The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

Hooked up my harness today from headlight services, all in all an easy project.
Thought I’d try the Osram stock wattage +130 first..(they sent the +150)
Oh well installed them anyway..

I wanted to install the ring terminals to my blue sea, but the ring terminals were too big.
I wasn’t sure if I could changed the terminals to smaller ones, so I hooked up to the battery.

Bring on the darkness

 

@crashnburn80 -- how's the testing set-up coming?

 

I'm going to do this also because I have extra fuse space on my Blue Sea and I'm trying to keep my battery-less cluttered. I need to extend the positive headlight harness wires and cut out the fuse that came with it. So this will give me a chance to change the ring terminal size...

 

I though about it,and I might still do it, but like with my alarm, I didn’t want to risk having the blue sea pop the breaker while I’m driving or without me knowing. Then I’m without lights or an alarm..

Maybe I’m just being paranoid.

 

Haven’t made much progress on it after the mounting hangup. Ideally I’d like something that is mechanical, reversible and repeatable. I just need to spend a little time with it and then head to Home Depot. Maybe I’ll post pictures of the issue this evening to see if anyone has simple ideas other than what has already been mentioned.

 

Tesla makes headlight adjustment stupid easy. It also has a vertical adjustment setting.

 

Pardon the poor quality, but would a jig like this make sense? Having a solid bar across the top with threaded rods dangling down to mount into the screw holes? Would that give you enough solidity for the test bench? They don't appear to be in the same plane so that may complicate the adjustment unless you had angle iron that could bend between the top bar and the threaded rods.

 

I’ll post some pics this evening. Something like that could be possible with some long enough threaded rods so that I could secure them with screws. Potentially wouldn’t give me much side to side adjustability though.

 

Ok, here is my 3rd Gen rack setup, like I said it applied the KISS principle.



It has a flat base, is secured with a single screw and washer setup and I use block and shim to level and aim. It works very well.

Here is the 2nd Gen light.



No flat surface making this much trickier, and the lower bolt mount extended arm isn’t doing me any favors. Also no easy securing point at the base.

After looking at it again, I could do a 2x2 going directly down from the mount I’m holding in the above photo. Then use a screw with a washer to secure it. I’d ideally like one mount point to give me 3-axis of freedom for aiming/adjustment. I could then shim it similar to the 3rd Gen light though not quite as easily.

 

Candlepowerinc.com is sending me a replacement bulb free of charge. Great customer service.

 

Looking for a wiring harness that ships to Canada. The one recommended on the first page will not take my money.

I have the osram 100/90w waiting to be installed.

What if I installed them with out the upgraded harness and just run my stock wiring??

 

There is 2 on the front page, did you try Rallylights? ARB also makes one, not sure if it is 12 AWG or 14 AWG though, Quadratec sells it and I’m sure they ship to Canada.
https://www.quadratec.com/products/...MItaKDkaXJ4QIVIiCtBh2q_weSEAQYAiABEgL8-vD_BwE

Running those bulbs on stock wiring is going to tax the system. They won’t perform great as they won’t have full voltage, you might melt the connectors and if you use the high beam you’ll likely blow the fuses. I’d wait till you get the harness.

 

+16% more over the Ultimate Headlight Upgrade:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-northstar-agm-battery-voltage-booster-upgrade.604478/

 

Cant wait for darkness to test my new osram headlight bulbs. I've never seen such a unique color spectrum from a light housing from bulbs. Looks awesome. Cant wait to see the performance difference! Big thanks to @crashnburn80. I'm really fortunate we can share mod time.

 

Post what you think if you go for a night drive!

For others, we switched out his 100/90w Osrams for the 85/80w All Seasons.

 

Shit. Like caddy shack. Best film 1981.

 

So what's the best stock headlight bulb without a harness?

 

I was just about to ask this same question.

 

My money is on the GE Megalight +120 or the

GE Lighting H4 NHX/BP2 Nighthawk Xenon Replacement Headlight Bulb, 2-Pack

GE Nighthawk Xenon +120. In 3rd Gen headlight testing, the GE Nighthawk Xenon H11s outperformed all other bulbs, even all H9s, except for the Philips H9.

The Megalights are quiet a bit less expensive but fairly difficult to come by as they have been superseded by the +130s, but the +130s have a more extensive performance robbing blue coating. Note the ebay link is out of Bulgaria, which is where GE's manufacturing facilities are located. When I ordered it did take a while for the bulbs to arrive.

I have all the bulbs to comparison test to give better data backed answers, I'll see if I cannot get the 2nd Gen headlights mounted on my rack this weekend.