98-00 LED Headlight Idea

Our headlights kinda suck. I know direct replacement LED bulbs are a horrible idea, and retrofits are pretty meh.

But, has anyone tried taking a pair of these:

$105 Anzo USA 121139 Toyota Tacoma Jdm Black Headlight Assembly - (Sold in Pairs)

https://www.amazon.com/USA-121139-T...s=Anzo+Tacoma+Headlight&qid=1578198578&sr=8-4

and mounting a 7" round LED inside them?

$663 KC HiLiTES 42351 Gravity LED 7" DOT Headlight, Jeep JK 07-18 - Pair Pack System

https://www.amazon.com/KC-HiLiTES-4...eadlight&qid=1578198741&sprefix=KC+7+I&sr=8-5


I think optically it would work great, but the trick would be mounting the lights solidly. You'd probably have to cut up the housing of the anzos. But it might be totally worth it, assuming it didn't look awful.

Any thoughts?

 

Don’t waste your money.
Just spent the money 250 and get retrofit mini h1 or D2S.

They’re the best by far.
They come up as a group buy around 220 250

 

Definitely a possibility. I don't find the look of projectors appealing at all, so I'm fishing for other options too.

 

The output is amazing and no comparison, if your worried about the look then get any crappy headlight that looks cool to you or go the route below.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1st-gen-retrofit-walkthrough-morimoto-mini-h1.213080/

 

Looks aren't the priority, but I'm always willing to try something new. We shall see if I ever get aroun to trying something, was mostly looking to see if anyone had gone this route already.

 

I wasted a lot of time and money trying other routes like you might be thinking of doing.
I tried Higher watt sealed lights, Hella lamps, different Hella watt bulbs, hid lights, probably throwing 400.00 away easily.
Wish I had known about projector lights back then because they are by far the best.

 

I hear ya. There's a lot of crappy lights out there. The hope I have from this route is that the 7" form factor is very common from old sealed beam vehicles and a few newer ones. If I can come up with a way to properly integrate that mount a whole segment of quality LED light solutions opens up.

 

This is saying something because I remember when 1997tacomav6 was trying different lighting options, the led in halogen housing that scattered the light, the higher wattage bulb and now this. So he's seen all the bad, wrong ways to 'upgrade' as well as the good ways, the higher wattage bulb.
So from strictly judging the light output side of things he's got a lot perspective on this.
I'm a 2000 so I have the headlight you're saying. I'm running the higher wattage bulbs and only other thing I'll do for lighting some time in future is the HID conversion. And that's because I know what I want and don't wanna waste my money with other stuff.
You're still figuring out what you want and that light within the housing definitely sounded different

 

The led or hid lights can and do put out a lot of light BUT it’s about how the light is projected .
The common scattered LED and HID light are very dangerous if not controlled correctly.

I had HID in a halogen lens which work great if you don’t care about the on coming cars.

The super dangerous situation with this setup or any other scattered LED OR HID setup is if you get caught in fog or a heavy snow storm the bright lights will reflect back on you and you will not
be able to see 100 feet or 50 feet in front of you. Ask me how I know
The head light setup is about the light out put and the reflector lens and the controlled footprint.

If you have a scattered light pattern which is common with the cheaper setups your asking for problems
and will have to buy another setup.
Lookup reviews on any setup you buy with real photos and fog and snow scattered light if possibly.

 

That exact fog situation is what got me to pull hid's out of my 80 series Cruiser like 10 years ago. COULD NOT SEE SHIZ. worse lighting situation I've ever found myself in, in over 25 years of driving. That's when I found HIRs which are amazing but none for our trucks. Taco gets the over watt bulbs until I do retro projectors like yours well I'm 2000 but you know what I'm saying

 

This is what happened to me 2 months ago, was snowing crazy with those big fat snow flakes.
I seriously could not see 50 feet, maybe 30 feet, in front of me going down the highway at 30mph, that’s a 65mph highway with no place to pull off.

In all my miles of driving this was the scariest situation I’ve been in before White knuckling it for 20 minutes like this.

That was it, those old lights regardless how bright they were for regular night driving, they were going.

I’m not saying a projector light is for you but a projector light
is controlled and doesn’t go above the 30” on low beam with zero scattered light or so and will not have the issue I had before as shown with this low beam photo
.