Tayloe08

Just wanted to be added to the brighter lights club!!!
I don't know what I was thinking earlier but after I sat down with pen and paper I finally figured it out. Now have 12V at light sockets and highs and lows and fogs on at the same time....what a difference!!!!!

Next is a set of 9007 Silver Stars. All it cost me was about 30-45 min. I just happened to have excess supplies left over from working at a local car stero shop

Again I love this site and all the knowledge it brings. It has really helped me set my truck apart from buddies with CTD's in my area. They now want brighter lights but don't know how. Yes I will be glad to help them $$$$$$$$$$

jon96ctd

are the silver star lights much brighter? i've always wanted to know if they're brighter but never wanted to spend $40 for curiosity.

West Coast

What section of the factory headlight harness do you tap into to install the relays??? thanks.......

Dave

Tayloe08

I tapped mine in right at the back of each headlight. I have 2 relays on each side by the battery box. The main power wire comming off the batteries is 10 gauge with a fuse on each relay.

jon96ctd

10 guage wire? you sure that's big enough? haha, you could add a row of lights across the bumper with that much wire! but at least you know for sure that there's no chance of the wire being too small...i'd rather overkill than not do enough.

West Coast

Thanks Tyloe, I would like to find the Y section in the headlight harness and only use two relays. One for low beams and one for high beams. Does anyone know the wire colors for low and high beams. Thanks a lot....

Dave

Rockyhud

In case anyone hasn't seen the Daniel Stern website and the info on upgrading there I have a copy of the circuit they posted in their article that nicely shows what goes into upgrading headlight wiring. This circuit should be in my gallery as soon as it gets approved. The article has a lot of very good info too, such as what rating the relays should be and what kind are avaliable. I bought a couple of 30 amp rated relays from a local auto stereo install shop for $3.50 each that I will use in my upgrade projects. These will plug directly into the relay sockets in the PDC I bought to do the CTD, but that will come after I get the wife's 96 Grand Cherokee headlights upgraded so she can see better at night (she has some trouble driving at night - has some night blindness issues). Hope this helps someone.

Steve

West Coast

Here is a old post I found with wire colors. Can someone confirm these for a 94?

Power coming in is 20 pink/red, with z3 20 black as ground

Power out to dome is M3 22 pink/dark blue

Power out to cargo is m2 20 yellow

Power out to head lights is e1 20 tan /orange

Power out to park is L7 20 black.yello

Power out to park chime is G26 20 light blue and to buzzer is same

Power out to dimmer switch is L2 16 light green

Power out to high beams is L3 16 red/orange

Power out to Low beams is L4 16 violet/white

And is everyone installing two relays on both left and right headlight? I am not having any issues understanding the elelctrical part of this upgrade. But if I could catch the headlight wires where they Y into left and right sides I could use only two relays and not four. If someone has used only two realys where did you splice into the wiring harness??

Thanks........

Dave

Tommy93w350

Guys, when you use the relay and harness, are yourelaying power to the lights or relaying ground to the lights? The factory setup is relaying ground to the lights with constant power.

is it better to convert to relaying power with constant ground?

4x4dually

I never thought of which one they were switching, but, if you only "relay" the hot or ground, you are only fixing half the problem. Remember, voltage drop occurs on both "hot" and "return" conductors. I have no idea which wires these boxes are connecting because I have no time to research it, but "relaying" both feed and return conductors gets into a lot of darn wires really quick especialy if you are doing both high and low beams. I am currently researching an "active" fix for dim lights. No extra wires and no electro-mechanical relays to fail, just a box. It will take a few months to design and produce and test, but it may be something that may prove to be profitable in the future is some jerk doesn't take my idea! I have a lot of resources here at work, we'll see what we can do. This will also get rid of those dimming lights when the intake heater kicks on and off in the winter.

JWB

Tommy93w350

The best would run a ground wire from each headlight straight to the chassis. Then relay +power to each headlight. But, the signal is ----ground from the factory headlight switch??? Could the factory headlight ---ground signal the ---ground on the relay to activate the power source?

I'm getting a headache

4x4dually

The *best* is to run the power wires to the battery and the ground to the negative post on the battery. Remember, the chassis it a big conductor of which also drops voltage. The power source is the battery. The closer you get to it, the higher the voltage, either way, whatever. Like you, headache

Now, I hope I'm interpreting your last message correctly. It seems that you don't understand how the "switching the ground" works. The "hot" is always connected to the lamp. The relay (or factory switch) simply makes or breaks the ground. Does that help or am I the one confused and not understanding what you said?

JWB

Tommy93w350

Yeah, I'm understanding, thanks

jon96ctd

are you saying power goes from the battery, to the fuse, to the light bulb, through the switch to ground? i thought the switch was on the power side of the headlights, not ground side...i haven't looked at any wire diagrams or had my switch out though.

as far as relays go, for the control side of a relay it's best to switch/control the ground side of the relay and have the fused power go straight to the power side of the relay/solenoid.

Tommy93w350

Yes, There is one hot wire and two grounds (one low beam and one high beam) at the headlight bulb. If you run larger wires for the bulbs the ground is still wimmpy.

I want to run two hot wires (one low beam and one high beam) and one large ground to the headlight bulb.

I think I turned over a rock and found a Dodge!!!