3rd Gen. Ultimate Halogen Headlight/Foglight Upgrade (not LED or HID)

What projectors housings would you go with?

 

If HID- RX350's. They bolt right in and have awesome performance.
If LED- iLens BI-led it Koito bi-led are great but require a little more work to retro.

 

These are the bulbs I’d like to use.

 

You’ll want a halogen projector (like OEM) for a halogen bulb.

 

If I wanted to make this harness for my taco but wanted to use my switchpro instead of relays would the car freak out thinking the bulbs are burned out?

 

The Tacoma is not a CANBUS vehicle, so it doesn’t know when bulbs are burnt out. In short no.

 

So, is it possible to simply replace bulbs and get a higher lumen output, without making any electrical modifications? I realize that 2X brightness is not likely, but I'm just looking for some additional brightness.

 

Yes, see the update part of the original post in this thread:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-foglight-upgrade-h11-not-led-or-hid.435419/

H9s for your low beam and glare capped H9s for your fogs. Bulb life will likely be shorter through. Running the standalone harness on an H9 vs standalone harness on the 90w H11 produces nearly the same results. The harness provides increased voltage, without it you won't get quote as high of output, maybe 10-15% less but with an H9 it isn't required. You will need a harness for the 90w H11s.

 

So, no change of harness, no power mods, and you're pretty much getting the same output regardless of bulb?

 

Using an high 65w high beam H9 will take output from ~1200 lumens up to 2100 lumens. Running a standalone harness will further those gains by increasing voltage to the bulb, which is what I run. There will be a penalty in bulb life though.

 

Got it. Thanks!

 

Just wanted to chime in here with my results and a few measurements. 2017 Tacoma here with factory H11s, upgrading to Nokya H9s that have a little bulb tint to bring them up to 3800k. H9 on driver, H11 on passenger.



Bulbs:

$19 Nokya H9 Headlight Bulbs — Super White 3800K 65W (Stage 1) NOK8725

https://www.amazon.com/Nokya-H9-Headlight-Bulbs-NOK8725/dp/B00K3APCAK

Light meter:

$35 Dr.meter LX1330B Digital Illuminance Light Meter, 0-200000 Measurement Range Lux Meter

https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Meter-LX1330B-Digital-Illuminance-Light/dp/B005A0ETXY

Conditions: Measuring in my driveway so not ideal, but all house lights off and obviously fog lights off. Took an ambient measurement to take the street light into account. New H9 installed into driver headlight, gave bulbs 30s to stabilize before measurements, and measured at the peak of the hotspot below the cutoff.

Measurements:
Ambient - 1 lux
Factory H11 @ 10ft - 1809 lux
Nokya H9 @ 10ft - 2260 lux
Factory H11 @ 20ft - 435 lux
Nokya H9 @ 20ft - 641 lux

Side by side onto my white garage door for comparison. Photo is not white balanced exactly, but it's a good comparison for relative brightness, beam, and color.

Thanks to @crashnburn80 and everyone else for the info!

 

Nicely done! You’d get more improvemt with a non-coated bulb, but as you measured you have increased output over stock by about 50% for a very reasonable price while giving yourself a whiter light.

 

Thanks! Yep, I'm aware, but wanted to whiten it up a little so there was less difference in the color temp between the LED foglights and the halogen headlights.

 

As far as increasing color temps go, it was a good choice. The higher the color temp in halogen, which is achieved by a light reducing coating, the lower the output. Most coated bulbs start at 4000k+, by using a lower color temp, but still whiter than stock, you retain more output than you would if you went with something more typical of a coated bulb.

 

It’s finally getting dark again in Alaska and I’m finding the stock headlights to be, in a word, terrible. Like an old man holding a candle lantern in front of the truck. The forward distance is mediocre at best and the projection to the sides is terrifyingly bad living in moose country. I bought my truck in May so I never had a chance to drive it at night until about two weeks ago. I did check my headlight aim at work yesterday and they are right where they are supposed to be, so they’re just bad.

Thanks to this thread I ordered a set of Phillips h9’s and an H11 extension harness (so I can modify the aftermarket connector rather than every new bulb) from Amazon yesterday for about $25 shipped. As a test, before I ordered I swapped my stock high beam bulb in to my low beam housing, and it fit without trimming the metal tab. The last thing I wanted to have to do is having to trim the bulb base every time the bulbs burn out, so that made me happy.

I’m hoping it’s enough of an improvement for the low beams for me, but if it’s not I’ll probably end up with an HID retrofit.

 

Good approach. The H9s are good for about a 65-70% bump in output while maintaining the OEM optics. They do fit without exterior tab trimming, which is nice, though they can be a little finicky to line up just right. If that’s not enough HIDs would be the correct next best choice. You can get LEDs that provide more light than the halogen, but the thickness of the blade designs causes reduced distance projection, so you may get more light, but it won’t go as far as a halogen or HID upgrade.

 

That’s a big reason I won’t go with LEDs. Distance projection is one of the most important jobs of a headlight, why anyone would choose less is beyond me.

The Phillips H9’s and iJDMToy Amazon extension H8/9/11 harnesses arrived today. The connector needed to be trimmed to fit a H9 bulb, took maybe 5 minutes with a Dremel and the piece that needs to be cut is slightly different in texture so it’s easy to find and cut and not damage the connector.



Everything plugged together easily and the lights turned on, so it’s a partial success already. The H9’s are noticeably brighter and whiter than the H11’s even in broad daylight, but the real test will be coming home after dark.

I put the stock bulbs back in the boxes, taped them shut, and tossed them in my glove box in case something fails. If these work great, I’ll order another set of H9’s to keep as spares and maybe even do the same mod to my wife’s CRV.

 

Nice. I like your idea with the extension harnesses so you don’t need to trim the bulb, making it plug and play. The GFs Escape is also running H9s for lows, I may have to do that on hers.

 

For me it’s a CYA thing. I only need headlights for the winter half of the year so inevitably it’ll be -40F on my way to the office to hit the road for a day of out of town sales calls when they burn out. I’d much rather just have to twist in a new bulb vs doing bulb surgery when it happens.

Took a test drive after dark tonight and my lighting situation is significantly improved. The hard cut-off remains but the beam pattern is significantly fuller and brighter lit. Distance is now clearly limited by the projector pattern vs the brightness of the bulb. More importantly I can actually see the sides of the road now and can still see the road with oncoming traffic. Also you can actually see the low beam pattern now with the highs on; the stock bulbs were completely blow away by the high beams.

I think my lights might be aimed a little low, even though they looked close to right when I did a quick and dirty check a few weeks ago, but when loaded they’d be aimed too high if I raised them. I’m usually empty at night so I might try to re-aim them at work next week.

Wife’s CRV got 9011’s in her high beams tonight to replace her stock 9005’s, hopefully she notices the change tomorrow.