Tips and Techniques for building race cars and working in the shop.
Turn Signals for a Race Car?
Call me crazy, but after spending so much time on my total LED light setup on the Nova, I really wanted to make the turn signals functional. After all, we might want to fire up ol' Blue and cruise the Sonic some fine summer evening! Making that happen got to be a little more involved that I originally thought since every bit of OEM wiring has been ripped out of the car.
First of all, I knew I needed an electronic flasher to work with the LED lights, so a quick trip to superbrightleds.com over in St. Louis scored me a FL3-RED electronic flasher which is nice because it has a mounting tab for mounting. Then I started to started to realize that it's not so simple to make a turn signal blink, while applying the brake light at the same time that is. This is because the Nova has (functionally) one light LED in the rear on each side that functions as a running light, turn signal and brake light. The running light is really just a reduced voltage hookup that I setup with a resistor and a diode so it doesn't backfeed, so it actually acts like a normal 1157 two element light bulb.
Even with that setup, the simplest circuit I could figure out to run the blinkers, but isolate the brake light at the same time involved 4 relays and a mess of wiring... that didn't sound like a lot of fun. So, after doing a bit of research I stumbled across the Hopkins #48895 Trailer Light Adapter. This cool little adapter is made for all LED light circuits and lets you drive a 1157 x 2 bulb configuration from a car with 4 lights, or in this case, a race car with a toggle switch to activate the turn signals. I know most people that read this are thinking, John, quit screwing around with that stuff and get that car finished (Todd Kitchen Quote), but hey it's just one of those things. The Nova is licensed, tagged and insured and I wanted to keep it street legal, even if those trips on the street are very few and far between. I just thought I'd share this little tip as I think it's a nice and simple solution.
Now we have turn signals! Time to get back to race car wiring circuits and the data logger reinstallation which is fully underway.
Even with that setup, the simplest circuit I could figure out to run the blinkers, but isolate the brake light at the same time involved 4 relays and a mess of wiring... that didn't sound like a lot of fun. So, after doing a bit of research I stumbled across the Hopkins #48895 Trailer Light Adapter. This cool little adapter is made for all LED light circuits and lets you drive a 1157 x 2 bulb configuration from a car with 4 lights, or in this case, a race car with a toggle switch to activate the turn signals. I know most people that read this are thinking, John, quit screwing around with that stuff and get that car finished (Todd Kitchen Quote), but hey it's just one of those things. The Nova is licensed, tagged and insured and I wanted to keep it street legal, even if those trips on the street are very few and far between. I just thought I'd share this little tip as I think it's a nice and simple solution.
Now we have turn signals! Time to get back to race car wiring circuits and the data logger reinstallation which is fully underway.