The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

As others mentioned that aim is too low. 4" drop at 25' is a fog light aim. Headlights should be aimed 2-3" drop at 25'. Using the center of the headlights as the marking point will also result in an aim that is too low, combined with too much drop will be way too low of an aim. I'd suggest pulling the truck right up to the wall and marking your cut off line on the wall, it will be higher than the center point, the bottom of low beam is typically at the center point on the assembly in an 9003/H4 due to the low beam cut off shield on the bulb. Using the wall for the cut off line at near zero distance will be most accurate. From there, measure down 2-3" drop, and back the truck up 25' and adjust accordingly. No need for additional dip on the driver side, left and right should have the same cut off plane. That should give you much better aim than where you are at with significantly improved illumination distance.

 

Hmm I must’ve misunderstood the article you linked lol so would I still follow the same steps you listed even though I’m adjusted far down? Or should I try and redo them to where they were at, and do what you said from there?

 

If your bumper is near zero distance from the wall, the aim should have minimal/negligible effect on the cut off height at that close of distance to the wall, so you could start with where you are currently at and fine tune accordingly once you’ve got them close to dialed in.

 

@crashnburn80 I did this mod on my 05 years back, couple months ago headlights stopped working so I changed out the relays and now one the passenger side headlight stays on no matter what, ignition on or off.

I checked all fuses/relays/grounds/connections. Only possible thing I think it could be is the headlight switch by the steering wheel.. contacts must be stuck. For now I've just been keeping the relays unplugged and plugging them in if I need headlights lol.

That switch looks like a royal PITA to change, any ideas on what it could be?

 

If your '05 is power switched (my '05 RC PreRunner is) then note that Mike uses dual 87 relays for that harness. They fit a traditional socket so it is possible to replace with a regular 5 pin relay with 87 and 87a by mistake which would lead to the symptoms you describe. The trigger in his harness only comes from one side so the chances of anything wrong with the trigger itself seem minimal as you would experience problems with both headlights if so.

I'd assume you may not have known this, it wasn't until I had hands on one and checked out the relays that I noticed it. It's a convenient way to avoid two large wires meeting on a single relay terminal to provide output to the headlight.

An alternative is 4 relays, one per filament per side, which is how I did my '02 Tundra since I ordered a ground switched but my truck was actually power switched (given that mine is a DRL model and I was too lazy to test it). So I swapped to 4 micro relays in a GEP and also took triggers independently from each side after cutting off the OEM H4's and changing them to sealed OEM connectors.

TLDR: Get new relays from HS and make sure to tell him which harness you have.

 

Made a quick adjustment this morning. Much better. I appreciate the quick responses and help!!

 

Dude... THANK YOU SO MUCH

This is 100% the problem... god I love this place

 

Just popping in to say HOLY SH*T this is a great upgrade. I recently installed the harness and the Osram bulbs recommended, as well as getting the early 2nd gen smoked headlight's and it made a huge difference. This was exactly what I was looking for. I'm glad I returned those shitty spyder headlights I received for Christmas. They look cosmetically great but I found out they were horrible in performance after coming across this thread and researching all the aftermarket headlights. Thank you man!

 

Which part # did you go with for your smoked lights and what did you pay?

 

According to Toyota, the part numbers listed in this thread are right but are previous versions. Here are the current part numbers: Headlight (Right) Part Number: 81110-04173 & Headlight (Left) Part Number: 81150-04173. I paid $554.05 local pickup at the stealership.

 

Careful. Those are actually the pre-TSB (old melting DRL) part numbers. Toyota replaced those with the new fixed part numbers to solve the melting DRL issue. Then inventory ran out and now they list the old (melting DRL) part numbers as superseding the newer fixed part numbers. So they are selling the flawed old parts as the newest version, when the “previous version” was actually the newest. Part numbers are listed in the TSB linked in the original post.

 

Oh shoot I see. Damn, thanks for clarifying. They make it so confusing. I was a bit confused when buying them locally. When I searched the part numbers you provided in your thread on Toyotas online store, the only headlights that came up were the part numbers I mentioned. In their description, it listed Right: 81110-04210 & Left: 81150-04210 as "Previous versions". I assumed these had to be it. Welp, hopefully they still live up since I don't have DRL.

 

This is a great upgrade. I just did it. I had purchased some LED lights from Amazon when one of my H4 bulbs had gone out a few weeks ago-
OXILAM H4/9003/HB2 LED Bulbs, 18000 Lumens with LED Chips, Halogen Replacement for tacoma/tuntra/cvr/civic/fit, Pack of 2

They worked but I noticed light going above the cutoff (a term I learned here when searching for problem).

This upgrade produces what seems to be a similar amount of light as the LED bulbs, and vastly improves the illumination over stock. It also keeps all the light were it is supposed to be using the same technology that the headlight housing was designed for.

Not a difficult install, took me about an hour to get everything routed and didn't remove the battery. I mounted my relays in the sheet metal and looks pretty clean.

Most importantly, I don't appear to be having any effect on oncoming drivers.

 

Thanks for writing all this up. I did the harness upgrade with the new bulbs and it is a massive difference. Restoring the headlight covers helped a lot, too.

 

I bought the same part numbers as you because as mentioned, the TSB units were not available. I installed the below DRLs to avoid the melting issue.

https://www.vleds.com/shop-application/daytime-running-lights/3157ck/v6-triton-kit-a-3157ck.html

18 months later and no problems.

 

@crashnburn80, so I did the harness and bulb mod a few years back and had decent results( really miss the older osrams- originals you recommended that aren't available any longer) but never got around to resurfacing/ polishing or replacing the headlight housings and now that one will require replacement thanks to an unfortunate incident due to the ice and snow here in middle TN this past week I was wondering if it would be best to replace with the oem smoked trd housings that came on my 09 tacoma or go with the alpharex tacoma PRO series halogen projectors and put a good led bulb in it in your opinion? In the trucks defense I had an HID system in the original housing prior to me finding this thread and throwing all that out and putting the overdriven osrams in there with the harness and probably never quite got the aim quite right. Always seemed dim though and fairly low until I hit the brights and then they were BRIGHT!!! any thoughts or opinions are greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

You guys think there might be an alternate universe where antimatter crash raves about Alpharex and led bulbs in halogen projectors? And maybe even makes fun of SAE standards and CRI measurements?

 

Bazaro Crash maybe

 

Bummer on the incident taking out your headlights. OEM is the way to go by far, no comparison whatsoever. AlphaRex is just cheap white-labled Chinese product sold at dumb markups to American consumers that don't know better on the promise that they are something special when they are anything but. AlphaRex doesn't make anything at all and is not a manufacture. They are an importer. The products they sell are consistently awful and don't even have legitimate headlight patterns, they are typically short range flood lights with no hot spot, or hot spots so far down in the beam pattern the headlight isn't useable and again not a legitimate headlight pattern. Putting a PnP LED bulb in their already awful headlights is only going to make it worse. Definitely not advised. Several have gone down this road only to realize they wasted money and have to buy headlights a second time to go with OEM.

Proper aim is critical. If your headlights are aimed too low, you won't get the down-road projection for good illumination and seeing things with surplus time to react. If your headlights were not in great condition to begin with, then a fresh set of OEM units should make it noticeably better.

 

I've had mine for so long now o forgot how good the headlights are. I bought a new vehicle for work and the headlights SUCK. I need to find some kickass h11 bulbs now