Mounting rally lights on hood w/o pod?

Hi guys.

How have you been creative when mounting your lights on the hood, without using a pod?

I'm looking for inspiration .

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Brgrds
Brian

Why does it have to be hood mounted AND no pod? Lots of folks run lights on a simple bar mounted to the bumper.

I think there's some silly rule about lights being no higher than the windshield, ie no roof lights on trucks etc. To lazy to look but watch that....

No pod, since I'm too cheap to get one .

As for running it on the bumper, there are two reasons I don't want to do that:

1. Get the lamps out of the airflow, so I'm not blocking the rads.
2. Getting them up in the air a bit to allow them to light the road in front better.

As for getting too high in the air, I'm in Denmark - not US regs - but thanks anyway.
And besides I want them about where a pod would put them - not any further up - it's not a truck .

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Brgrds
Brian

You could try making bar like this but without the lower portion if you're concerned with airflow into the radiator. We noticed no difference in cooling with or without the lights in place. Mind you, the Subaru also pulls air in through the bumper too on our car.

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Simon Wright
Owner/Driver USUK Racing - Home of the USUK Racing LED Light Bars!

North America Rally Map

One of the problems with what you want to do is fleing of the mount. Also, lights up high reflect back more on any dust, fog, rain, snow ect.

But, look at current WRC stuff, they just run a tubular light holder, mounted up on the front of the hood area. No more pods.

Fleing?
Whadasdatmean?

Like flexing?

That is actually one of the things I was worried about, and looking for some ideas to solve.
I have photos from one of the guys from my club. He did a mount on his Peugeot 106 - see attached.

It sorta makes sense to me, but I would like to stabilize the top of the lights.

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Brgrds
Brian

Quote
phlat65
One of the problems with what you want to do is fleing of the mount. Also, lights up high reflect back more on any dust, fog, rain, snow ect.

But, look at current WRC stuff, they just run a tubular light holder, mounted up on the front of the hood area. No more pods.

Like this?

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Grant Hughes



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2013 01:57PM by NoCoast.

Yep^^^ That there is what i would try to replicate.

I think you're overestimating both the impact on the air flow and the sturdiness of the hood.
You want a really solid mount for the lights so they don't shake, the bumper beam will give you that, the hood won't. Pods spread the mount over a larger area and reduce the shake you'll see. I have lights on a bar that bolts to the bumper beam of my road car/ recce car and the lights, mounted with the single mounting bolt, are rock solid with absolutely zero shake.

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First Rally: 2001
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Quote
john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

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Morison
I think you're overestimating both the impact on the air flow and the sturdiness of the hood.

I think that you are overestimating the weight of the lights. Biggest issue I see, are with the mount, and obviously that will differ from light to light. I'm not particularly impressed with the ones I have, unless they have just a wee stabilizer at the top - even when installed on the bumper...

Quote

You want a really solid mount for the lights so they don't shake, the bumper beam will give you that, the hood won't. Pods spread the mount over a larger area and reduce the shake you'll see. I have lights on a bar that bolts to the bumper beam of my road car/ recce car and the lights, mounted with the single mounting bolt, are rock solid with absolutely zero shake.

Well - who ever said something about NOT spreading the mount over a larger area? I just said that I didn't wanna spring the money for a pod .

If you check out the picture above, it has sort of a frame that does exactly that: spread the load. They are only using a bar at the bottom of the light, but I don't see any reason why I can't add a stabilizer at the top, since there is sort of a "frame" to run the stabilizers to.

Also - my Golf doesn't really excel in the whole "the bumper beam is very sturdy"-area. It's there, it's a bent profile for some stiffness, but the material it pretty thin.

An lastly, I'm actually not too keen on cutting up the plastic cover of the bumper to mount a light bar.
Holes in the hood with nuts or something - that's a slightly different matter

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Brgrds
Brian

Well, talking about airflow, I finally have some good data. I found that with my podlight setup (see below) my inlet air temps increased by around 20C (!!!). I think this was from causing various turbulent airflow around the sides and backside of the podlight.

Of note, the top of the podlight is below the level of the hood scoop.



I think the issue is more of the large surface area of flat lights and causing the turbulence and not so much the pod itself. Granted, it's not helping, but it's not the largest disturbance in the air.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2013 01:04PM by EricW.

The Subaru IC scoop is a bit different problem that airflow at the radiator. The location of that scoop relies on laminar airflow to create positive pressure. By mounting the pod in front of it, you have removed any chance of that happening.

Quote
phlat65
The Subaru IC scoop is a bit different problem that airflow at the radiator. The location of that scoop relies on laminar airflow to create positive pressure. By mounting the pod in front of it, you have removed any chance of that happening.

I'm toying with an idea of making a mini-spoiler for the podlights to help deflect some air downward

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EricW
I'm toying with an idea of making a mini-spoiler for the podlights to help deflect some air downward

You could wool tuft the hood and try adding a couple Vortex Generators on the top of the pod to see the effect they have - though I'm not sure if a VG would be effective on the top / leading edge of a pod.

Something like this will tell you how the air is flowing whatever you decide to do

Yep. The good news is I have an easy data logger built into the ECU so I can drive a simple loop with and without the pod and get some empirical data on improvements.