gastephens

1917 Stephens, the oldest survivor of the Stephens Motor Car Company of Moline Illinois and the only one existing with the 6 cylinder Continental 7W engine. 1956 Lotus Eleven racecar, 1000lbs of lightweight aluminum goodness 1964 Austin Healey 3000, a 20 year restoration project 1992 Spec Miata race car 1990 Miata, bought new

That is exactly what my car has: 292 cam, 9.5:1 pistons, 38/38 carb, slightly lightened flywheel, and tii header with ireland twin downpipe. It still gets decent gas mileage and gets along quite nicely with great throttle response and mid-range pull for passing. It does run out of breath a little above 5000 rpm but will still accelerate all the way to red line. That amount of power combined with a good shock/spring/sway bar/camber adjuster package is a well-balanced setup. As long as you don't go overboard on wheels and tires it is lots of fun because it will chirp the tires, go opposite lock off a tight turn, and drift a bit through the twisties. Teachable moment for the kiddies -- A well-sorted 2002 will lean a bit, take a set, and then drift under throttle control better than just about any car. I have owned British sports cars of the same period and the trailing arm independent suspension on the 2002 was a revelation. When you put sticky, low-profile 7" wide tires it looks great but it loses the supple ride and raises the grip level so high that ruins the fun factor, IMO. Yes this would be another Get Off My Lawn moment brought to you by the crotchety Mr. Stephens on the corner.

Thanks, they look great but I'll have to skip this one.

Question. I already have a harness and the Hella H4 bulbs. Can I get just the new headlight housing with city lights and added film?

Quite the coincidence. I updated my profile to add my location yesterday. It is possible that many members signed up before that information was an option so it was never set. I think that is my situation.

This is a '76 2002 with the separate fuse for low and high beams. All that verbiage and I forgot to mention that explicitly. Good news, problem solved, or at least band-aided successfully. Here's what I did. The Susquehanna relay harness plugs into one of the factory headlight connectors. The other connector is unused. When the factory dip / turn signal switch sends power to the headlight connectors they are used as the activating signal for the high-power relays in the aftermarket harness. Those relays route power directly to the headlight and prevent high current from running through the headlight switch or the dip / turn signal switch which would eventually kill them. Random Note: If you upgrade your headlights (or even if you don't), install a headlight relay. This will do 3 good things 1. save your headlight switch from wearing out due to high current 2. make your headlights brighter because power is going directly to them 3. add an extra fuse for the low/high beams, especially for the early cars Ray at Susquehanna provided the clue I needed. The relays turn on when 8+ volts are applied and turn off when input voltage drops below 3 volts. I plugged a voltmeter into the unused factory headlight connector to monitor the voltage that was going to the high-beam input of the aftermarket harness. When I activate the high-beam switch the voltage goes to 11.5V which turns on the high beams. When I deactivate the switch, the voltage dropped to 2.9V, right on the edge of deactivation. When driving, the alternator raises all voltages so the "off voltage" would be above 3V and keeping the relay from turning off. Theoretically a resistor between the high beam signal and ground would pull down the voltage enough to allow the relay to work properly. I calculated a 50 ohm resistor would drop it at least .5V and draw only about an additional 0.2 amps when the high beams were on and .01 amps when the headlights were off but the ignition is on. The resistor would need to be rated for 10 watts to dissipate that current. I soldered some spade lugs on a 50 ohm 10 Watt ceramic resistor and inserted it across the unused headlight connector. Voltage when high beams were activated was not affected. Voltage dropped to around 2.3 V when the high beams were deactivated. This made the relays snap off like they are supposed to. So problem solved. This shouldn't create any additional problems but the question remains -- where does that mystery 3 volts come from when the factory high beam circuit is turned off? I unplugged the aftermarket harness and just measured the output coming from the factory high-beam relay and it was 2.9V. This is the voltage coming through the dip / turn signal switch, which must be the problem. Since new switches are going for $250 I will stick with my band-aid for a while or until I can find a good used switch. Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

I know I'm old school but seriously, this guy should buy a new Mustang GT and be done with it. I just don't understand people that want an old car because it has character and then replace everything about it that had character. A well-built M10 will move a 2002 just fine. An M20 will move it even finer. Oh, and Get Off My Lawn!

I also caught that irony as I was writing the post. The avatar dates to a time when they actually turned off! If I need some brake help I'll do an avatar of a 2002 sliding through the frame.

I think voltage is leaking in from somewhere and it might be the dip switch. Like you, I removed mine and attempted to clean the contacts but it didn't seem to help much. Good replacements are scarce. At least I need the later one. Ray at Susquehanna recommended trying a ballast resistor across the high beam relay to pull down the voltage in the relay coil when power is released. I'm going to try that.

Sorry for the long post but I need some '02 wisdom. I have a weird electrical gremlin. When I turn on my high beams while driving, they work great (high beam on, low beam off) but sometimes they won't turn off. The stalk switch returns to the correct position and the low beams turn back on but the high beams also remain illuminated. Both headlights exhibit the same behavior. I have had the car a long time and it used to work. I installed H4 headlights 5 years ago and the problem started about 2 years ago. Here's the symptoms: It fails about 75% of the time while driving. Does not seem dependent on drive time, engine or outside temperature. It works correctly about 98% of the time sitting in the garage with car running or not. Talk about frustrating! If I quick cycle the ignition switch the headlights come back on correctly. If I cycle the headlight switch in/out the high beams do not turn off. It will stick on with either the quick flash (pull back on stalk) or the full-time brights (push stalk forward) Blue dashboard headlight indicator goes on/off with the switch, not the actual high beams. I believe I can hear the main high beam relay (on the side of the engine bay) clicking when I turn off the high beams but they do not turn off. Here's the details of my stuff: Hella 55W H4 headlights with extra power relay, professional harness from Susquehanna Motorsports new BMW headlight switch Here's what I have done: switched all the relays around to verify it is not just a bad one. swapped each relay with a replacement. replaced accessory harness relays (twice!) removed, inspected, and tested stalk switch put dielectric grease on all relay and other connections checked all the wiring and connections in the main and accessory harness, rewiring anything that looked suspect. checked / cleaned the main engine ground. checked the headlight and harness grounds. traced all headlight and accessory harness wires to verify they go where they should cleaned fuse box connections, replaced high and low beam fuses My thoughts: I would think this has to be a relay that is not turning off. This could be due to arcing or some mystery voltage from somewhere holding the relay closed. After replacing all the relays the problem persists. It seems like it must be in the accessory harness but it is just wire and connectors and I have been all through it. I need some fresh ideas.

Of course you are right. Had I taken a moment to think about it I would have remembered that the caps were full cover. I am not a fan of the NK wheels I have seen but I'll look again. I would just throw on the 13 inchers but it is hard to get good tires for them any more. Some 175-70-13 tires are available but they are high mileage tires rather than medium level performance. IMO, 185-60-13 is too wide for a 4.5" rim.

I am thinking about going back to steelies, but 14" rather than 13". I would love to use the old hubcaps for that truly retro look. Anyone know of 14" wheels that will work with the 13" hubcaps?

The rotary fan blower switch shown there might work. Anyone have an idea how to connect it to the existing wiring?

Would love to come but I'm exhibiting at PRI racing tradeshowin Orlando. Have fun.