Daniel Stern Lighting Sport Headlight Harness

[BRI7070]

Hello All,I have a 2001 Dodge Ram 2500 4X4 CDT Auto, and I did the sport headlight conversion a while ago and I recently bought the wiring harness from Daniel Stern Lighting.  My initial impressions the harness uses very good components and heavy gauge wire. My truck was an export to Canada and I do have the DRL and I did the DLR mod as instructed by Daniel stern.

 

However I do have two problems that I am tiring to resolve. 

1.  When I hook up the harness the drivers low beam is on all the time with the key on or off.  When I turn on the headlights the low beam works only the drivers side and the high beam works as it should. 

2.  My fog light relay in the PDC is rapidly cycling.  I do not have fog lights.

 

I have reached out to Daniel and he was talking with his harness builder to determine what the issue is.  Daniel has responded with a few questions and I have promptly replied to his questions. 

 

I have returned the truck to stock including the DLR mod and my headlights work as they did before.  I did notice when I un-did the mod on the DLR side that is when the cycling of the fog light relay happens.

 

It has been 10 days and 4 emails since the last email Daniel has responded and my last email requested help to resolve the issue or provide a return for the money spent as I do not need an expensive paper weight.

 

Has anybody had similar issues with the harness and may have an answer to get the harness working?  As i said earlier the harness is of good quality and I would like to use it.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

TIA,

Brian

[Mopar1973Man]

Remember everything is backwards. 

 

Hi and lo beam legs are negative to ground. The common contact on the bulb is positive. 

 

+12V -> Fuse -> Bulb <- Dimmer switch <- Headlight switch <- Ground (drivers side kick panel)

 

Sport headlight won't gain you much. The second bulb is more of a vertical path of light. I didn't even keep mine for a 6 months and went to Morimoto HIDs Headlights. Way better lighting than sport headlights... I do mean way better.

 

I even tried LED bulbs in my 1996 Dodge still in all the Morimotos win with more light with a bigger spread of light without hotspots.

Edited June 24, 2021 by Mopar1973Man

[Dieselfuture]

11 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Remember everything is backwards. 

[BRI7070]

All,

with this being a switched ground I ordered fabricated plug and play-ish harness hoping to avoid confusion.  I am however having issues and would like to solve this.  I have also been emailing Daniel and he was offering troubleshooting advice but he went into radio silence for the last 10 days.

 

If I can not get this to work, I will need to try to get a refund from Daniel and go the Morimotos route.

 

 

[Mopar1973Man]

I've done the relay but only used two relay to do the job. Problem is your working with switched grounds and trying to convert to switched positive. The whole relay thing was to hopefully increase power to the bulbs and convert to switch positive. Now give me some time in the morning I'll see if I can draw a wiring schematic of how to do it.

[Tractorman]

On 6/23/2021 at 2:27 PM, BRI7070 said:

and I did the sport headlight conversion a while ago and I recently bought the wiring harness from Daniel Stern Lighting.

 

So your truck originally came with a two headlight system and now you have the sport four headlight system?

 

On 6/23/2021 at 2:27 PM, BRI7070 said:

I have returned the truck to stock including the DLR mod and my headlights work as they did before.

 

So your returned to you sport four headlight system?  Or, your two headlight system?

 

I think you are saying that you tried Daniel Stern's relay harness and this is causing problem with your sport headlight system.  If this is so, I would start diagnosing by making sure that the sport headlight system is wired correctly without Daniel Stern's relay harness.  That would be:

 

The two outer lights - 9007 bulb (low and high beam filament) both get used.

The two inner lights - 9004 bulb (low and high beam filament) high beam only gets used.

 

When low beam circuit is activated, the 9007 low beam filaments are switched on.  The 9004 low beam filaments remain off.  All high beams remain off.

When high beam circuit is activated, the 9007 and 9004 high beam are switched on.  All low beams are switched off.

 

Things you may already know:

 

There are separate fuses for left and right headlights.  They should be in the power distribution panel.  The fuses power the headlight bulbs directly.  Wiring from the bulbs (low beam and high beam) goes to the headlight switch and dimmer switch and then to ground.  The switches operate in the grounded side of the circuit.

 

I have the sport headlights on my truck and I built my own relay circuit.  The system has worked well for years.

 

- John

 

 

 

[BRI7070]

Mopar1973Man,  A diagram would be helpful and greatly appreciated.

 

John,

My truck is a Non-Sport to Sport conversion that I did several years ago.  When I stated that I returned to stock was to mean I removed the Daniel Stern harness and restored the DLR wiring mod and put in the splitter harness to go from Non-Sport to Sport. 

 

My main reason for pointing the Daniel Stern route was to

1.   reduce the load thru the headlight switch, 

2.  get more voltage to the elements and,

3.  to have the 9004 and 9007 high beam elements come on at the same time when I turned on my brights.

 

I was able to reach Daniel and we are discussing my issues.

 

Hopefully we can get this worked out.  If not I will have to go the DIY route.

Thanks All,

Brian

 

 

[Mopar1973Man]

Here is the stock wiring...

 

Standard headlights...

 

Sport Headlights...

 

Now I'm going to remember the method I did my sport headlights... I've got to draw out the schematic. Take notice the bulbs are hooked to +12V to the common contact of the bulb and both hi and lo beams are ground wires. 

 

Please don't judge the artwork but that should be what I did years ago for my setup I managed to eliminate 2 relays and have 12V power to the bulbs on both hi and lo beams. DOTS are connections. I tried to ARC OVER other lines. 

 

As for stock 2 bulb system the stock head buckets are well junk and haze over and scatter light badly. As you can see I added 100w aircraft landing lights for booster to the crappy stock headlights. That was 45w/65w halogen headlights (Silverstars) and then four 100w aircraft landing lights. 

 

 

As for 4 bulb sport version you'll find the 2nd bulb is just a vertical band of light that does nothing for road lighting. The main bulb is more productive but again only as good as the reflector. I've ran these for barely 6 months and were no better than the factory two bulb set up. Still poor pattern and limited light. 

 

 

Now the Morimoto's... I paid $750 for this set of headlight already assembled and test ready for install. Now these headlight being they are NOT the H1 Mini's that most every gets I got the larger lens that cast way more light. These are the D2S lens and they cast at least 50 feet out both sides off the shoulder of the highway of the truck and can see as high as 50 feet vertically on hi beams at a 1/4 mile. No hotspot, no scattered light just even smooth pattern of light. Lo beams are even better being the cut off is flat and never blinding anyone. 

 

As for LED bulbs you only going to get a pattern as good as the quality of the headlight bucket. Another issues with LED's you'll be stopping more often in a snow storm to clear your headlights. LED's do not produce enough bulb heat to shed snow or ice on snowy days. You'll see that my PIAAs are brighter than my Morimotos but hotspot in the highway. Morimoto's are only 35W and the PIAAs are 15W. 

 

Morimoto D2S (Lo beam) and PIAA 530 LED Driving lights (Notice lo beams you can't see to the corner quite)

 

Morimoto D2S (Hi beam) and PIAA 530 LED Driving lights (Hi beams you can see the corner and trailer in the distance on a side road)

 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by Mopar1973Man

[BRI7070]

😲 those Morimoto are nice!

 

I was able to solve my issue by adding a 35A relay in the ground circuit and triggering that relay with a switched power source.  With this I have my low beams on any time the key isin the on position.   With the Daniel Stern harness the DLR function gets bypassed and no longer works.  With the ground relay my lights are always on acting like DR'S.

Thank you all for your help.

Brian

[Mopar1973Man]

You want a cheaper DLR solution?

 

Like myself on my 2002 I use Switch Back Bulbs in the front marker / turn signal. So when I turn on my parking lamps (no headlights) the front bulbs light up in white light. Now turn on a turn signal and BAM! The bulb with change from white to flashing amber. When its cancelled then the bulb switches back to white. No need to burn lots of watts of power when you could save it and use LEDs that barely burn anything. 

 

https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/miniature-and-subminiature-bulbs/3157-switchback-led-bulb-dual-function-60-smd-led-tower-a-type-wedge-retrofit-rvb/2424/12762/

 

My trick was going to add a diode into the front marker light lead. Then be able to inject the +12V to the bulbs without lighting up the tail lights. 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Mopar1973Man

[sleezy]

3 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

My trick was going to add a diode into the front marker light lead. Then be able to inject the +12V to the bulbs without lighting up the tail lights. 

 

What's the advantage of not lighting up the tail lights?

[BRI7070]

4 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

You want a cheaper DLR solution?

 

Like myself on my 2002 I use Switch Back Bulbs in the front marker / turn signal. So when I turn on my parking lamps (no headlights) the front bulbs light up in white light. Now turn on a turn signal and BAM! The bulb with change from white to flashing amber. When its cancelled then the bulb switches back to white. No need to burn lots of watts of power when you could save it and use LEDs that barely burn anything. 

 

https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/miniature-and-subminiature-bulbs/3157-switchback-led-bulb-dual-function-60-smd-led-tower-a-type-wedge-retrofit-rvb/2424/12762/

 

My trick was going to add a diode into the front marker light lead. Then be able to inject the +12V to the bulbs without lighting up the tail lights. 

I like that Idea.  How did you add, and what type of diode did you use?

[sleezy]

4 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Now turn on a turn signal and BAM! The bulb with change from white to flashing amber. When its cancelled then the bulb switches back to white.

 

For what it's worth, the new switchback bulbs from SBL no longer alternate white/amber when blinkering. I had that style and one of the bulbs partially failed (after many years) so I replaced them and the new ones turn off the white altogether when the blinker is on. So they're white as corner markers, and then yellow/off when that side's blinker is activated. When the blinker is cancelled the white turns back on steady. I assume they made this change to be in line with modern vehicles that behave this way from the factory.

[Mopar1973Man]

Seems weird. I like the switch back style more so. Clear visible change from white to amber.

[sleezy]

I agree. I was disappointed at first. But I got over it. It is kind of cool that it behaves like the new cars.

[Tractorman]

I think the changes were made for safety.  On higher speed limit two lane highways, a vehicle signaling for a left turn from the highway is easily recognized by on coming traffic when the vehicle making the left turn has turn signals that switch off the driving lights and only operate the turn signal.  From what I have read, earlier versions allowed the driving lights to remain on when operating the turn signal.  This made the turn signal more difficult to see for oncoming traffic and sometime contributed to collisions.

 

I use Daniel Stern's turn signal driving light module to make the turn signals be driving lights when the headlights are not being used.  The module is designed to give the driver the choice of leaving the opposite driving light on when using the turn signal or turning off the opposite driving light when using the turn signal.  I have mine set up to turn of the the opposite driving light.  As soon as the park light or headlights are turned on, the driving lights stop operating.

 

- John

[sleezy]

32 minutes ago, Tractorman said:

I think the changes were made for safety.

 

I think that's probably right. However, the alternating yellow/white is a far cry more visible than the factory dim yellow / bright yellow. Maybe some rules got changed for new vehicles and the new bulbs are in line with them.