The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

Going to literally be a night and day difference. Be sure to post up your impressions after getting it all installed!

 

picked up some bulbs. Thanks for this!!

 

I also bought the ss3 pro amber fogs... been waiting to pull the trigger and just decided to do it... hope my twss didn’t get them for me.

 

Got the Headlights Services harness and Osram bulbs installed today. Still have another hour or so until it's dark enough to really see the results. Whipped up a quick bracket to install the relays on that is sandwiched between my aux fuse panel bracket and the inner fender.

 

Minor point of correction, selective yellow fogs, not amber.

Baja has caused significant confusion by calling yellow lights amber, but the appropriate terminology for a yellow fog is ‘selective yellow’.

 

you are correct. Still hope my twss didn’t buy them for me even though they were on my wishlist. Hahaha

 

Starter of the SAE high beam thread:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-sae-j581-aux-high-beam-thread.696597/#post-24638992

 

So I have a question...

I just purchased everything except new housings... the last thing I bought was the wiring harness but I didn’t read anything about DRL until after I bought everything. What issues am I going to have if I have daytime running lights and bought the headlight services wiring harness??

 

What kind of DRLs do you have? Only the ones that run HEADLIGHTS at a lower voltage/brightness are an issue. Those that rely on amber marker lights are a non-issue.

 

Whatever came stock on my 07 off-road they’re the yellow/amber ones right next to the headlights

 

Sounds like my '13 TRD OR, which were a non-issue. Based on your description, yours are a similar non-issue.

 

I don’t know if the previous owner tried to put LEDs in there or what but the lenses for the daytime running lights are kind of melted and cracked but nothing else is

 

Common problem due to poor design... Search "drl melt tsb site:tacomaworld.com" via Google

 

Thank you. But I’m not worried about it. They stealership wanted $800+ to fix them when I bought it and I was like screw you guys and haven’t even thought of it since this headlight upgrade

 

You can replace them with new OEM smoked chrome assemblies for about half that. There was a TSB on those lights, and Toyota offered free replacement for a while, but that has since expired.

05-11 smoked chrome TRD assemblies:
Right: 81110-04210
Left: 81150-04210

 

Thank you for this information but I’m done spending money for a little bit on my truck and if I do I almost want to buy those pro headlights that you have linked up earlier in the thread

 

Crashnburn80

I need your expert opinion

X-tremeUltinon LED

I was thinking to use these bulbs in my 2012 Toyota stock headlight housings. I find with my old eyes whiter light helps me see better. Running the stock bulbs now and want to improve my down road view and clarity. You did review Philips LED bulbs and you were impressed with them (If I remember correctly). I trust your opinion and appreciate how much help to give to all your TW brothers.

 

Remember the thread pitch/diameter for the appropriate bolts for these holes? Thanks in advance.

 

Unfortunately, no. I just rummaged through my metric stash until I found two that fit. BTW, the larger nuts you see are just used as spacers to get the bracket away from the inner fender.

 

When running LEDs in a reflector, one of the points often overlooked is the smoothness of the pattern distribution. I refer to this as 'pattern saturation', where the beam pattern should be fully saturated with light in an even distribution out from the hot spot. But using LEDs in halogen assemblies causes significant alterations to the light distribution since they do not uniformily illuminate the reflector, and some parts or the reflector are left dark. I think this is actually the largest challenge for replacement LEDs in halogen reflectors as the light distribution is not nearly as smooth or well distributed as the halogen counterparts, since they are not an omnidirectional light source, leading to undesirable splotchy beam distribution patterns.

Take a look at these pattern examples run in a late model 2nd Gen Tacoma light (each running one headlight):

Philips X-tremeUltinon Gen1 H4 LED


Philips X-tremeUltinon Gen2 H4 LED


Stock standard OEM Osram H4 (yes this is one headlight)



Peak lux readings were higher in both LEDs vs the stock standard OEM bulb at 18', I didn't run a 42' test as I often do to get a more accurate reading for LED focus. But the LED light distribution is poor and the pattern is highly irregular. The Gen 1s have a tall but narrow pattern, and the Gen2s have a much wider but shorter pattern. Whereas the stock pattern has outstanding uniform smooth light distribution and is a far better beam pattern with more coverage. Peak lux in this case is highly misleading. And then look at the cut offs, stock has a very nice flat cut off all the way across the beam, whereas the LEDs do not provide the same broad flat cut off line. The camera settings for light control were not the same in each photo as I was trying to capture the strange patterns from the LEDs, so it isn't the most accurate representation of output. I should have spent more time on it.

When the Gen1s first came out, they were one of the first ones with glare guards, significantly reducing glare from what other brands were selling at the time.

Here is an old test pic of the Gen1s. I wish I had done a better job on capturing beam quality and not washing out the photo so much.

Ultimate vs Philips Gen1 LEDs


Here is an old output shot, Ultimate upgrade vs Gen1 LED



Rather than the LEDs, I'd recommend trying the Philips Racing Vision +200 for a whiter light covered in post #3169. The Racing Vision +150 has nearly identical performance but half the bulb life. They are the whitest performance halogens in the thread and have the best low beam performance which will be far better than the Philips LEDs. They won't be 6000k LED white though. Being in Canada too, a halogen will produce heat to resist your headlights freezing over whereas an LED will not. I'd offer you to sell you mine, but with having to go across the boarder it is probably easier to purchase online.