Kinds of lights
there's 150 watt lights, 100 watt lights, 55 watt lights and flood lights.
the 150's are great for going really fast on the highway, you can see everything in front of you but little to the sides. you would have to run a bunch of them to get a wide light pattern. but they are to powerful to run a bunch of them.
the 100's are good for going fast on the highway, but 150's are superior for this purpose. you can run more 100's cause they pull less juice. these are essential if you plan on going faster than 40 mph on dirt.
55 watt driving lights are superior for general off roading at night. generally the beam pattern is wider than that of a 150 or a 100. you can run four of them all night cause they don't pull very much juice. if you run four then they will give you a very wide light pattern, a pattern that is very useful when you would really like to see the road or trail when it's turning. these lights are good up to about 40 mph. any faster and you will be out-driving them, i.e. going to fast to slow down for something if you really need to. hmmmm, 40 mph. do you even go that fast during the day? i do. i've hit 70 mph on dirt.
flood lights don't really do much for distance but they put out a very wide beam and light up everything up to a short distance. this makes them perfect for side lights and reverse lights. side lights are nice but not a necessity. reverse lights are, however. if you don't have any good reverse lights get some. i'm not talking about those dinky shit reverse lights that only funtion by letting people know you are backing up, i'm talking about a pair of bright flood lights that let you see everything behind you. it's a night and day difference, literally. Lights mounted pointing towards the side are probably illegal, though, i have never had a problem.
My lighting system
Update A late night meeting with a deer has required me to make a few changes....
i have Sylvania xtra vision headlight they have sweet low beams, perfect for low speed trails, i can see everthing in front of me. but,i like light, so i have more.
i also run a three 55 watt driving lights. i USED to have four, but that stupid deer anialated one of them and put a small crack in the drivers side fender. pretty minimal damage actually, i hit the thing at about 40 mph. they are the generic 6" round style....$22 a pair, no wiring included. these are aimed so that they take over where the low beams leave off. basicaly, aimed just like the high beams. they are just perfect for the trails and the dirt roads up to 40 mph. three pairs would give so much usable light it's almost scary.
i also have a pair of 100 watt lights, wired into the high beams. these are for higher speed driving, maybe a long stretch of dirt or the highway when no people are coming.
all these additional lights are mounted on my front bumper. i welded on some little tabs made out of angled steel. very stout little mounts.
i also have one flood light pointing towards each side. these are mounted on my custom made tree/nerf bars. these are great when you are looking for a side road or a camp site or whatever.
the three 55 watt lights and the side flood lights are wired with a headlight switch that was lying around. i pull it one click and the three 55 watt lights come on, i pull it two clicks and the three 55's and the side lights come on. these lights are just the thing to brighten up the slow trails.
and finally, i have a flood light on the rear cage pointing backwards. i can't stress this enough, you need to see if you are backing up! this is wired into the reverse light switch on my tranny, but it gets fed juice even when the igniton switch is turned off, so i can have it on without the engine running. you could just wire it to a dash mounted switch so you could have it on when you are driving and it's dusty and you don't want your friend behind you to run into you.
my headlights have metal stone guards on them, these are worth their weight in gold. my 55 watt lights came with plastic stone guards, i leave these on during the day. if you care about your lights more than how they look you should make covers/protectors for them if they don't have any. lights are expensive! protect them. cardboard, foam, dish towels, frisbees, duct tape. do it!!!
mounting
Generally, I don't like roof mounted lights (or oil cooler scoops) simply because a tree branch could easily knock them out of alignment or even damage them. It is also possible that the lights will shine down on the hood or on the windshield, causing glare and making it even harder to see. This depends on what part of the roof you mount them. Hook up a light to a battery to see how it will shine on the hood/windshield before deciding on the final mounting location. Lights can be protected by making a bar that protrudes in front and above the lights, kind of a brush guard. Guard or not the lights will be destroyed if/when you roll. You could also have some sort of quick release light bar so lights can be removed during the day.
Mounting them on the front bumper protects them from low hanging tree branches. A brush guard here would be useful though too, depending on how often you blaze new trails.
Power
Lights can pull an amazing amount of juice. To many lights will suck your battery dry so you don't even have enough power for the iginition system.
The stock generator can handle a pair of 100w lights all night, but, only if it is working perfectly. My 100w lights fried my charging system the other night so i went ahead and installed an alternator kit. A pair of 150w lights would be too much for a generator. An alternator conversion is essential for running more than a pair of high power lights. A 55 amp. alt. would be able to power roughly 500w of light. That would be roughly 42 amps, leaving 13 amps for the head lights and igniton system.
If you want more that 5 100w lights then you must go with a bigger alt. There are 70 amp and 90 amp units avalible.
