sharpshooter33

Ok I'm thinking of putting some 80w/100w bulbs n my 2003 GT....anybody know what the wire gauge of the headlights is? Don't really wanna relay them. If I'm gonna do wiring I might as well go HID. My calculations for 100w is 12ga. Anybody know the gauge of the headlight wires? I'm figuring on pulling 9amp

thanks
SS33

cliffyk

It's 16ga as shown below:



But not to worry, the feeds are individual for each filament, and for bundled automotive wiring the working ampacity for 16ga wire is 10A (13A max).



A 100W lamp at 14.2VDC will draw 7.0A, obviously you'd have to get down to 10.0V before it would draw 10A.

There are two 10A fuses feeding each of the the brights and a single 20A fuse feeding the dims.

Here's the full schematic for the headlamps.

Jazzer The Cat

^ so THAT is why they call you the TECH SAVANT

Z28KLR

Will the stock housings even stand up to the extra heat generated by that wattage? I'm sure the material thickness is different and the plastic is closer to the bulb, but I've heard of the foglight housings melting with 55 watt bulbs, which is only an extra 20 than what the factory puts in.

cliffyk

That is a concern, however the headlamp housings are much more robust (in terms of heat resistance, etc.) than the 27W toy fog lights; so I would not place this at the top of the "OMG What If?" list.

That said, 'twas me and I felt I needed more light I'd get a set of Hella or Cibie driving lights and wire then into to brights via a relay. There's a lot more to seeing in the dark than wattage--Daniel Stern's site has some great reading...

cliffyk

I told my wife of my prestigious award (BTW, where's my lamp?)--she said it was more like this:

Jazzer The Cat

I know...

You had mentioned it before, but I liked my little adaptation better. Besides, only us idiots would know that we are not really idiots!

I had PM'd the powers that be again to ask about the little blinking banner and was supposed to happen. I have decided to let it go for now, as getting the title at ALL was a royal PITA. Took me over 1 month and 15 posts on the subject to get this far.

Take your banner and shut up about it already... lol

Jazzer

sharpshooter33

Thanks for all the input guys!
That's exactly what I needed

SS33