The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

Oh okay, I like your explanation of it. haha

Ordered everything up, will post updates once everything comes in.

I was still curious about the headlightservices wiring harness vs rally lights. From what I can tell, only the relays are different, along with a different gauge wire for the battery negative. Everything else seems identical, maybe rallylights uses a high quality wire?

 

Spot-on!

New harness, providing direct-connection to the battery via high-quality relays.

 

My point was saving the 10w rating on low beam for similar output (90w vs 80w) is not a concern when running an aftermarket harness, as power is readily available directly from the battery vs being constrained through factory wiring.

Both appear to use high quality components. Rallylights uses Hella relays, Headlight services uses Bosch-Tyco. The power wire for each is 12 AWG, both use ceramic connectors, both are assembled in the USA. Both return the ground back to the source, vs cheap stubbed out 'local' ground wires for each light. I haven't personally bought from Headlight Services, but others in this thread have, so I cannot comment on the exact differences in the builds. Rallylights does offer far more off the shelf harness options than Headlight Services.

 

That's what I gathered as well, although I wasn't sure how much better the Hella relays were.

headlightservices seem to be on top of things so far, I ordered last night. Earlier tonight I got an email from him, asking me about the ground switch vs power switch (I'm assuming this also refers to conventional). I did the test you posted on the first page, and concluded mines were also conventional.

This may be a dumb question, but have you had or heard any reports of this setup draining the battery?

 

No. When installed correctly, it's impossible for it to do so.

 

Thanks, I was just curious.

Can't wait to get the new lights and harness. Took my HIDs out, and replaced the factory lights. Now it feels similar to driving without lights at all. haha

 

Power Bulbs is having a 25% off sale right now for the bulbs needed for this MOD

https://www.powerbulbs.com/

 

Just installed mine today. Even for somebody that hates wiring and electrical it was pretty straight fucking forward

 

Would this work on the 3rd Gen?

 

This would apply to any car really. Just have to make sure you get the proper harness to match the bulbs. If the turd gen uses H4 bulbs then it would be the same ingredients

 

Headlight harness from headlight service came today. Super impressed by the quality. Still waiting on my bulbs, but might install the harness tomorrow, to see if it makes any difference on factory bulbs.

 

Now thats quality product... Is that the harness from http://www.rallylights.com/ ??

 

Nope that is this one.

http://www.headlightservices.com/Wiring.html

 

From those close up pics, you can tell that there is a lot of attention to detail in that harness. When I did the ultimate headlight upgrade, I bought the Rally lights harness, because it was highly recommended by crashburn80. Even though it was overpriced, and they reamed me on shipping, I stepped up to get a known quality product. The headlight services harness was not well documented as to quality at that time and I only wanted to pay once. Now, looking close at the headlight services harness, I see 1 potential problem. The relay they chose to use, is a dual output relay. In other words, 1 common terminal and 2 N.O. terminals. Although this is appears to be a great relay for this application, a problem will occur if you need to replace a relay for any reason. If 1 of the much more commonly available relays that have common, N.O., and N.C., is plugged in, 1 headlight will be on constantly.

I just looked at my Rally Lights harness and it uses that same style of relay. So, the lesson here is, even though any ordinary relay will plug right in, don't do it.

 

Is relay failure common? Would the answer be to purchase one or two spares when buying the harness and keeping them in the truck, and are they readily available at auto parts stores or Amazon?

 

I just installed mines today, only took 20 mins, including fabricobbling a mount for the relays. Something I did notice, due to the heavier gauge wire and stiffness, when installed, they pulled the bulbs up a little bit. Maybe the retaining spring thingy is worn out?

The current bulbs are still stock (waiting on new ones to come in), but I can tell the lights are slightly brighter, although minimal. Can't wait to see the difference with the new bulbs.

As far as the relays go, I zero to no knowledge about them. But if your saying Rallylights also use something similar, I would imagine it to be okay? Haven't read about any failures, but what you bring up is a very good point. I'll try to get a spare or two. Thanks for pointing this out.

 

I doubt that relay failure is common, and it's probably not worth carrying a spare. After all, since there's a sepparate relay for high beam and low beam, it's not likely that you're going to be stranded with no lights. It's just something to be aware of that if you do have a relay failure, you can't just rob 1 from your lightbar circuit.

 

I’ve run the setup on multiple Toyota’s over nearly 10 years. Never had a failure. Buying quality parts pays off long term.

Even if this did happen, you can disconnect the harness from the battery and run standard H4s available everywhere for just a few bucks until you get a new relay.

You need the H11 upgrade for 3rd gen, same concept, different parts. Though with 3rd gen projectors you do have more options like HID.

H11 upgrade
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-foglight-upgrade-not-led-or-hid.435419/

The harness alone will deliver higher voltage to the bulbs causing them to be brighter. It was measured somewhere in this thread and I believe it was 0.4v higher, which equates to a non-trivial increase in output.

I’ve not noticed the issue with the harness pulling at the lights. Not sure if Ralleylights is more flexible, it is just the way you have routed your wiring, or your spring clips are weak possibly from aftermarket headlights, but the clips should hold the bulbs firmly in place.

 

It could just be in my head then, although they do seem different.

The factory wires were kind of pulling at the lights also. Which leads me to believe my friend may have over muscled the springs, when he helped install my HIDs. When putting the factory bulbs back in, I did notice the passenger side was very difficult to remove.

Either way, it was a quick upgrade. Always fun changing and or adding something to the truck.

 

Is there any update from the original post that was made in regards to this upgrade? I want to make sure I have the latest set of info in regards to this build.

The only reason I ask is because I am currently running a set of Kustom 57 Lighting Retrofits with Morimoto Mini D2S 4.0 projectors and I was thinking about going back to a factory 2015 TRD Pro housing and halogen bulbs.

The HID retrofits look fantastic and the light output is incredible... However. the first pair had lens cracking issues and was starting to have condensation issues as well. The second pair I received under warranty as a replacement for the first set has a longitudinal adjuster that is stripped, essentially every time I adjust the drivers headlight the reflector just drops to its lowest position, it wont stay in place....and Kustom 57 want me to take the driver side off, AGAIN... so they can fix it, but I feel as though they should have check it while it was at their shop to begin with. They claim its my old headlight housing and I must have adjusted it to much, but when I received them back after the first warranty repair, I turned them on in my truck and they weren't at the same level as when I shipped them out.

All that being said, I'm getting a bit frustrated and I'm looking to pursue other options that will last me the life of my vehicle. I don't want to have to worry about broken adjusters, condensation, etc. I like the idea of using halogen lights in a factory TRD pro housing because I think it looks OEM and had decent light output over stock.