S2 rear light bulb holders

[Spinning-v-Grid]

Can anyone help.

I have heard that it is possible to convert the rear two inner lamps to work in conjuction with the two outer sidelamps, all 4 clusters would be lit when your lights are turned on

The problem I have is locating the bulb holders to do this. Lotus dealers can only supply the holders with the light unit, this costs £69 + the dreaded each !

Do you know where I can get hold of 2 side lamp bulb holders.

Thanks again



>>> Edited by Spinning-v-Grid on Friday 20th December 13:59

[Arno]

That seems to be exactly the problem for converting the inner circles to light up too.

Getting the bulb holders is a nightmare. Lotus won't help and the original manufacturer only deals with companies who order 1000's at the same time.

Unless.. Someone finds a different car out there that uses the same type/size holders so we can use those. (eg. from a wrecking-yard)

Bye, Arno.

[DanH]

It isn't worth the pain imho.

Mine was modded by the original owner, but he got some very early light clusters that were plugged with glue. The newer ones were slightly redesigned to not accomodate lighting of the inner rings and would require drilling. Not my idea of fun.

When modded they look like this :

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~dharman/EliseLights.jpg

[fergusd]

Arno said:
Getting the bulb holders is a nightmare. Lotus won't help and the original manufacturer only deals with companies who order 1000's at the same time.

Of course they cannot help, it makes the car illegal to use on the road . . .

Fd

[Arno]

fergusd said: Of course they cannot help, it makes the car illegal to use on the road . . .

Fd

Actually.. No it won't, as long as you wire them up correctly for regular rear light use and don't start messing with adding brake or foglights and such (like some of the max-power Golf-GTI types do)

For the normal road regularions it will remain completely legal as it does not exceed any of the limits with respect to number of rear lights, bulb wattage, location, etc.

What it would fail at is the type-approval regulations. Oddly enough it fails with both units lit because it has not enough light output, while a single one is enough..

Funny eh? The reason for this stupid result is that during type approval they draw an imaginary 'box' around the lit parts of the rear lights and calculate the light output of the entire box.

The problem on the S2 in this case is that the two circles are relatively far apart, so the 'dead' space between the lights makes the calculated result drop below the limit, even though the absolute light output is of course almost double!

A single light unit does meet the intensity levels required because now the 'box' is smaller.

Actually.. Lotus is no help if you break one of the 'legal' light units or it's wiring either! They won't sell the wiring 'pigtail' for the rear light separate from the entire rear wiring harness.

So better hope it won't get damaged, or it will get expensive!

Bye, Arno.