Lighting

Lighting mods are usually among the easiest and most noticeable. However, lighting mods will affect the way your car looks at night to others. As a result, safety is always a consideration. Fortunately, most lighting mods that look "cool" are also safe, but this is not always the case...

Fog/Driving Lamps
Fog and driving lamps are auxiliary lights usually mounted below the level of the head lights. They're typically found low on the front bumpers.

Fog lamps were designed primarily for use only in the fog. Real fog lamps produce a very wide, very even beam with a very sharp horizontal cutoff at the top of the beam. They are mounted as low as possible so that the wide, flat-topped beam throws light under most of the rain, fog, or snow that would scatter and reflect light. The sharp cutoff minimizes the light above horizontal that would get reflected off the rain/fog/snow into the driver's eyes.

Real driving lamps were designed to produce a narrower, concentrated, long-range beam without an upper cutoff. They are used only with high beam headlamps and never within seeing distance of other cars.

Older W-body cars (i.e. '89-91 Olds Cutlass Supreme International) tended to have real fog lamps with real adjusters, bulb shields, glass lenses, etc. However, recent trends have made fog lamps a styling accessory, and driving around with fog lamps on at all times a "cool" thing to do. As a result, almost all cars have "fog lamps" due to customer demand. Since the US has lax regulations on fog lamps, the factory fog lamps on most newer cars and nearly all inexpensive aftermarket "fog lamps" are nothing more than plastic toy lights that have little to no benefit other than looking "cool".

These non-functional, yet cool looking fog lamps are available from many companies and vary greatly in price. The light output is available in many decorative colors (FYI, the only safe colors for real fog lamps is white and yellow). If you are after looks, I recommend you to pick a high-quality "fog lamp" that looks good to you and fits the styling of your car. If factory fog lamps were available, they would be a good choice for a nice factory look. If you're looking for a functional fog lamp, stick to the following brands: Cibie, Marchal, Carello, or upper-end Hella. You could probably also go to a salvage yard and pull some factory fog/driving lamps off of any European car (in Europe they have strict guidelines and standards on fog/driving lamps).

Here are some tips to keep it safe:

• Do NOT use high-powered bulbs in "decorative" fog lamps. Keep the wattage low, especially if your fog lamps have a dichroic coating that causes the output to look blue or purple. In my experience, a higher-power bulb in a not-too-effective fog lamp doesn't usually result in better light output anyway. It usually just results in shorter bulb life.
• Be sure real fog lamps are aimed properly! Keep decorative fog lamps aimed low enough that no one will be blinded by them.
• Real fog lamps should never come on with the high beams. They should only come on with park and low-beam lights. In my opinion, even decorative fog lamps should be wired in this way.
• You should not drive around with real fog or driving lamps unless the conditions warrant it. If you want to look "cool" with real fog lamps, use the lowest wattage bulbs you can find in order to prevent other drivers from getting blinded.
• If you have real fog lamps and want them to be truly functional, you should only install white or yellow fog lamp bulbs. Blues, purples, and other colors are not only illegal, but ineffective.

Some people may argue that you shouldn't even be allowed to use decorative fog lamps or drive around with them on at all times... well, just keep them aimed LOW and keep the bulb wattage low (25-55W or so). That should be able to let you look cool at night while preventing other drivers from being irritated.

Brake Lamps

Head Lights

Turn Signal-Repeaters