected by the change. The Cibie's I've got on my car will get out to about a mile with the 55's in them, even though they're over 25 years old now.

 

Looks great! And the price is perfect!

How about a little review about the installation, what extra parts were needed, etc...

Do they have their own switch that you just decided not to install, or must they be dependent on the highbeams?