Lights, and night racing. (Page 1 of 2)

This has been covered many times, but my advice for an old car is to run new 12ga wire with relays.  Run 4 lights and split them up into two circuits so you can shut a pair off in case your alternator or battery ever starts to give out.  Aiming is THE most important thing.  Great lights with less than perfect aiming are useless.  OK lights with perfect aiming are better.

We raced the 14 hour CCWS race at GingerMan and it was pitch black.  Two lights must be aimed spot-on for aiding in corner entry.  Without entry lights, you are completely guessing at your turn-in points.  We use four 7" H4 lights and our 35 year old 50amp alternator works perfectly with no dimming even at idle.

Glare from behind was never an issue even with the hatch removed.  I actually welcomed the extra light when someone was behind me.

Just to clarify, there are no lights on the track, so be prepared (oh, and keep your eyes out for  the wild horses).

Anybody have tips for aiming apex lights properly? I assume Friday's testing isn't going to go late enough to run into dusk.

The claims are:
1. they filter out UV light that you can't see, so your pupils open up letting in more of the light that you can see
2. they filter out hazy blue light so you can see more contrast in low light situations and everything is clearer

IMHO, they do give some benefit around dawn or dusk, but in the dead of night they don't help.

I pitted three laps in a row at the GingerMan CCWS race to have my left hand aux light re-aimed.  If the focal point was just a few feet off, the left hand turns were a bitch to navigate.  I literally had to turn-in by memory because I had no visual reference points at all.  Once they got the light aimed right, I was only about 2 seconds a lap slower than during the day.  The key is to get the apex lights aimed just right so that you can see the inside edge of the track under braking.  Too far out and you can't see far enough down the track.  Too straight and it's like wearing blinders.

If you put aux lights to the hood, be sure to mount them through a reinforced area where the hood inner is bonded to the outer so they don't vibrate.  A single layer of sheetmetal makes for a really crappy mounting surface.

Night racing is a hoot, but without properly aimed lights, it's downright scary.  I think that cross-eyed lights would be easier to aim, but now that ours are dialed in, we'll leave them alone as long as they don't get hit or have to be removed.  We have them covered right up until dusk.

Our MR2 had four lights mounted on a bar across the hood, anchored where the stock headlights had been.  at Nelson Ledges we aimed the two outboard lights toward the edge of the track; the two center lights were pointed forward.  this helped us locate the apex, and other cars' taillights helped with general navigation.

the biggest challenge for me was poorly-aimed (i.e., aimed way too high) lights on other cars shining right into our mirror, which made it difficult to see in front of me; i'd say about half the cars had lights aimed way too high.  do everyone a favor and consider not only the horizontal aiming of your lights, but also the vertical aiming.  and add more wattage than you think you'll need.

all that said, night racing was a LOT of fun (and NL is pitch-black at night).

For Louisiana, our setup had junkyard fog lights (low, wide beam) mounted at 45-degree angles outward as apex lights. They're the ones below the bar. The remainder of the lights were aimed in a spread. The innermost two Hellas were at 2 degrees down, a few degrees outward; the next two lights were ~4.5 degrees down, spread a little wider; final two Hellas were ~6 degrees down and even wider.
In the end we had about 160 degrees of light ahead of us.
(Photo by Ronman, he has lots more. http://ronman.org/pics/Lemons/nola10/img_8997.htm)
As Jeff said, use new heavy-gauge wiring, in at least two circuits, run with relays.
Here's some great advice on relays and light aiming

here you go.  one connector for the lights; the whole thing is bolted on and can be removed by four nuts in about 45 seconds.  the pic is not a good representation of the light output.

Thanks Mike.
Steve

You still have the "flip over" stock light mounts...you could install a couple there and two more Hella style on the hood should be enough...but can the alt handle the extra amps?

When we stopped for a look after Infineon, the track manager said they may bring in more lights, but it would only be for the pits/front straight section. The track has a ton of turns - he said there are so many, they don't even name/put a number on them.
You'll need to watch out for volcanic rock, cactus and other desert detritus too, so try not to go off-track. Just sayin'...