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It would be useful to know what you're building. And if the OEM lighting is still in place, i.e. are you enhancing OEM or need everything aftermarket.

 

I put a Hella 350 LED bar with a pencil pattern on a NB miata with stock lighting for a 24 hour. The 350/470 series have a stackable bracket option and I will get the 350 with a broad pattern to stack on the pencil pattern for next night race.

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On 1/3/2019 at 1:39 PM, E. Tyler Pedersen said:

Diode Dynamics light bars

I second this.  While you are ordering them pick up a pair of the 6" wide beams for your tow rig.  

 

Diode Dynamics light bars

 

Or, if you want to go through the expense and hassle and still have the factory buckets you can retrofit Lexus RX250 DS2 HID's into the existing housings and run 35W Xenon bulbs.  There's still no comparison between these and current generation LED's but the work and expense is IMHO not worth it when you can run an 18" bar and two 6" lights angled for cornering.  

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There is no aftermarket LED light bar that meets the wording of the rules.

Quote

9.9.2.5.

Headlights must be aimed properly, such that all light

is directed at track level.

9.9.2.6.

Cars not meeting these requirements, or with

improperly aimed, or blinding lights shall be black

flagged and brought in to add, repair, or adjust lights

to meet this requirement.

 

All of them have symmetrical vertical light patterns throwing as much light up as down.

Then again, I have never seen the officials take a car off of the track because of headlights that are a hazard to other drivers. 

In the past, consistent enforcement of the rules was not their strong suit.

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3 minutes ago, mindspin311 said:

Nooooooooo

 

Please don't use a light bar. We have perfectly awesome lighting from HIDs in the factory locations. It can be done. No more blinding other racers.

 

I used 4 at Nelson's and will use the same 4 at Charlotte in 2019. Under the lumens number and they give me great visibility. 

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3 minutes ago, E. Tyler Pedersen said:

 

I used 4 at Nelson's and will use the same 4 at Charlotte in 2019. Under the lumens number and they give me great visibility. 

That's great. But are you sure they aren't aimed in a way that you're not blinding cars in front of you?

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On 12/28/2018 at 4:51 PM, rennwagen said:

new build need lighting recommendation

please

 

What car are you building? In our E30, we have replaced the factory halogen housings with aftermarket HID. They are plenty bright at tracks like Road Atlanta at night with no need to run additional lighting.

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19 minutes ago, mindspin311 said:

That's great. But are you sure they aren't aimed in a way that you're not blinding cars in front of you?

 

No one complained to us at Nelson's.  Should be just fine :) 

BTW I don't have stock headlights so can't retrofit and plus it would get in the way of my filter mod.  

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The dd light bars are amazing.  They are also nice when you are the car in front of a car with the dd light bars.  They don't blind you.

 

I had no problem with Tyler's lights at Nelson ledges.  In fact, I could always tell it was his car because I could see better AND they didn't fudge with my mirrors / blind me...

 

In other words, another vote for dd lights / light bars from a competitor that doesn't have them.

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8 minutes ago, Team Infiniti said:

Seeing as we may be building something resembling a e30, what headlamps are you running

 

I ended up doing two of the 12" on center of the hood then did a 6" on each corner for apex lights.  I can try and get a video up tonight or tomorrow so you can see what it looks like. 

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47 minutes ago, erich said:

There is no aftermarket LED light bar that meets the wording of the rules.

 

9.9.2.5.

Headlights must be aimed properly, such that all light

is directed at track level.

 

All of them have symmetrical vertical light patterns throwing as much light up as down.

Then again, I have never seen the officials take a car off of the track because of headlights that are a hazard to other drivers. 

In the past, consistent enforcement of the rules was not their strong suit.

 

I love when people use absolutes like "All" when comparing such a wide spectrum of items like this.  DD bars actually meet SAE/DOT standards for beam pattern, just like the OE headlights all our cars came with, and based on the rule book you can run a total of 8,000 lumens, which conveniently DD provides right on the specifications in case you have questions.  You aren't going to get DOT approved beams or measured lumen output from a cheap Chinese bar from Tractor Supply.  

 

Again, you WILL get more output from a proper name brand DS2 capsule retrofitted with a QUALITY projector into an existing light, but DD are certainly NOT the bars you are thinking of when you talk about the light bars on the front of brodozer pickups that blind oncoming traffic from a mile away.  

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4 hours ago, mindspin311 said:

That's great. But are you sure they aren't aimed in a way that you're not blinding cars in front of you?

 

I have 4 of DD bars on our car, I've actually drive towards the car like I am oncoming traffic, as well as parked in front of it.  The lights glare less than many factory high beams.  Not all LEDs are created equal.

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Another vote here for the Diode Dynamics. We run 2 of them with the "driving beam" as cornering/apex lights on our Supra. Small power draw, plenty of light. We have them on a 3 or 5 amp fuse wired straight to the disconnect. Also make loading the car after races easier, just turn them off before you strap down the car or you'll be seeing spots for awhile....

 

We mounted them kind of high (on top of our welded shut popups) but then aimed them kind of down and cross-eyed. 

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12 hours ago, gsmith2424 said:

I'm just waiting for someone to try and adapt the Audi Laser Lights onto a car.

 

They are available, but something insane like $15,000 for the pair.  I just couldn't justify it for anything short of an SL-C or something equally insane to drive on the street that isn't already a factory built supercar.

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I am sure that they didn’t do their marketing to fit ChampCar lighting rules, but it ends up being very beneficial for us. The Chinese sellers only want to market the highest lumen number possible even padding the numbers, for ChampCar tech you would want the lowest possible lumen number for a given housing.

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On 1/8/2019 at 12:57 PM, bbaker480 said:

I love when people use absolutes like "All" when comparing such a wide spectrum of items like this.  DD bars actually meet SAE/DOT standards for beam pattern, just like the OE headlights all our cars came with, and based on the rule book you can run a total of 8,000 lumens, which conveniently DD provides right on the specifications in case you have questions.  You aren't going to get DOT approved beams or measured lumen output from a cheap Chinese bar from Tractor Supply.  

 

Again, you WILL get more output from a proper name brand DS2 capsule retrofitted with a QUALITY projector into an existing light, but DD are certainly NOT the bars you are thinking of when you talk about the light bars on the front of brodozer pickups that blind oncoming traffic from a mile away.  

It would make me happy knowing that someone actually makes a decent LED lightbar.  Can we get all crappy ones banned now?

 

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5 hours ago, erich said:

It would make me happy knowing that someone actually makes a decent LED lightbar.  Can we get all crappy ones banned now?

 

sounds like a good opportunity for a series sponsorship.  Those bad boys can be very pricey, especially if you already have a set and a new manuf is required.

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