How-to: relay lighting (Shawn)

[John Fulmer <genefulm@wsunix.wsu.edu>]

On Sun, 27 Oct 1996, Shawn Meze wrote:

> At 10:40 AM 10/27/96 -0800, you wrote:
> 
> >>   If you havent already done so, use relays to bump up the power to the
> >> lights, it made a world of a difference.
> >> 
> >>   Andre'
> >
> > Yeah. Relays do make a noticable difference. I own a 1980 Scirocco S and
> >Andre helped me put relays in one day. We first did one side and brought
> >the car up to the garage door. You could easily see what side was the
> >brightest. I also have .......dammit...I forgot what they are called..
> >The... damn.  Uhh... Not the sealed beams, the other kind. They came in a
> >kit. H-4's! They too make a difference. Also Bosch driving lights.
> >Needless to say, the car has plenty of fire power. Andre has been trying
> >to talk me into getting 80/100 watt bulbs. We'll see.
> 
> 
> Gene, do you have P/N for the relays and how they were wired? im interested
> in doing this myself.
> 
> Shawn
> (Not an electrical expert)

 I bought 4 relays from a local car audio store. The important thing to
note when buying these is that they have to be reasonably waterproof,
12volt, and
be able to handle 15-20amps (might even be less). There is no point in
buying relays suposivley made for car lighting, they all work the same.

 There are two kinds of relays that I had to choose from: normally "open"
and normaly "closed". You want the normaly "open". This means that when
the relay has no voltage across the input, the output will be "open".

 The 1980 Scirocco had 4 wires that ran from the fuse box, one to each
light.

 Disconnect the wires from the headlights. Each headlight will have two
wires, one colored one, and one brown. You will not need the brown ones
any more, so you can figure out where the go, and rip them out.

 Next, find a place to mount your relays. I put two on each side of the
car. On the drivers side, I took out the battery (To get it out of the
way) and mounted them on the fender wall. (Same place on passenger side) I
figured little water would get there.

 You will need a drill and a few screws to mount them.

 A neat trick is to figure out what terminals are the input, and make a
short piece of wire that goes from one of the input terminals, to the
place where you are going to fasten down the relay with a screw. This will
now work as the relay's ground. ( Providing you are screwing into the
metal chassis) ( Use those neat wire crimp-on end things, to make the job
look nice. )

 Next, take the colored wires that went to the headlights and attach them
to each remaining input terminal. (One for each relay) Now when you turn
on your headlights, it will turn on the relays instead. (understand?)

 OK, now the fun part.

 Buy some wire. I bought Red and Black 12Gauge wire, enough to do the job.
12Gauge is plenty big enough for the lights. (overkill)

 Run a red wire from the (+) side battery to one of the output terminals
on each
relay. You should figure out some way of putting a fuse in between the
battery and each relay.(15amp is good) ( We don't want any fires )

 Now run red wire from the other output terminal to each headlight.

 Finaly, run black wire from the terminals on the headlights to either the
(-) side of the battery, or make a chassis ground. ( connect them to the
car body somewhere.)

 Andre and I found that you get about a 1.2 volt increase with the relays.

 I don't know if I made myself clear, if you have any questions, let me
know.

 Andre, if you think I missed anything, feel free to add to this.

 Gene Fulmer.    

 
 
 
   

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