LED light bar

slyfox2151 · Postby **slyfox2151** » Wed May 27, 2015 10:56 pm

Hi, I tried googling but all I could come up with is LED headlights and that's not what I want...

Has anyone installed a LED light bar on their MX-5?
I'm thinking of putting either a pair of 8" or a single 20" light bar in the mouth of my 02 NB. The only issue I can see is the bar might be too low so some careful aiming would be required to avoid blinding myself, Too much light too close.
I considered mounting them to the top of the windshield but I think that would just look weird.

I need more light driving on country roads when its pitch black, high beams are not cutting it.

EDIT:
after trying "miata" instead of MX-5 I found this pic but no write ups or anything.
http://www.trackhq.com/forums/attachmen ... -enzo2.jpg
Note the bars in the mouth, Not the ones in the headlights.

Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Thu May 28, 2015 10:11 am

You could recess it into the bumper and shape some perpex to cover it? Been thinking of this thing as well.

hks_kansei · Postby **hks_kansei** » Thu May 28, 2015 10:30 am

For country driving you tend to want more distance rather than just more light.

Personally I hate those lightbars, most of the ones i've seen have been nothing more than an LED floodlight.
Regardless, if you can find some are a decent beam, then go for it.

are they to be a permanent fitment? or a temporary thing for the odd country drive at night?

I would make up a bracket to mount them up near the leading edge of the bonnet, or at least down near the headlights.

the headlight mount area would be easiest, since you could make a pair of brackets that fit onto the towing eyes and hold the lamps at whatever height you wanted.

The benefit here is that you wouldn't need to cut any body panels, and if you use the correct plugs you could have the whole light bracket assembly easily removable.

madjak · Postby **madjak** » Thu May 28, 2015 12:58 pm

You can get ones that only have pencil lenses rather than diffused lenses. Most have a combination of the two, so you get some distance and some flood.

I think putting two better headlights in (ie HID) would be more effective. Unless you spend lots of money on good LEDs they don't seem to work as expected.

manga_blue · Postby **manga_blue** » Thu May 28, 2015 2:02 pm

hks_kansei wrote:... most of the ones i've seen have been nothing more than an LED floodlight.

Actually what I want is a floodlight. Most of my near misses with the wildlife have come when an animal trundles or hops in from the side after the beams have passed through. So a floodlight would help give that last second warning.

slyfox2151 · Postby **slyfox2151** » Thu May 28, 2015 6:32 pm

I was thinking permanent install.

Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Thu May 28, 2015 8:23 pm

http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=571783

Cus · Postby **Cus** » Fri May 29, 2015 12:51 am

I've also been contemplating this, side-fill is something the NA cars need at the very least. I'm adding one vote to Magpie's "Recess in front bumper and cover with curved perspex" - it's how I've decided the "right" way will be when I get around to it. A pair of smaller ones angled slightly outwards also gets my vote.

Putting them in the mouth is going to be convenient/easiest, but getting your lights too low to the ground means if unless you're on perfectly even road, the ground will be casting shadows randomly, which is going to annoy you more than not having lights, ideally you want them as high as you can get them, if you do a serious amount of night time driving, put them above the windshield and give no f%&ks how weird it looks - after all, an MX5 with weird looking lights is still a lot better looking than an MX5 with a kangaroo bonnet ornament!

Just to clarify; LED bars are not for long distance sight, they're for filing in the area "before" your driving lights, but they fill in *everything*, front, sides, above, below, next week, last thursday... they're amazing. (They do make "spotlight" LED bars, but save your money and get actual driving lights if that's what you want, there's no comparison there) which is why lots of 4WDs use them, because seeing your surroundings is sometimes more important than seeing a kilometer straight ahead. (I scared the sh!t out of myself on the great ocean road not being able to see around corners, so my opinion is slightly biased)

Mr Morlock · Postby **Mr Morlock** » Sat May 30, 2015 5:35 pm

It should not be difficult to fit driving lights in the nose or you can even use a light mounting bar that attached to number plate. the latter might be easier and not interfere with air flow. These bars are readily available and the Police use them. You also do not need really large lamps to get better performance than the headlight high beams. Never used an led light bar ie no experience. At one stage I used oval light weight driving lamps plastic bodied Hella units. If one checks say Hella and Narva you can read the specs weights sizes etc. Dont even think of adding Perspex covers. Any cover adversely affects light performance and thus is quite different to lenses being an integral part of a lighting unit.

Another possibility is seeing if there are still kits of small xenon driving lamp kits available. Hella made them 10 years ago but I don't know if it was a good performer or if superseded- you should be able to get advice from them.

manga_blue · Postby **manga_blue** » Sat May 30, 2015 6:17 pm

Cus wrote: side-fill is something the NA cars need at the very least ... etc

Cus, thanks for all that information in your post. Thanks slyfox2151 for starting the thread too. It's got me thinking that there may be a solution to get me driving the 5 at night again. :beer:

hks_kansei · Postby **hks_kansei** » Sat May 30, 2015 6:59 pm

Mr Morlock wrote:It should not be difficult to fit driving lights in the nose or you can even use a light mounting bar that attached to number plate. the latter might be easier and not interfere with air flow. These bars are readily available and the Police use them.

I would add though that while a great idea, you will very much need to make up/buy a bracket rather than use the existing number plate bracket. the original bracket would vibrate with anything more than minimal weight.

The ligh bars (like the police use) are a great idea, but all of the ones I've seen have not been deep enough in the base plate part to mount onto an MX5.

I've found that 3mm L section aluminium is more than strong enough for the job, mine are fitted with it in the mouth, but if one wanted to have the lamps up higher (ie: up on the nose) it wouldnt be that hard to make the brackets required.