Phido

Good news if you are looking at buying a manual XR6T, not so good if you got one. Rest is pretty much Seems like they make a option standard from $300 to ~$800 depending on the model. Some of the changes are pretty sad, Ghia cops "wood wheel and shifter" blah, they can keep it, Fairmont cops the reverse sensors and power peddles which only really helps short people who can't park (it was only a few hundred when they were options). At the risk of being shot Fairmont = woman car? :lol: I don't know about devaluing, all it means is Fords going to have to discount various models to stay competitive, and the next Falcon will have a pretty huge list of changes again if its to remain competitive. I think clearly the six speed is a great thing, F6 and the T should be very willing driver cars now, modifications can be kept to the engine..

Any decent engineering workshop with a CNC mill would be able to help out making some badges made out of aluminium or simular, then you could even get them anodised either clear or dyed what ever colour you want. Blue, red, gold, grey, orange, purple etc.. Usually they will let you bring in a disk with the design on it, then you pay material and milling time costs. Depending where you put them you might need them to be curve 3d, that will cost more. A simple 2D one shouldn't cost too much..

Xenon does have its advantages. It has a few disadvantages, like costs, dazzeling other drivers, complexity, aux support (jets, leveling etc).. But most manufacturers overseas now sell xenons as a option on everything from a small cheap hatchback to half mill uber cars. This may be of most interest to older drivers that do a great deal of night time driving, as you get older your eyes definately do not work as well, improved lighting would make a much more noticible change. Take a look at this site where you can see the comparisons. When these lights first came out onto the market many german magazines ran a extensive set of tests to measure how much better xenon is. Results were very positive at pretty much all settings. They tested diffrent reflectors, other globes, in a varity of conditions with highly accurate devices to measure colour, intensity, improvement on a varity of objects at diffrent sizes, material, surface finish, colour, distance, position.. Also road surfaces, bends, ice, fog, snow, etc... OEM and aftermarket.. Extremely extensive. These are on going. Ocasionally there are follow up tests where they shoot 25 diffrent models lighting against each other in a big comparison. They even constructed there own 100+ metre indoor testing centre for controlled conditions. They discuss things like three dimentional parabolic reflectors, asymmetric styles, various forms of lens abberation.. Searching around www.autobild.de you will find about 20-30 stories on improving lighting or comparison tests. VW's Tourag Xenon comparison

Checking the Vicroads site found thisVic roads Guide to modifications Also this ]Installation of Lights on Road Vehicles From what I gather the ADR's are a mess. LED's are not filament globes (unless they redefine them as such in the 54 pages of "Filament Globes"). Big fat grey area..

Im not going to give out legal advice because Im very far away from passing a bar exam. But your right Im sure your insurance company will refute most claims if they can find a scape goat, your blinker lights aren't ADR approved (the holder, the blinker is fine but not that particular globe), or if you serviced your car yourself (poor (meaning non-professional (unlicence mechanic) maintainence), tyre pressures inncorrect (again poor maintence), poor wiper blades, number plate affixed with only 2 screws etc, etc etc. But Jaycar sells them for Automotive applications and does not list them as illegal (as they do with various kits and blue led water jets etc). Again not a iron clad form of being legal but you can certainly front up to a judge, with evidence showing how superior LED lighting is, how a electronics store sold you the lights as being legal for automotive use, how most OEM's feature LED lighting of some sort on a model, about how the RTA is switching traffic lights to them to increase safety and uptime, and that your car would still most likely easily pass ADR's with them fitted (unless specifically specified no LED replacements for incadencet globes allowed). I think you will find most normal globes aren't ADR approved. As are most oils, power steering fluids, coolant, fuses etc. They are manufactured to normal tolerances, I doubt every single globe factory that makes 5w batton style globes sends them off for ADR approval. In theory you could have your car defected for any of these, or your insurance refused, the legal profession likes to give maxium legal coverage to the large infinately wealthy and all powerful government/company and leave the onus on the small weak indervidual to prove everything. But given that many people here don't care about ADR's, or use there cars on private roads or race tracks, or for show and shines, they might be interested in such a modification.. I would have to think you would be pretty unlucky to get insuranced wiped for have LED type blinkers.

Some one previously mentioned indicators. The lastest fad for indicators is LED lighting. More efficent, quicker, brighter, longer lasting, redundant. You will most likely never have to replace a awkward globe ever again (except headlights). LED lighting is superior to normal globes in pretty much everything. At places like Jaycar, you can purchase replacement globes with a small array of LED's. In clear or Amber. These should effectively just screw in to your normal batton connector. You can also do this with your brake lights (red LED), reverse lights, driving lights (white). If you keep to traditional colours I don't think anyone anywhere will have a problem. You could also redo your interior lighting, or make up your own globe with any variation, IE for a XR you could have all your internal lighting blue, to match the dash if you wanted. This mod would result in brake lights that don't simply slowly warm up then fade out, but come on instantly giving more time to the driver behind you to notice, also with such quick acting lighting it looks very modern and should better penertrate fog and haze/dust. LED's have been used on spoiler brake lights, trucks etc for quite a number of years. F1 also uses them because of light weight, fast acting, very bright, reliability etc. Most mercs and BMW also feature this kind of lighting, as do the new Land Rovers. Not sure if its 100% legal, ADR don't specify exactly, however if its not, would only cost you a few dollars and you can replace back in the normal globes if needed. While Xenon upgrades cost into the thousands, LED's should cost into the $10's of dollars. With greater reliability, visability they should pay for themselves in a few years. (that's why they are using them to replace traffic light globes). Couple LED repeaters/brakes/driving with a decent set of Halogen low/high beams and maybe some excellent fog lights and you can have very effective lighting system that costs a fraction of a Xenon upgrade.

To say ADR's are some of the worse bits of paper is a understatement. They are a mess, and even manufacturers can get caught out (Ford's Fairmont Ghia), although technically they are legal(IMHO) and perfectly safe (approved by Fords internal QA and passed for manufacturing by various authorities) they had to pull them out anyway, they aren't the only ones either! Yet they allow imported luxury cars to have extremely dark tint, that is illegal to do aftermarket. Infact if you have one of these cars and a window is broken, technically it is illegal to fix it in australia, the car would have to be fixed overseas!!!! Putting factory tinted glass window on this car would be illegal as well. Its insane! ADR's reguarding Xenons are extremely vauge at best. To be completely safe and to have minium issues, you would need washers and auto levellers, most manufacturers do that anyway. However police could still defect your new M5 with factory Xenons, its a grey area. Washers aren't a big deal, fitting light washes would take very little time. Simply tap into the window washer line or have a small seperate resoivour and motor (~$20) to run a line to aftermarket squirters at the front. With a Xenon upgrade I would recomend washers fitted simply because its not that hard and you would be better able to argue they are in compliance. Even though the squirters are more for ice build up on the lights than anything else. Auto levellers would take a bit more effort, I guess you could hook up stepper motors to the regular beam adjustment and get to a PIC and and maybe a few mercury switches to get some sort of auto levelling. Aust ADR's Im pretty sure they don't specify how much leveling, so that would be fine.. Also testing "auto-levelling" at the roadside is actually quite difficult, so would be harder to prove your in violation (jack up the car or something like that while someone is watching your reflectors, I doubt theres a procecure for it would make it easy to argue in court). If you have squirter jets, again your in a better position that you have a well thought out conversion, and if they know anything, they will proberly see the squirters maybe get you to test them and leave it at that. As for if it would be worth it. Depends who you are. If you do Stacks of night driving, say you work night shift as a courier or something then if you spend all your time at night behind a wheel, $2k to massively improve your car is nothing. Germany was very quick to adopt this technology (you can get it in most german sold cars now, even small cheap hatchbacks). You can have a defect notice for anything. Many stock unmodified cars get defect notices just out of ignorance (ie WRX getting defected for scoop and vents back in early 90's).. With Xenons, I would say consider investing in a decent set of fog lights as well... German auto magazines often have a light comparison test (250+kmph at night in fog/rain you dam well *NEED* the best lighting you can get).. Tests proved very quickly Xenon can improve visability greatly.

This is nuts. driving at 200Kmph is a feat many if not nearly all people can perform, given the right attitude, training and knowledge. I've driven many cars, at well over 200 Kmph, yes on public roads, even in the rain in high traffic, dual carriageway.. Completely safe and legal. Even at night, even, in when it gets a little icey. Not all of these were high powered performance cars, some where dinky little hatchbacks with 1.6L engines, fwd and 185 tyres. You don't suddenly crash when you hit 180 or such a speed. Your car doesn't just explode and become unresponsive to steering inputs, brake application and throttle control. The basic physics is the same as driving a 60 Kmph, or 20 Kmph. However you have to adjust your actions accordingly, be smoother, be more aware of hazards and potential hazards. You can drive at 200+Kmph for many hours, as safely as any other speed. Infact highspeed driving is more about exposing general bad driving habits than requiring new skills and abilities. It is safer to do 200 Kmph on some of Australias excellent roads rather than 150Kmph in a derestricted peice of track in the N.T.. FACT! And I think many people are smart enough to realise that. Oh no Phido, what are you saying? that's impossible. Your mad! Your going to kill everybody here. Your going to kill my kids! You should be in gaol with the murders and other sickophants. Yes yes, I've heard it before. However with punishment so severe for doing so, I will limit my adventures past the legal speed. However, I find it funny that police officers often tell of there pursuit stories as if they are safely speeding with no one at risk. Just because its currently legal doesn't make it safe (conversely just because its illegal doesn't make it dangerous). *PLEASE* Police pursuit chases are one of the most dangerous things on the road! With many police and civilans dying each year. Provolking someone to go faster, most likely beyond there own limited driving experience and abilities, possibly while intoxicated is shear madness. Meanwhile the police themselves are a danger, travelling at equally reckless speeds, with limited driving training and experience in a equally normal family sedan weighed down with gear. Add to that the lights and siren effect, which seems to turn normal Australian drivers into idiots who jam on the brakes, move to the right lane, swerve, fail to indicate, drive unbelivably slow, drive through red lights, stop signs etc.. Watch the confusion come over peoples faces!!Its madness! Its like they all become retarded at the same time. Most cops will readily admit getting a rush, a bit pumped, a bit of a buzz and excited. They are not remaining cool and calm, making clear and safe judgements and from what I have seen, make silly decisions. I think bringing police driving into line with other emergency services like Ambos and fireys would be a good idea, I see no reason why the police should get massive special exceptions in this regard. It certainly doesn't seem to improve response times. Disabling the speed limiter on the BA falcon should be simular to any other speed limited car, such as a GT-R or M3 or what ever, intercept the signal from the speed sensor in the gearbox, and using a varity of methods change it before it gets to the ECU. Frequency divider, frequency generator etc. It isn't expensive and you can do it yourself or buy a kit. With a simple frequency divider, you can raise the limiter from 230 to 460Kmph hence not a problem anymore..