In the six years of owning my SA I've always thought it strange that Flash-to-Pass (FTP) wasn't a feature. The switch even seemed like it had the momentary position for it but nothing ever happened... until I was messing with things recently.

I noticed that with the headlights down the FTP feature worked. Not sure why I was pulling the switch in such an instance but it was dark and quiet and I could not only hear the relay but see the lights turning on below the car. What doesn't make sense is that the feature ceases to work when the headlights are on as normal (low beams). If I put the headlights up manually it works as well (headlights still off). I do have the black dragon relay kit, although I wouldn't imagine that should affect things.

Any ideas? I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to function, but surely this isn't correct.

 

You should be able to flash with the low beams on.
It could be a dirty contact in the headlight switch.

First thing I'd check is all the fuses. Even something unrelated to the headlights could cause issues.

 

With the headlight pods DOWN, when you hit the temporary brights (pulling toward you), the bulbs illuminate, but the pods are down, so nobody can see them. With the headlights UP, when you pull toward you, they flash brights. Pushing the stalk away from you turns on brights and keeps them on until you pull it toward you again. It's working as it should, as the FB models work the same, either way.

At one time, a forum member designed a separate circuit that would engage the headlight pods UP when the temporary brights were switched. This was a si ple jumper wire between two terminals on the switching relay, but I don't recall which ones... Kind of a neat setup the way he had it working, but I don't drive at night much anymore, anyway.

 

I believe my FB works the same, and my NA miata also did the same thing.

 

Thanks for the input everyone. I will check some contacts and fuses, although in my mind if the feature works at all it's a sign that at least the switch is fine. Fuses also seem unlikely since everything else works, but I'll do some investigating.

Also once again the issue is that the momentary bright function doesn't work if the low-beams are enabled, which certainly seems incorrect. They work, regardless of the position of the headlights, so long as the low-beams are disabled. Aka, I currently have to be driving with my headlights off and up in order to flash somebody. The up part makes sense, it's the low-beams off that doesn't.

SA column switches also function differently in that the high beams are a toggle switch activated by pulling backwards past the momentary position, not pushing forwards. I don't think that should affect anything but thought it was worth a mention.

 

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-arch...cation-727517/

Here is the mod you are looking for. I am planning to do it myself.

 

Hey, Cowymo, thanks for the reply and welcome to the club. Unfortunately it looks like I still haven't made my issue clear as that is not the mod I am looking for.

The problem is that if my low-beams are active, I cannot use the FTP switch to flash my high-beams. It simply does nothing. It will however flash the high-beams if my low-beam are inactive - this is regardless of whether the headlight buckets themselves are up or down. In my mind you should be able to flash your high-beams regardless of whether your low-beams are enabled or disabled (ignoring the fact that the buckets could be down at the time, which I understand is what that mod addresses). For example, say you're driving at night and want to flash your lights, but of course your headlights (assuming low-beams) are already on. In this situation on my car, it simply doesn't work, the switch does nothing. Surely this isn't correct.

I have not made any headway on this issue myself, so I'm certainly still open to suggestions if anyone has a thought.

 

Did you ever figure out why your high beam was not working/flashing when you pulled it towards you (with your low beams on)?

 

Never did, no. Still on the list but it's fairly low priority compared to some other items.

Right now I'm focusing on a little maintenance on the daily, so the RX7 is parked right now before I swap the rear diff back to the one I had in previously (new LSD is making noise).

Whenever I do hopefully get it figured out I'll update in here, although if anyone happens across an idea in the meantime don't hesitate to share.

 

The turn signal switch is fairly easy to take apart, and since full current goes through the contacts, the contacts get dirty/are sensitive to condition. High beams that only work one way or the other but not both is fairly common.

It's fairly easy to clean everything up with fine sandpaper and pop it back together. This service needs to be done every ten years or so.

Be mindful of the turn signal cancel cam when you put the steering wheel back on, too.