The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

How many days was it after they notified you that the order had shipped?

 

12 days, including 2 weekends, using the free shipping option. I am on the West Coast vs closer East Coast.

 

Had one of my 85w Hyper bulbs go out this morning as I was leaving for work, in a bright flash that almost looked like an HID ignition. Since it was light enough to go without headlights for my drive to the office, I grabbed my last complete spare set of 85w Hypers to change them at the office since it will be dark on the drive home. When changing it this morning, of course the clip came off. Worst design on the truck and I mentally curse at the Toyota engineer that designed this every time it happens. I'll change out the remaining good bulb this evening and save it as a spare, as bulbs should always be replaced in pairs.

Multiple coworkers thought it was extremely odd that I just happen to have spare bulbs on hand. Probably best if they don't see my garage.

 

I’ve posted before about how halogens loose approx 20% of their output over the life of the bulb. Just blowing a bulb and replacing it with an identical new bulb it poses an excellent opportunity to measure and demonstrate this effect. I always replace my headlight bulbs in pairs (you should to) so the remaining old bulb is effectively at end of life, being its companion bulb has failed. I’ll keep the old bulb as a temporary spare, but replace it with a new bulb.

These pics and measurements are with the 85w Hypers.

New left, EOL bulb right


Pics don’t quite do this justice, even trying to focus in on the hot spot. The new bulb is noticeably brighter than the end of life bulb.

End of life bulb


New bulb


New bulbs are about 28% brighter than the old bulb near end of life. 28% is a substantial gain.

Always replace your headlight bulbs in pairs, it performs significantly better and if one fails the other is not far behind. I recommend keeping the used still good bulb as a spare for temporary use for next time a headlight goes out till you get a new pair of bulbs.

 

Wow that is quite a difference! More than I would've thought. Roughly how long did that bulb last?

 

I installed the headlight services harness and osram 90/100 bulbs tonight. WOW, What a big difference. Also did the reverse light upgrade too.

Now my battery is crowded with wiring from horns, other lights, etc. It should be fine moving the orange (+) over to a blue seas box and nixing the inline fuses ?

 

I had to page back through this thread a while to find the answer. Installed 1/11/2018, first failed 12/13/2018, so just over 11 months.

Yep, that would be no problem, I know others have done it. Though also no problem leaving the redundant inline fuse if you didn’t want to mess with modifying the harness.

 

@crashnburn80 I think I messed up: I ordered h11 GE 130’s instead of h4’s. I thought I’d read there was a reason for converting to h11’s from h4’s, and that something on the bulb had to be dremeled to make them fit and seal. But, now I can’t find that post. Am I on the wrong track?

 

No you have correct, your 2016 takes H11 headlight bulbs and the GE +130s are the best H11. What I think you are thinking of is modifying an H9 by removing the internal tab of the bulb to use in the H11 socket, but the H11 GEs outperform the modifies H9s. The 3rd gems cannout use an H4.

 

Thanks - I looked again after reading your reply, and realized I had the high and low beam bulb positions reversed in my head

 

So just to be clear, I have a 04 without Drl's. Which harness do I order? From headlight services..

 

You need the ground switched harness, listed under 4Runner:
http://www.headlightservices.com/4runner3.html

 

Thanks, I shot them a email waiting to hear back. Since I'm driving at night more i want to upgrade my headlights. Already have the +120 ge bulbs. So the harness is my hold up.

 

Just to clarify, you can run those bulbs without the harness, but you should get about a 15% improvement by adding the harness.

 

Now that is tempting to put them in and just check them out..we'll see if the rain holds off .

 

200 hours? Give me a break. Replacing new bulbs every month. I’ll stick to my opt 7 leds that have lasted 3 years.
But really, an led in a projector is amazing. You sound intelligent and articulate but have no real negatives for using quality leds as an alternative.

 

Your headlights are on almost 7hrs/day?!? FWIW, I think I've replaced my upgraded halogens once in over two years since I installed this setup.

Given my experience with the factory LEDs headlights in my wife's BMW, I agree that a quality LED projection setup is hard to beat. The problem is very few spend the time and money to retrofit such a thing. Instead, most simply plug LEDs (quality and otherwise) into their halogen reflector assembly, which is definitely not a good idea.

 

Completely agree. Quality LED 2000+ lumens in a projected housing will last years, not months, give as much light as this, AND isn’t hot to the touch.
Why burn an already archaic hot light source (halogen) EVEN HOTTER? LOL. Why is this even a sticky? It’s like going back to dial up. Let’s sticky dialup internet.

 

As noted above 200 hours was good for over 11 months for me. To burn through bulbs as quickly as you mention you would have to drive nearly all night, every single night of the month.

LEDs in a halogen projector have terrible performance, and opt7 is one of the worst. They cause complete loss of hot spot and no distance projection, and have a massive shift in the pattern to all foreground light, when the primary purpose of the headlight is to project light at distance. The only legitimate LED Tacoma headlight is the $1200+ units TRS/Morimoto is building from the ground up for an LED light source.

See this post for information on how LEDs perform in the 3rd gen halogen projector.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/headlight-upgrade-2017-trd.575174/#post-19026245

 

It is a sticky because it is the only legitimate properly engineered upgrade for a halogen lighting assembly, designed for the factory optics. And will easily outperform hack drop in LED products.