A wiring challenge for Tim or Mike, ..or others if you understand this kind of stuff. Options

[ThePaintedMan]

I've been on a mission to add a second set of brighter, more visible idiot lights since this car is mainly a track car. I bought a set of 2 cheapo 24-led green/red boat lights from Ebay (seen here). I wired the green in line with the existing oil pressure light and it works perfect - very bright and obvious on startup until it shuts off with adequate pressure.

However, I'm still stumped as to how the alternator idiot light is wired and if the same thing can be done with the red one. Someone posted an excellent thread awhile back explaining how alt light is wired to come when the circuit is no longer charging. But I can't figure out how to wire this red light up to work with it in the same way that my oil pressure light works. Obviously when I wire the led light in parallel with the existing alt light, it doesn't work the same way, ostensibly to the added resistance? Wondering if it's even possible to add a second light.

Sorry if this is confusing. I'll take some pics tonight to try and illustrate my point, but as always, thanks for your help in the meantime.

[timothy_nd28]

Yes it could be done, but I think you would need to build a small circuit to make it work right. Usually people have the opposite problem, by replacing the incandescent bulb with a single LED, which doesn't have enough load to excite the windings in the alternator. You are going in the opposite direction, with a monster load of LED's. Do you have the spec's (current draw) on this clustered LED?

Another question, do you have a 6 cylinder in your 914? If not, why is it important to know when your alternator fails? I would think just having a bright oil pressure warning lamp would be enough?