mcgilles

I upgraded the wiring on my fog lights to 16awg after I blew the 15A fuse I had in the fog light circuit. given the size of the wire I did not want to put a 20A fuse in that circuit, to me that is just asking for trouble, and when it comes to the electronics in a C5 asking for trouble is a very bad thing! adding the new wires is a very easy thing to do. I have a 30A relay on a 20A fused source. the relay is energized by the stock wire which runs to the fog lights. I ran my own power and ground wires to the fog lights and taped off and secured the stock wires.

an isolation diode would not be a bad idea, but again you would have to find one which could handle 20A or so for 10-15 seconds, and 5.8A continuous (35W * 2 HID's / 12V). it would be easier to just run your own power wires for the low beams as well, the low beam relay you would add would do the same thing, the light switch would no longer need to feed the HID's power.

MrLeadFoot

Although I drew up the schematic for these relays, like I said earlier, I personally have not yet done the fogs with the highs relay (although I plan on doing so) and am currently only running the Controller and Low-beam relays as depicted in my schematic.

Can you share what happens to the light on the fog light switch in the car when you turn your brights on?

Specifically, I'd like to know what happens under these specific circumstances:

1) When you have your fogs on, either with or without the low beams, the light on the foglight switch light is normally illuminated. I know that when you turn on your brights, the fog lights themselves stay on, but what happens to that foglight switch light when you then turn on your brights? Does it stay on or turn off?

2) When your foglights are NOT switched on, thus the foglight switch light is off, what happens with the foglight switch light when you turn your high beams on? Since your fog lights now turn on with the brights, does the foglight switch light also turn on?

Thanks.

mcgilles

I can, the fog light on indicator LED does NOT turn on unless the BCM is what is commanding the fog lights to be on. so if you use the high's with a high and fog relay mod, the indicator light on the fog light button stays off. I was disappointed in this too, but checked the wiring diagrams in the service manual, and that's exactly what it does. I believe the BCM directly turns on the fog lights indicator light whenever it turns the lights on. since in stock form the BCM is the only thing which controls the fog lights. pressing the button just says "Please Mr. BCM, can I have my fog lights on now?" and 1/2 the time the BCM says "no"...that's why I did the mod

Thickraybans

Great mod,this should be on the DIY sticky in Tech.

MrLeadFoot

Maybe we should wait to hear back from jrprich, and see if his findings are indeed what you suspect.

If his finding do indeed match what you say, maybe you can detail your foglight mod, and together we can see if we can integrate mine with yours. That way we don't confuse anybody... including me. :-)

On the other hand, if the only thing that's bothersome is that the little foglight siwtch light is not on when the fogs are on, that's really not that big of a deal, is it? I mean, with HIDS in the fogs, I can easily tell when I look ahead if the fogs are on or not anyway. But, if you noticed how much thought I put into the 4 on mod using two relays so the flash-to-pass doesn't raise headlights, it's because I'd rather mod something to add to the original function, rather than give something up to get something else, even if it is something as little as the foglight switch light.

mcgilles

well the fog light indicator is definitely off when the high beams high + fogs relay is powering the fog lights. it works normally otherwise. even with the relay and larger wire I added to the fog lights the indicator works just fine unless the high+Fogs mod is in play, then fogs are on and indicator is off. the only thing I'm not sure of is why that is the case, I'm pretty sure that the explanation I posted above is the reason.

it would be nice to do a formal write up on all of the options of what you can do here. Did I ever link my original thread of the high+low relay mod and the high + fog relay mod to this thread? if not here it is:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...dlight+problem

I did my mod just before you did yours and we had alot of good PM converstations about the idea, the results of which could really benefit anyone else here who wants to improve the output of their lights. I think combining the two threads would make for a good DIY entry.

we could also include the fog lights wire upgrade, which IMO is required when doing HIDs in the fog lights positions, the stock wires are just too small. I don't recall if I ever did a write up on that, I'll dig up the pictures.

mcgilles

Here are some images of the upgraded fog light wiring.

I went with a 8awg wire with a 60A fuse off the B+ terminal and into a distribution block. the first terminal of that block is fused at 20A and is the power feed for my fog lights. this wire goes to one side of the relay's contact. the coil is grounded on one side and on the other, tap into the purple wire shown here as the tap on the far right. the other taps you see are for my high+low mod and high+fogs mod.



I tied off the stock fog light connectors since I won't be using them anymore.



I ran 14AWG ground wires to the two fog light HID power input connectors from the two factory ground points on the frame rails. this pic shows one of them connected. a small spade type terminal on the end of the wire fit the pins on the factory style connector which came with the HID kit perfectly. I insulated them so they wouldn't short against each other. from the other side of the relay's contact I ran two 16 awg wires, one for each fog light. they are the yellow ones.



this pic over on the right side shows the fully insulated connection for the one fog light. ignore the other taps and splices into the wires above, that's for the Parking lights+DRL's mod...I've rewired almost every light on the front half of this car! haha.

MrLeadFoot

D-OH! After reading your reply, yes, the foglight switch light WOULD be off when the Foglights relay kicks in because the relay bypasses the stock circuit altogether. DUH! :o

And, you know what? Now that I think about it, it really doesn't matter what the foglight switch light indicates one you turn on your brights, because when the brights are on, the "new" system is set to have all 6 lights anyway, so you already KNOW that your fogs are on. So, at that point the only indicator you need to tell you what's on is your high-beam indicator, which would pretty much tell you that every single light is on.

As if you wouldn't know simply by looking at the road, when at that point those of us with 6 HIDs would illuminate the road ahead with a light swath that's brighter than daylight!

Then, when you turn off your brights, you're back to stock low-beam mode, which is really the only time you might want to know if your fogs are on by looking at the foglight switch light.

MrLeadFoot

I don't know how in the world you were able to separate and lift the top section of your underhood control center that much. Mine barely comes up high enough to see into the cavity. I was afraid if I pulled too hard, I'd pull some wires loose, or something! That's why I just tapped the headlights, and sidemarkers up at the headlight area, which is what I'll probably do with the fogs relay, too,

Just out of curiosity, was there some kind of secret I missed to lifting that thing?

jrprich

I tried as well but could only get like 1 inch up...guess I need some Viagra ;^)
..that is why I ran all 4 16g wires into the headlight well

mcgilles

No performance enhancing drugs are needed!

there are 2 nuts you need to remove to really get access to the wiring under the electrical center. look at the B+ terminal on the side of it, just in front of that (relative to the car) is a nut holding the electrical center down. remove that one. then the other is down near the bottom on the side of the center facing the battery. its recessed into a cavity so its hard to see but you can feel it. you probably need to remove the battery to get access to it. with both of those removed the electrical center will have more play to it in all directions. then pop off the 4 plastic retaining clips holding the top half to the bottom and you should be able to gently separate them enough to get access to the wires to make some taps. just don't pull too hard, breaking one of those wires off would be a major pita to fix!

jrprich

The Fog Light Switch does go OFF when High beams are turned on.

BTW, with the All 6 lights On Mod
the lights do pop up when I "flash to pass" to open my garage door.........a minor annoyance

MrLeadFoot

What do you mean when you flash-to-pass to open your garage door???

The Controller and Low-beam relays in my schematic PREVENTS the flash-to-pass from popping up your headlights, that's specifically the whole purpose of using two relays for the lows-on-your-brights mod to begin with.

With the stock setup and with my multi-relay mod, the ONLY time your headlight doors should raise is when your light stalk switch is turned to the second position. If you look carefully, my mod bypasses the stock circuitry to power your low-beams when the brights are turned on, using the sidemarker lights as the "trigger", so there's no way this mod is causing your headlights to raise when you flash-to-pass when your lights are off, because since your light stalk switch is off, nothing is telling the headlight doors to raise. I suggest you double-check which light's power wire you're using as the "trigger" on the Controller relay.

Unless, of course, you have some other mod that works with your lights in some manner; if so, then all bets are off.

jrprich

I hear you.........but before the mod I could flash to pass and the headlight doors stayed down. Now they pop up if I flash to pass but everything else works as advertised

When I say my garage door opens, that is because I have my opener wired to my high beam power so that when you flash to pass it triggers the garage door remote to send it's signal to Open the garage door.

MrLeadFoot

OK, I don't know how you have that garage door opener wired in, but I can tell you that you must not have the trigger on the Controller relay (pin 86) wired to your sidemarker light. Or, maybe you don't have something connected right in the Low-beam relay.

I say this because the headlight doors in our cars are designed to raise whenever the low beams receive power.

Now, in the mod some other members do to keep their lows on when their brights are turned on, they use one relay to simply supply power to the low-beam whenever their brights receive power. In this type of setup, when you flash your brights when your light stalk switch is in the OFF position, the headlights would pop up because the low-beams receive power whenever the brights are on, period.

In my mod, however, the lows do NOT turn on whenever the brights are turned on. The ONLY time your lows receive power when the brights are turned on is when the sidemarker lights are on. And, the only time the sidemarker lights are on is when you turn the light stalk switch to either parking lights (position 2) or low beams (position3). So, if you wired everything correctly, when your light stalk switch is set to OFF (position 1), the headlights can NOT possibly raise when you flash-to-pass because no power is supplied to the low-beam circuit at that time (same as when stock).

With all that said, are you sure your parking lights aren't on when you flash-to-pass? Or, maybe you didn't use the power wire on the sidemarker lights as the wire on pin 86 on the Controller relay?

Additionally, the only tap you should have to your low-beam power wire is the one that is connected to pin 30 on the Low-beam relay.

Also, make sure that the only wire that goes from pin 30 on the Controller Relay to pin 86 on the Low-beam relay is a single jumper wire.

If you're sure all connections are indeed correct, disconnect the fog lights relay from the equation and try again. If you still have a problem, draw your wiring and connections setup, without looking at mine, and post a pic. More often that not, with an electrical mod, the most common problem is something that was simply overlooked, and it happens easily when you're trying to keep all the connections straight.

jrprich

No worries, no complaints here
I will give it a third, or is it fourth look over the weekend........but I need to let my back rest up first

jrprich

OK,

I must have still been sleepy yesterday
The lights DO NOT pop up unless the switch is on position 2

So my bad, getting older sucks

On to the next light mod, retrofitting projectors into my OEM low beams

MrLeadFoot

Whew! You had me going there, for a moment. Glad it's working as designed.

With that said, if anyone can think of a wire that receives power only when the light stalk switch is in the fully ON position (position 3, which is when headlights come on), aside from the low-beam power wire, then we can tap that wire instead of the sidemarker lights, and then the lights won't raise when you flash-to-pass when you've got your parking lights on.

I previously tried to figure out an alternative to the sidemarker light myself, but wasn't able to. I initially thought I would try to directly tap the wire that comes out of the light stalk switch, but that scares me because if anything were to go wrong with that circuit, I'd have to replace the stalk switch!

Hopefully, it's a can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees thing for me, and someone else will come up with an idea. Then, it would be a real simple change to move the trigger tap at pin 86 on the Controller relay from the sidemarker to that new source.

jrprich

Thanks to all who posted this great info and helped the project along.

But I have ordered heaver gauge wiring harnesses for the HIDs in my Lows and Fogs..........so this may mess up the entire 6 on project.

MrLeadFoot

I don't see how heavier guage wires would alter your 6-on mod any.