[griswoia]

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

[GazzaK]

could you not have stuck them in the grill bit? the bit you cut to put the bracket???

[Grinder]

Wow, they do seem to produce a fair bit of light--and the price is reasonable. I don't particularly like the mounting points, so I'd be interested to see if you think it could be done more OEM-style.

[Grinder]

CurtP, I think spotlights might not be so bad, depending on your use. Out near me, there are NO streetlights and virtually no light pollution, so I have trouble seeing down the road even with Xenons. Correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't "spotlight" style driving lights just what I'd want?

[griswoia]

They stick out like 4". The pix that I gave from the top exagerates the look. I like it and also the placement.

It is impossible to mount on the bunper (as I intended) because of the grille impacting the lights when you open the bonnet. You cnat stick them over the bumper without getting brackets welded to the Al. Any bolts will impact the AC condenser. The stock mounts are (in my opinion) ********. They are flimsy and cannot support any real weight. These are chrome and HEAVY. Moreover I cannot stand jiggling light patterns. So this was the best placement that I could find.

As far as patterns, they are pencil beams. These are exactly what I think that these cars need. The Xenons and stock highs do a great job of lighting the preferials. However there is simply no projection for highspeed night jaunts. By 50-70ft the beams merge and you can see forever!

I also like the pencil beams becasue they do no spill over into the surroundings unnecessarily.

BTW this
is wrong. HA HA HA

I run Opera (great browser www.opera.com). I am also responsible fo rthe network infrastructure at my company. The IP address is external only and the ISP is wrong as well. It's just fun to see that I'm doing my job well. . .

Ian

[mikehome1]

I like the mounting,the lights look serious

[maxmini]

Would it be possible to mount the brackets facing down and back a little. I am trying to find a way to drop a pair of round driving lights into the grill opening below and at each end. I was planning on using medium sizes PIAA 510's. I like your location but for me I am trying to hide them a bit. Great how to layout by the way thanks! Randy

[griswoia]

Looking at the Al bumper the holes that I made are about the only place you can and still get to the back with a wrench/spanner. Other places it would be hell on wheels to actually bolt things down. You could make the brackets longer and move them on that point as a pivot. So yes with some work you could slide the mount points to the sides of the lower grille. Alternately you could make the brackets stick out a little less and flip the lights so that they are in the lower grille area.

Again I have found that the lower the mount the shorter the lift span of the light. Either rocks or the wife 'feeling' a parking element tends to kill lights that far down

What I'm working on now in minimizing the mounting brackets as much as possible.

BTW one issue with making the brackets larger or sliding them to the sides. Looking at my lix you can see that the bumper curves. The longer the bracket or farther from mid point the more exagerated this effect will be. So getting the bumper cover over what you make will require larger slots or holes. It's just geometry. Also if you flush mount these lights any more than this you will have to wire them 100% before putting the bumper cover on. There is no access to the back of the bumper with the cover on.

Good Luck
Ian