Putting on light bar, need help choosing lights

Ummm yeah, my bad....here 70 for both - 110 for lights plus HID kit instead of 80.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HELLA-500FF-Halogen-Driving-Lights-Kit/311249412150?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D27673%26meid%3D7dd67102cb9949319e780de7ecf1725c%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D221663777415&rt=nc

 

HID up the 500s, they are plenty bright. As bright as brights just a more focused. With the 3000k yellow I can see 75 yrds down the road in the foggiest of fog. Drove to work the other day thru fog a dense as clouds but could still see the road very very good. Had 5000k fogs, low beam Philips XtremeVision halogens and Hellas on and turned just the Hellas off for a second and it was like I turned off all lights. They work great, highly recommend. I have the white covers but also bought these rockguards for them and took off the Hella badge........

 

That's ONE light. Not both.

Edit, never mind, I see that's already been pointed out.

 

I have the N Fab bar and 2 Hella 500s. I like the setup. The Hellas are bright enough for my liking, I'm sure there are brighter lights out there but probably not for $60, and Hella is a quality brand. If you spend some time doing a proper adjustment, the lights are every bit as effective - and probably better - then your stock headlights.

 

There are some LED lights that I think look better than others. Avec's optic series, for example, looks great in my opinion. Some of the cheap Ebay light bars don't look good at all in my opinion. But overall, the LED look has grown on me.

I can get pics up but they're not on a Tacoma. I sold the Taco, everything is mounted on an F150. The pods are 3" x 3" and have 6 LED's in each pod. The light bar is 32" wide and I don't know how many LED's are in that one.

 

After looking around and with some of your guys help I think I have decided to go with the Cree series 30" led light bar from avec and I will be putting it behind the lower grille. Later once bamf, I think that is the company, gets the behind the grille bracket in stock putting one behind the upper grille. This route I will not have to retro fit anything and just slap the light bar on there and be good to go! I didn't really care for the led look until I seen some pics of a setup this way and I think it looks pretty BA. what do you guys think about going this route?

 

zip ties, the modern bailing wire.

 

I think that's a good idea. you'll get a lot of light for your your money with just one light. I'll also throw out there that since you mentioned fog and whatnot, to see if you can get an amber cover for it.

And I hate to change your thought process after you've settled on what you want, but I'll throw this out there just in case you want more light later on. Because even with all the led bars I have, I still wanted more light thrown down range, as in spot lights. And all my bars are the 10watt led type, so they throw a bit farther than most other bars. I never considered halogen or hid spot lights, so I went on a search for the led light cannons. I got a sweet deal from Chas of MRT on a pair of the 4.5" ones. I haven't installed them yet because my truck is in the shop for repair from an accident But I'll be doing a full write-up/review on them as soon as I get my truck back. They're a little more pricey, especially if you consider doing 4 of them. But waaaaaay cheaper than the vision x real deals. Which these are replica/knock offs of the vision x. Looks exactly like them though... He's also got some 6.5" ones that are even crazier!

But imo, I would suggest your 30" bar, plus a pair of these 4.5" cannons maybe mounted on ditch brackets like I'm doing, and you'll have an awesome setup. Because I find that, from what I've seen in pics as well as my own experience, that most led bars are a lot of flood light regardless whether they are flood or spot beam patterns. Full spot bars are definitely better if you want more range, but still seem like they don't throw far enough... Also, there's a bunch of cool covers for the cannons too. And I think they would work great for fog lights with Amber covers on em.

I believe they're still $210 for a pair on his site. But I got a discount because I will be doing the review for him. He's only sold about 22 pairs he said last I talked to him. So I'm basically helping to promote them. So keep an eye out for my write-up in the near future.

 

^^ I'll have to keep a look out for it.

I just realized today that my Atlanta Braves plate is going to be in the way so I will have to take that off. I'm stationed in Washington where they require front and back plate and that is where I purchased the truck. Since I'm still a Florida resident where I was last stationed at I keep my vehicles registered there due to Florida not requiring emissions! So the dealership I bought the truck from already had a dealer tag in the front therefore leaving holes in the bumper so I just threw the Braves tag on. Is there a way to plug those holes with so,etching color matched so it doesn't look ridiculous afterwards? I was really really pissed when I got home a realized that the dealer tag was in the front already. I really don't want to have to purchase a brand new bumper just for the two screw holes in the front but I'm guessing it will get on my nerves enough in the future I will end up doing that.

 

I personally would just plug the holes with body panel plugs, from Lowes. See my above pics. If the black plugs bother you, you could paint them with touch up paint before installation.

The black didn't bother me since there are plenty of "factory" black plugs on the truck - including the foglight blanks, for example.

There is a commercial product available to plug the holes, which is discussed on TW somewhere, but you basically are getting color matched plugs for like $40, which is retarded.

 

Yea I looked at Home Depot and fount the plugs and going to give that a shot. I really wished dealerships did not drill the holes in the front until the vehicle is sold in the first place. Lucky with my wife's Range Rover they didn't do it because we caught them before they put the tag on. Oh well.

 

Just received my 30" optic led bar from avec today! Hopefully get it put it this weekend. When running the wires to the inside where should I run the wire? Do I use the grommet that already has wires running through it that you can see looking at the driver side firewall?

 

yep

 

Got the light bar installed yesterday! I will try to get pictures up soon. Do any of you know where I can get a factory style switch like the fog light switch? I could have sworn I seen a factory fog switch with quick connects on the back so you can install aftermarket light with it but I cannot find it anymore to save my life! I would like to keep the factory look, sorry Avec.

 

Finally got the light bar installed! Man it is bright. I read in post before though that mounting it on the crash bar behind the bumper that the only thing you had to do was just bolt it in using the brackets. In my case I had to use some spacers to get it to the right height. Did I receive the wrong bracket or something? Also I do feel like I have lost some of the flood light capability because most of the light I see is in the middle which I was expecting. Do any of you that have the 30" light bar behind the lower grille have any pics of a night shot for comparison?

 

Bringing back my own tread but want to know will the rigid industries covere for on the avec light bars? I want to put Amber on there so I can run them in the winter and not blind on coming traffic.

 

Dunno. But... It's still going to be too bright. And not just a little bright, I mean blinding bright... You should not be using it in traffic, period. Regardless of whatever cover you put on it. It might not seem that bright to you driving as the cover does decrease the output, but to oncoming traffic it will be. I have some little rigid srq in amber, not the srq2 or whatever the upgraded ones are, and even being so small, they are way too bright to use at night. I have them wired up to be used as daytime running lights. When my headlights come on, the srq go off.

 

Like I mentioned before I would not be using them in high traffic areas only on the back roads were it gets foggy and I know Amber/yellow works better in foggy situations. And of course I would turn the lights off when on coming traffic approaches

 

(302)757-4157 anyone interested in LED bars hit me up I own mayhem lighting. We have any size bar for a price your wife wont kill you for. And all of our bars have a life time warranty. wwwsquareup.com/market/mayhemlighting

 

I am now replacing my 4 Hella 500's with a 30" led bar. The Hella's were not bright at all at night.