The H10 to 9011 HIR Foglight upgrade (brighter than LED)

This mod upgrades the 900 lumen H10 foglight to the 2500 lumen 9011 HIR. This is the highest level output of any foglight.

Warning: This is not a street friendly mod. The immense power of these lights is not friendly to oncoming traffic and should only be used without oncoming traffic.

HIR left vs stock right
Vehicle: 2006 Tacoma with OEM original fog housings (headlights disabled)


This mod applies to:
-2005-2011 Tacoma fogs
-2016+ non-TRD Tacoma fogs
-Any vehicle using H10 fogs
Vehicles with H11 fogs should see this thread.

This lighting upgrade follows a similar recipe as my other lighting mods, increasing performance while maintaining the OEM cut offs. But rather than just turning up the power I've also used a more efficient bulb by retrofitting the highest performing automotive halogen bulb of all time into the H10 fog housing, pushing stock output from 900 lumens to 2500 lumens using HIR technology. I then increased the voltage to the bulb using 12 gauge wiring directly to the battery in a stand-alone relayed high wattage harness for even higher output.

This mod results in a measured 2.3x+ increase over stock.

For a comparison point, the popular LED Morimoto led fogs advertise 1200 LED "raw lumen" output (actual lumen output is less). This mod is 2500 actual lumens per bulb, or 5000/pair.
Warning: This mod results in the fogs having greater output than the stock headlights.

The Details:
The 42w H10 bulb used in the Tacoma fogs is compatible in plug configuration, light tab orientation and capsule dimensions with the 65w 9005, though the 9005 is a high beam bulb so it is missing the bulb glare cap. The 9005 high beam bulb is compatible with the 65w 9011 HIR high beam after minor modification to the light tabs. Which therefore means the highest performing halogen bulb ever made, the 9011 HIR, must be compatible with the H10 after minor modification.

HIRs like the 9011 and 9012 use an InfraRed coating on the bulb to reflect IR light back to the filament to overdrive it for higher output without consuming more power, providing improvements in efficacy and output. HIRs are the highest performing halogen technology available, they were supposed to be the next big thing in automotive lighting but lost the battle to HID. While HIRs have been around, the technology hasn't spread past the original 9011/9012 applications for automotive (unless you count me retrofitting HIRs into my reverse lights). However, Volsa has recently started to reinvest in HIR, producing the very first +130 HIR 9012 bulb. Volsa's 9011 high beam also seem to spec higher numbers than previous models of the bulbs, producing the highest lumen output of any stock wattage bulb. Naturally I selected the German Volsa 9011 HIRs for this upgrade.

Measurements
Stock fog


HIR fog


Glare
The obvious difference between the H10 vs 9011 (or 9005) bulbs is the 9011s are missing the glare cap, which exposes a forward facing filament on low beam. Any low beam application where glare control is important should never have a forward facing exposed light source. This is why low beam bulbs have glare caps. Glare is not important in a high beam application as there should be no oncoming drivers requiring glare control, so glare caps are not applied. So I needed glare caps as my lighting mods must operate like stock but better. Introducing glare is the wrong direction.

Using 9005 bulbs (which are far cheaper than 9011s) I experimented with applying glare caps vs lacking them to see if this was necessary. The HIR bulbs spec surface temp right on the box at >200C or about >400F. Engineers love safety factor in design, so accordingly I searched for the highest temp spray paint available and selected Rustoleum's 2000 degree ultra high temp spray paint which is guaranteed not to peel, providing a 5x safety factor for coating temp. Wanting to avoid hot spots on the bulb which may lead to premature failure, I selected white as the color choice.

To apply the glare cap, I had to commit the cardinal bulb sin and touch the bulb glass to tape off the cap line. I tried this many times and it is too difficult to apply the tape precisely with gloves. You will need some isopropyl alcohol to clean the bulb later, if you do not oils from your skin will cause premature bulb failure. Isopropyl alcohol should be available at your local drug store for less than $2.


Using a standard H10 for glare cap reference, I wrapped the new to-be glare cap edge on my test 9005 in plain scotch tape. I put a small piece of paper on the end of the tape so I wouldn’t have to pick at it to get it of the delicate bulb, then wrapped the rest of the bulb capsule in scotch tape. I used a drill bit to punch holes through a cardboard box, push the bulbs through and tape in place for painting.

It is important during this painting process to use many light coats with dry time in-between. Heavy coats will likely lead to bubbling and flaking of the coating. This paint is going to be cycled through high heat. In limited testing the 2 weeks of being run constantly on the pre-Tacoma test vehicle have shown no signs of any breakdown of the coating.

My high tech glare cap application station with 2000 degree paint.


Finished product (bottom) compared to OEM product (top).


Testing
Using my modified 9005 compared to an uncapped 9005, I determined there is a difference. Facing the vehicle you get a visual halo effect surrounding the lights from the uncapped bulb vs the capped bulb controls dazzle to look closer to stock. However, overall this effect is minor and does not show up on a wall test. Nothing like the excessive glare from HID/LEDs in a halogen reflector.

For the purpose of this mod, I proceeded with the glare caps.

A glare capped 9011 HIR. A low beam bulb of this level does not exist.


Trimming
The 9011 HIR will plug into the H10 electrical connector, but the light tabs will not allow it to mount. The top tab needs to be trimmed as shown (same as putting the 9011 into a 9005 headlight). Vosla seems to know what buyers have in mind here and have surprisingly already pre-marked where to trim their bulbs, shown in white. I did not apply that white marking, it came from the factory that way. I kinda like these guys a little more. Using a Dremel cut off wheel, this operation takes only seconds to removed the white marked material. You can now mount an HIR into your H10 housing.



Aiming
The H10 has a more subtle difference compared to the 9005/9011. The H10 filament is positioned slightly lower in the bulb capsule than the 9005/9011 which are positioned on center. Putting a 9005/9011 into an H10 housing translates to a beam pattern output that is potentially positionally lower than stock. It is therefore important to do one housing at a time, and compare the modified housing to stock cut off line with a wall test at ~20ft and adjust up accordingly. To adjust use the OEM fog beam height adjusters with a screwdriver on the back side of the housing. Interestingly while this was the case in the R&D test vehicle, a 2006 Mariner, the 2006 Tacoma beam patterns lined up like stock requiring no adjustment. I'd still recommend doing one at a time and double check for matching horizons to confirm no adjustment in necessary.

9005 Hella Headlight Harness
Feeding halogen based bulbs higher voltage results in notably greater output. To unlock the real potential of these bulbs they need more voltage, the factory circuit is now running over 50% greater wattage than intended. Since the electrical connectors on the H10 are the same as 9005 and 9011, I used a heavy duty relayed 12 gauge Hella 9005 headlight harness from Rallylights to alleviate the factory wiring from the increased loads, and also provide increased voltage with a direct connection to the battery. The harness maintains the factory control operation of the fog lights.

Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of the Rallylights 9005 harness before install, so here it is partially installed:


The wiring was run along the front lower core support and zip tied in place.

End product, HIR fogs (headlights disabled)
The 5000 lumen fogs make the 2000 lumen headlights look pretty poor.


Here is an output video on the test vehicle (video is way too short I know).
This is running best in class Philips Extreme +130 headlights in OEM housings. There is not a better stock wattage bulb. Then turning on the HIR fogs. This video shows the Osram 9011 HIRs, not the 5% higher output Volsas which I gave away. The video is not that helpful watched in real time, but pause and compare 01s with 05s by manually jumping time. These lights maintain the OEM cut off pattern.

https://youtu.be/b_3FPcdpZXk

HIR bulb notes
On Rallylights site Volsas are listed as 3000 lumen, while Philips spec the 9011 as 2500 lumen. The Volsa spec seems overrated. I tested the Volsa 9011s and the Osram 9011s. In testing the Volsas measured 5% higher in lux testing than the Osrams. My testing certainly isn't perfect, but I tried to pull a higher reading from the Osrams knowing what the Volsas had measured and could not get a better reading. A couple percentage points could be noise, but 5% leads me to believe there is a difference in bulb output, but not on the level of 3000 lumens. I suspect the Volsas are closer to the standard 9011 2500 lumens.

Volsa 9011 HIR Discontinued?
I ordered a second set of the Volsa HIRs and received Osrams (packaged as Sylvania). I just found out this morning that there is word from suppliers that Volsa may have discontinued 9011 HIR production. I've got some emails out to those in the industry to try and determine if that is the case. I'll update the thread accordingly once I hear back.

Other 9011 HIRs
Philips produces a German made 9011 HIR. Bulb life is spec'd at 450hrs which is far better than the 150hrs for the German Osram. I'm picking up a Philips 9011 to compare to the others and will update the thread accordingly.
ACDelco (GM) also makes 9011s. While they were the originally repackaged high quality Toshiba bulbs (the original HIR) it appears now that manufacturing has moved to China and it isn't what it used to be. Go figure. Reputable sources like Candlepower will not sell the Chinese GM bulbs.

Output levels
I was expecting numbers to be a bit higher over 2.3x improvement with this upgrade. Lumen output alone should have been closer to a 2.7x improvement over stock, and adding the standalone harness should have made that number even higher. Earlier versions of 9011 were rated at 2350 lumens, and Candlepower confirms the Philips are 10% brighter than the earlier Toshibas, which makes me curious if these bulbs are not as bright as the Philips. I'll Pick up some Philips bulbs to compare, as I am curious to see if there is a difference.

An important factor to note in bulb upgrades is that the upgrade only amplifies what the OEM housing beam pattern projects. If the OEM beam pattern is good, the upgrade will be more effective. If the OEM beam pattern is poor, the upgrade will be less effective.

To Repeat this mod:
9005 Hella headlight harness - HL28285 9005 only -$63
9011 Volsa HIR bulbs - $56 Out of stock you will be shipped an Osram 9011 HIR bulb.

Rust-Oleum Automotive 254858 12-Ounce 2000 Degrees High Heat Spray, Flat White

Rustoleum 2000 degree paint - $15

9005 Note
You could also do the same modification with an off the shelf 9005 (1700 lumen), providing a substantial bump in output over stock (900 lumen) at a lower cost, but it will be lower performing than the 9011 HIR. And for those that like yellow fogs, there are yellow 9005s.

Special Thanks
I don't have a Tacoma that this mod is applicable to as my 2015 uses H11 fogs, so I had to find a local TW member that was willing to let me modify their truck. Special thanks to @gnardoggie for letting me use his Tacoma to demo and test the mod on a Tacoma for the purpose of making this thread. He can provide driving impressions with the HIR foglight upgrade.


If you found this interesting, you might be interested in my other lighting threads:

Fog light upgrades:
The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review
The ultimate foglight upgrade H11 (not LED or HID)

Other lighting upgrades:
3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights
The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)
Gy6.35 HIR 921 reverse light upgrade (vs high power LEDs)
The 921 LED Reverse Light Bulb Study

Rock Lights:
The Rock Light Showdown

More information on automotive lighting:
Automotive Lighting 101
Why LEDs should not be run in Halogen reflectors

Home lighting upgrades:
High quality efficient home lighting using LEDs, HIRs and Halogens

 

@gnardoggie you get a chance to try these out on those mountain back roads this weekend?

 

Another well reasoned, well planned, well executed and well documented lighting mod from the master. Many thinks for doing all the hard work and sharing it with your friends here at TW!

PS: If you ever need a 2014 Tacoma test dummy, I'm selflessly offer up my truck!

 

Updated with a small youtube clip for comparison.

 

You bet!

These things are fantastic. The throw is seemingly much wider than stock and the output is fantastic...so much so that I had a headlight burn out this weekend and I had no idea. Overall this is a totally worthwhile modification, especially for those looking for more light in bad weather and dark areas.

There's a big snow storm coming this week, so I'll have an opportunity to try these out further very soon.

 

I did warn in the post that they would be brighter than the headlights!

It was actually something I considered on the Mariner. I wanted to run a headlight harness on it’s H13 Philips Xtreme +130s, but it has a canbus system that will detect bulb outages, and a harness made it think the bulbs were burnt out. So I would then have to spoof the system so it didn’t freak out about a headlight outage, but that also meant it wouldn’t tell when you actually did have a bulb out. But with the 9011 HIRs you couldn’t actually tell that there was a headlight out driving down the street, so I decided the canbus system notifying you of the outage was more valuable than running the headlight harness for the headlights.

 

Picked up some of the very first original HIR bulbs to test in addition to the Philips.



Same GE prototype bulb as shown here:
http://store.candlepower.com/hirlighting.html

 

Who did you get them from, Thomas Edison? Man they look ancient!

 

@crashnburn80 . Couple of ?s for you.

First- Could you clarify this; Testing
Using my modified 9005 compared to an uncapped 9005, I determined there is a difference. Facing the vehicle you get a visual halo effect surrounding the lights from the uncapped bulb vs the capped bulb controls dazzle to look closer to stock. However, overall this effect is minor and does not show up on a wall test.

When you say the effect is minor, have you determined that the adding of the glare cap is unnecessary? skipping the painting step would make life easier.

Second - If I decided to go the 9005 route, is the standalone harness mandatory? If the stock wiring can handle the 9005s I could swap a set right in and get the harness later when the weather is nicer to work outside.

Thanks for all you've put into these mods .

 

I like my lighting mods to function 100% like stock, which is why I went with the glare cap, so the bulb optics are the same as stock. You could get away without it, it will be minor. I'll dig up some of the pre-Tacoma test photos a little later to show the difference.

The lights will work without the harness. The harness reduces voltage drop (increasing voltage to the bulbs) which makes the bulbs burn brighter, just like the headlight mod. I like to push things to their maximum potential, and you will get better output with a harness but it isn't required.

Unless you are wanting yellow 9005s I see no reason not to run the 9011 HIRs instead. They both consume 65w, but the 9011 HIRs are far brighter. Granted with the 9011 you will have to trim the tab whereas you will not with the 9005. You can pick up 9011s off the shelf at the autoparts store, I grabbed a set of Sylvania 9011s (which are Osrams in a Sylvania package) at AutoZone.

 

Here are photos of initial testing.

Driver has the glare cap, passenger does not. These are both 9005s (not the 9011 HIRs):


Here is a close up wall shot comparing glare capped 9005 (driver) to stock H10 (passenger). 9011s are far brighter.

 

In the first pic - cap vs uncapped 9005 - the uncapped appears to be putting more light forward judging from the light pattern I'm seeing on the ground. The capped side looks more oval, left/right spread pattern. Hope how I'm describing it makes sense. I do not see the halo you indicated. If, as you said, there is no difference showing on the wall test then I would say painting a cap is not needed. In the wall pis I see a significant increase in light, and will pick up a set of 9005s asap. Down the road, with the discontinuation of the high output H4 bulbs, a standalone harness and 9011s is in my future.

 

I'm probably just going to get the harness, and a new set of Nokya Hyper Yellow H10s. They should be a little brighter with the new harness. I've had a couple people ask me if they are HID bulbs, even though they're stock wattage.

 

The halo is in the photo on the passenger side, the edge of the halo touches the passenger edge of the license plate. If viewing on mobile, view in a well lit room or turn up screen brightness. I noticed it was difficult to see earlier but the auto dimming for low ambient light made it difficult to see. But yes, there is no glare from a wall test.

Unsure about all high output, but the Osram H4 Hypers have been discontinued. Haven’t confirmed on 100/90w Osrams, but it seems possible.

AND all German Osram/Sylvania/Philips/Volsa 9011s have reportedly been discontinued. Now these bulbs are everywhere and uncommon for an OEM bulb, so they won’t disappear over night. You can get them at your local auto parts store. I know Nokya has started listing 9011s as a product on their website.

Why settle for the Hyper yellow H10 when there is a hyper yellow 9005?

 

Harness ordered. Their shipping is a little pricey but whatever. I'll pick up some 9005s soon and start looking for some 9011s.

 

In talking with Daniel Stern, he pointed out the paint solution for glare capping the 9011s was not a good idea due to paint off-gassing coating the inside of the foglight lens which would be very difficult to clean. Will have to rethink the glare cap application solution.

 

Agreed, but the OEM bulbs have a painted on glare cap. Maybe the type of paint one uses would make the big difference?

 

I would think that the difference is that the factory bakes it on totally curing it at the factory so no off gassing in the housing.

@crashnburn80 waiting for you to give some insight on which 9005 would be best. These Narvas - http://www.rallylights.com/narva-range-power-50.html appear to have a glare cap from the factory. They claim double the life but do not quantify that. You're the expert on specs. Currently running the zxe bulbs and waiting on the harness to arrive.

 

The OEM coating is referred to as 'black top', it appears thicker/heavier than paint, but I am not sure of all its engineering qualities. Need to do some more research.

The capped bulbs pictured are H4, H4s have caps. I doubt the 9005 Narva bulb will have a cap. If doing this mod, I'd highly encourage the 9011 for maximum output over the 9005. And for best output avoid output reducing coated bulbs like silverstar.

Been running the DIY capped 9011s for about 6 weeks now, checked then lenses and no evidence of residue. Will continue to monitor and look for other coating solutions.

 

I've seen it called Liquid Nano-Ceramic Thermal Insulation Coating. Not sure if that's a common coating across the board for all manufacturers but it's worth looking into. It sounds expensive.