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PIAA 520's vs 80 pro';s

JayR

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City, State
Annapolis, Md
Year, Model & Trim Level
1992 Xplr Sport
Im thinking how to get the most out my lighting, Im planing 4 520's on the safari rack, should i get 2 pencils marked by P and 2 driving? ( D ) ( P ) ( P ) ( D ) Would this


be better than a ( D ) ( D ) ( D ) ( D ) does the 520 even come in a pencil beam? matt I know u know the answer to this, someone, help me, it would be greatly appreciated
 



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the 520 does not come in a pencil beam, only driving and fog. THe 80 XT's come in Pwncil, but unless your racing and need a very fine, exact light beam, the driving would probably be the better option for you. The most out of your light depends on what you'll need the light for. If you do rock-crawling, no real need for a long-distance beam. If you do faster type of night driving, then the driving or even the pencil beam would be for you. The 80 XT's are quite a bit brighter then the 520 driving lights, of course the 520's look pretty cool too :). THe PIAA 80 XT driving lights are 385,000 candlepower... the Pencil Beam is 350,000 candlepower. As for teh 520... I don't recall the candlepower, but if you do a search on the net I bet you could find it. HOpe that helps, let me know if you have any more questions.
 






ok I found out for you... the PIAA 520 driving lights are 120,000 candlepower, whereas the PIAA 80 XT are 385,000 candlepower.
 






JayR,
I would go with one set driving and one set fogs.
( F )( D )( D )( F )
That way your driving lights in the center will help for distance, and the fogs will help for going slow over trails. Because the beam spread is much wider on fogs, you will be able to see more out to the sides. This is the setup that I have on my truck, only I'm using the Pro 80XT's mounted to the front of my Con-Ferr rack.
 






good call Ray! I have 16 lights on my Explorer now... does that earn me a nickname or what? :)

Matt "Las Vegas" Adams and his truck "Sunshine"
Notice: All people looking at Matt's truck are required to wear welding masks :D

[Edited by Ray Lobato on 08-17-2000 at 09:56 PM]
 






Piaa covers

Now heres the question for the 2 of your, If i get Piaa 80xt's can i get the PIAA covers like the 520's have??? This was just a thought, O and ray do u like your confer roof rack? I know they make a snowboard adaptor but i couldent find it. I was thinking of the con-fer rack or the performance products one... What do u recomend? And im looking into the 80 XT's. Thanks alot
 






O yea and do the 80 xt's draw as much power as the 520's do when there on? thanks guys

:cool: for you matt, Bet you get blinded by those lights.
 






I asked that same question once, and heres what I recall hearing... the heat produced by the 80XT's is quite a bit more then the 520's and leaving a cover on the whole time on the 80's will melt the cover, whereas the 520's do not produce as much heat and therefore can leave a cover on with the lights on. They will not fit i am quite certain, but because of the difference in size... the 80's are 11mm's wider then the 520's (the 520's are 158mm and the 80's are 169). THe depth of the light is also different - the 80's are just a smidgeon deeper. The 80's use 120 watt bulbs, the 520's use 85 watt bulbs. You can upgrade the bulb in either light to PIAA's superwhite bulb as they both use H3, just different wattage lights. By the way, the 80's use an aluminum housing - glass lens, the 520's use stamped steel housing - glass lens.
 






JayR,
IMHO there are only 2 racks that I know will take a beating.

Garvins Wilderness Rack. Number 1 choise, but also very expensive. Almost bullet proof. Accessories are top notch.

Con-Ferr Number 2 choise. Almost as good, but looks better than Garvin Wilderness Rack. A very slight step under Garvin. Accessories, I really like Garvins accessories better. Con-Ferr aren't bad, it's just that Garvins are better.
I just got it and haven't had a chance to try it out, because my truck's now in the shop getting lifted and other goodies put on and in it.
Hopefully it will get it back by the 1st.

OH and when you get the PIAA's make sure you put Matt's name on the Warrenty card as recommended. We gotta help these guys with their sponsors so they know that Explorer people Do modify their trucks. :)

Matt,
Does PIAA have some sort of extention cable/harness that goes inbetween the harness plug(to light) and the light plug (to harness)that would extend the length I could stretch the lights. As I see it. The harness is pretty much most of it is in the engine compartment. That is not long enough to have in the engine compartment and go all the way up to my rack. I either have to add wire length to the wires going to the battery or add wire length from the lights to the harness. I thought that maybe I could get some light harness(you know the little white ones on the light themselves and their mates) connectors and plugs and make some longer cables to just plug into the harness. I'm putting the lights on myself so I have some time to figure this out before I get the Truck back. Better yet since you have the came setup as me(only I don't have as many lights as you)How is your harness setup? Is your relay in the engine compartment?
 






Ray - unfortanetly they don't, but I don't think you'd want them to since the connectors are fairly large, and you need be able to squeeze that wire through a small hole (or else drill a BIG hole in your roof which I don't think you want to do. I had to clip the wires and use standard 14 guage wire to extend the length up to the roof.

I'll tell you how I have MY lights set up but keep in mind it is not the best way of doing it, but so far it's been working allright.

I have one 4-guage wire coming straight off the battery... this runs through the firewall to a fuse block located under my rear seat. I am using 30-amp fuses which is more then enough for the 120-watt lights (figure they pull about 10 amps each, 20 amps per set). The relays for two of the sets on the roof are mounted under the rear seat as well (I removed the carpet so that I was drilling into a solid ground location) Everything is secured of course and all the blank fuse locations are filled in with blank fuses and terminators on the connectors so theres little chance of any bad sparking or anything. I'm still not sure what I'll do yet with my relay for my next pair of lights on the roof - no more room under the seat. Perhaps I'll stash it in the compartment where the rear washer fluid is located at... But the power for the lights I pull of there rather then running four different power wires to the battery. (this is also where I pull the power for my reverse lights which I then ran through a grommet along the floorboard. The wires I then run up behind the piece of interior that runs between the two doors... I have two holes drilled in the roof (actually three but one is plugged up... long story) :), one for the power/switch wires and one for the ground.The ground wire is a thicker 10-guage and I have the ground for all the lights running through to that one. Oh and for my switches... I have a fuse panel set up under the carpet up front. This has one 10-guage wire coming from the radio fuse to the fuse block. ALl the switches then get their power from the fuse block (I use 5 amp fuses here). THe way I had it set up before was that all the wires were connected to one another and to one another all in to the radio fuse, which I didn't like one bit, it was a lot of wiring jumble and a lot of confusion, this cleans it up. Hope that answers the question.
 






Ray, Is there an internet site for the wilderness rack? And guys i cant seem to find a retail place online that sells pro 80xt's. any ideas? Thanks for all your help guys!
 






Matt,
Thanks for the info, I got a pretty good idea of how I'm gonna put mine in.

JayR,
Here's a link to Garvin Industries
 












Matt, Thanks alot man, you guys here at this site are wonderful and are all my bud's. Mabe I'll see if I can make it to truckhaven 2001. I still havent decided on the pro 80 xt's or the 520's. 520's are cheaper but less power. Im leaning for 80's but well see.
 






JayR- not saying you should wait until Truckhaven to buy em, but if you do go to truckhaven 2001 you'll get to see both types of lights in action, both on mine and on Ray Lobatos Explorer. We both have both models of lights.
 






MATT

Ive decieded on 2 pro 80 xt driving and 2 fog for my roof rack, and 2 520's for my grill. As for mounting the lights for the roof rack, should i buy 2 whole 80 xt kits or could I buy one 80 xt kit (driving per say) and then 2 fogs(not in kit) and just run them all to one switch? or will this not work? Im not a great electrition, mabe i should ask my father seeing as hes an electronics tech. What do u think?
 






Well, that may work for the switch, but what about power? Either way its up to you. PIAA doesn't recommend running lights that way, but it could be done. You'd lose some power as the relay would be trying to convert to four lights instead of two - which it could do but shouldn't have to... isn't the kit cheaper anyway then buying two lamps? Either way... I'd advise against it. I have mine wires up seperately. Today I spent all day re-installing my old PIAA's, installing my new PIAA's as well, looks like that's what I'll be up to tomorrow as well. Here's wht I had planned for the day...
-move two switches (the ones that control the 80 XT's on the roof) from under the dash to the ceiling.
Move wirign so that rather then going all around the car we now take the shortest route - down by the drivers side door.
-Add one switch on the ceiling for the new set of lights on the roof.
-Hook up the new sets of lights (three total)
-Change the PIAA 520 fog light switch to use another switch - one of the two switches that came with the PIAA 80 Racing... I'll explain that later.
-move switches under the dash that WERENT moved up to the roof to a different location under the dash to allow installation of new switches.
-remove old CB, install new CB
-remove all unnecessary wiring from system.

I'm still working on it... of course it doesn't help that while drilling a hole in the frame to use as a ground I broke a drill bit and had to spend about an hour looking around in the engine compartment for it... so far I've been screwing around and haven't even gotten around to getting the new ones working yet - mainly been fixing the problems that I created teh first time I installed the lights, which was in an extreme hurry to have them hooked up by Truckhaven 2000 in about 50 degree weather....

Here's some VALUABLE tips I've learned (you know what they say... better to learn from someone elses experiences then make the mistake yourself...)
1) When it says remove your negative battery cable, oh brother you had better remove your positive battery cable as well just to be on the safe side!
2) Pay attention while saudering... the smell of burnt plastic (surrounding the wires), allbeit better then burning rubber or burning hair, is still not a good odor.
3) Label ALL your wires, and both ends of your wires, if your planning on cutting a bunch of them and moving the wires to new locations where they could easily be confused with other wires.
4) Take notes of all wiring that you do, and don't hide the wiring behind panels until your done with the install, I can't stress that enough :).
5) Check before drilling holes in your roof... If you are lucky enough to select an area of the roof that is part of the frame, feed that wire down all you want, it will do you no good, you'll never find it.
6) Check wire lengths before cutting and splicing
7) Check that your switches are where you want them BEFORE drilling them in to wherever you are putting them.
8) If the switch don't call for a ground, don't try to hook one up! (said four fuses later...)

Seriously though, the PIAA's are cake to install, when however you try to just about re-wire your hole vehicle and keep messing things up, it makes it a bit more "interesting" :).

By the way, if you go with 2 sets of 80's on the roof, one set of 520's on the front, you'll have the same setup as me and Ray (before I added the other 6 lights)
 






Greatly appreciated, well see in a few weeks/months.....
 






ok finished it all up today, I"ll aim em once it gets dark... but they are so bright they made the friggin daytime brighter! I'll take a bunch of pics and post em as soon as I can! Had some trouble hiding wires under the headliner but it was getting late so I just taped em up there and said to hell with it... I'll work on it later :).
 



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ok I finally got the wires semi-hidden, not a super job of it though, just couldn't get through that dang headliner without removing the whole thing. I even tried to push a yardstick from a part of the hadliner that WAS accessibly to the front, no luck. What I did was I wrapped all 9 wires (3 wires each switch, 3 switches) in electrical tape so its in one big bundle. Then since I have the double-visor system, I took that bundle and slid it under the second visor, and zip-tied it to the visor. Since I'm too tall to take advantage of the sunvisors I never have to worry about seeing the wiring! I took pictures and I should be getting them developed in a few days.

By the way Ray, just read your posts. Matt "Las Vegas" Adams has a certain ring to it, not sure sunshine is a good nickname for the vehicle, sounds kinda feminine :). How about just Matt Adams and his explorer nicknamed "vegas"? :)
 






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