The SAE J581 Aux High Beam Thread

I wish KC would consider a driving G4, I'd get a set for my bug. I'll probably end up using the set of SS3s I have in the garage, but there's something that looks way better about round reflectors on classic cars.

(not mine, and these are fog lights)

 

You could always try to find a set of the 5-3/4" LED cibies.

Don't order then from the Amazon store for valeo though. They shipped me three sets of dorman door handles instead.

 

I’ve got ‘em on my Pontiac. They replaced my old Bosch driving lights. Kinda a pencil beam but controlled. They suit the purpose.

 

I have the exact same problem with my 2006 Scion xB daily driver. I have a perfectly good set of Diode Dynamics SS3 Pro LED pods with either clear driving or selective yellow fog lenses sitting in my stash. On the xB, I have a perfectly good set of Hella 500 halogen driving beams with 100 watt bulbs. The SS3's would absolutely blow away the Hellas with either lens. But, they just wouldn't go with the look of the car. Bummer.

 

Excellent plate.

You could get a set of the round bezels for the SS3's

 

Good evening everyone

dang these are good threads. I've been reading this one and the fog thread, and there's a lot to get through, even considering I read pretty quickly.

I actually drive an XJ Cherokee (please be kind) but I ended up here somehow because someone referred me to these threads, I don't remember who, possibly someone from NAXJA. I already have a pair of DD SS3 Max yellow fogs on order from the black Friday sale, but also need headlights and preferably driving lights as well. I am assuming some advice is going to be universal so hopefully you all don't mind me posting here, because my next purchase is likely going to be driving lights or a light bar.

Headlights - XJs use two rectangular sealed beams, so there are options here. Do I pull my old Cibié H4s that I bought over 10 years ago (from a certain Canadian lighting expert who I see is also known here, who I've actually "known" since the late 90s oddly enough, because of our shared affinity for old MoPars) out of storage and make up another relay harness? I think those may be the best headlights subjectively I've had (but objectively? who knows). Or install some Truck-Lites (SAE/DOT beam) that I had on my last Jeep? Or suck it up and buy JW Speakers (which I've never had so I have no opinion, but by reputation they are the "best" LEDs) - I currently have Amazon special LEDs installed by PO and I'm not enamored of them. To be honest I wasn't real impressed with the Truck-Lites either but my last XJ was a beater and didn't want to go through the effort of putting the Cibiés in it, the Truck-Lites took about 20 minutes to install.

Fog lights are already sorted, as soon as the Brown Santa decides to bring them.

Driving lights (most relevant to this particular thread) - Another pair of SS3 max? Or SS3 Pro? (a pair of 4000K ones sounds nice, I'm not a big fan of super high color temp) Or a DD 18" driving beam light bar? Or I've seen some halogen KCs well recommended here, although those would look kind of goofy with rectangular headlights and SS3 fogs. Aforementioned lighting expert recommended a certain OSram light bar, I think it was this one https://www.osram.com/ecat/Lightbar...Car lighting-Automotive/com/en/GPS01_3238212/ butI seem to have inadvertently purged the email from my inbox which annoys the crap out of me. I am less concerned with 100% legality than he is, although I do want a proper beam and to not piss off other road users (if only others would extend the same courtesy, but I digress.)

I can sort out the wiring OK just not sure what lights to get.

Fogs will be on top of aftermarket steel bumper and driving lights will be on tabs behind brush bar, about even with the top of the hood. If it's something low profile I'll put it on top to keep the grille clear. Currently I have some large but cheap halogen KCs on there any they gotta go, they don't do much of anything, the cheap Amazon headlights are way brighter.

Use case of vehicle will mostly be bad weather/night driving on road, not a lot of wheeling. although I've thought about putting another light bar on the rear of the roof rack to remind people their brights are on...

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated, and thank you in advance.

 

Hello and welcome to the forum! Always happy to see that these threads are known outside the forum.

For headlights- your Hella's may serve you well with good bulbs- for some bulb testing of h4/9003's, take a look at the "ultimate headlight upgrade" thread stickied near the top of the 2nd gen sub-forum!

If you're looking for the best available lamps at the moment, you may still eant to reach out to Dan Stern- he sells Koito lamps, mainly, now. Cibies dies started wearing out years ago, and the market is shrinking, so Koito has newer, more efficient lamps available, but I can't speak to anything but 2nd hand impressions of the 7" round koito's vs Cibies venerable Z-Beam lamp from over on candlepowerforums.

If you wanted to go LED, the Trucklite Gen 2's were a very good lamp, but with some noteable weird shadowing low down below the main low beam pattern in both their rectangular and round lamps. J W. Speaker's Evo2 is better performing than their evo3 lamps, with a slight handicap in performance if you go with the heated lens option.

As far as driving lamps, there's plenty of options tested here.

The SS3 Max is a very good choice, but is not available in lower color temps. You can now purchase a selective yellow driving lens specifically for the max though, it has a darker amber tint for more filtration for the higher color tempersture of its osram chips.

The Pro in 4000k is not a bad choice either.

If you're interested in a lightbar, the osram/sylvania bar that -Virgil- on cpf used to recommend isnt a bad choice. I have a diode dynamics SS12 that I've had on my civic thats performed well, but DD is introducing an upgraded bar with optics in a format closer to their SS series pod lamps, also in the Sport/Pro/Max levels, which may be worth waiting for.

 

Welcome to the forum. Plenty with other makes here in the lighting threads outside of Tacomas.

Headlights
If you have good quality Cibiés, that paired with a bulb and wiring upgrade will likely provide the best results. As mentioned above, Cibié's lamps have fallen out of favor due to worn dies and poor lamp performance in more recent years. If not, Hella or Koito may be alternative options. To even further performance, you can boost voltage in vehicles that use an alt-s circuit and run an AGM for even better halogen performance: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-northstar-agm-battery-voltage-booster-upgrade.604478/
I'd easily expect a quality performance halogen setup to outperform the Truck-lite lamps.

You might find some of these threads and posts helpful/interesting:
H4/9003 ultimate headlight upgrade: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-h4-not-led-or-hid.398066/
Note the wiring harness maker if you do not want to DIY, you can customize the lengths if desired.
Check out the latest DSL +250 bulbs: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-not-led-or-hid.398066/page-273#post-30385450

I'd currently pass on JW. Their current optics are behind and while color temp and beam pattern is great, output intensity is severely lacking. They are overrated, but they are launching new optics soon which should turn things around, but I'd pass on the current products. Some testing examples below for Jeep:
JW J2 vs J3: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...tor-mojave-build.700918/page-23#post-26490017
JW J2 vs OEM Jeep LED: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...tor-mojave-build.700918/page-24#post-26539623

For driving lights you state: "I do want a proper beam and to not piss off other road users". Driving lights are an aux high beam pattern, it will blind all oncoming drivers/drivers ahead of you. There are zero driving lights which can be run with oncoming traffic. There are lots of driving light options, perhaps the most confusing is how many companies call something a 'driving' light that is not a driving light pattern. These tend to be more off road lighting companies, but some like KC, Rigid, Diode Dynamics offer true driving light patterns that minimize spill and focus on an SAE J581 aux high beam style pattern. Many light bars do just fine at throwing light everywhere, which can be good for short range off road, but if you want a true driving light that projects distance in a driving pattern which is best for on road or high speed, the options fall off significantly.

 

Thanks guys for your replies... I guess cliff's notes of where I am is here

Fog lights - as I said, going to be DD SS3 Max yellow, hopefully I can just use the stock wiring (stock fogs are long gone as is the stock front bumper) and not have to use a relay harness here, that's my only question at this point. This is a real need and I'm starting to second guess myself for not buying something off the shelf because right now is the time of year when I'm commuting in the dark and it rains a lot so fog lights to help see the road markings would be critical.

Headlights - the Cibiés were purchased not long after I got my first XJ over 10 years ago, direct from DS, so they're pre-enshittification, and they've also been in a box in a climate controlled storage locker for about half the time I've owned them. I want to say they have Osram Rallye H4s in them. I did not remove the relay harness from that vehicle when it died mostly because there was some wiring spliced into the factory harness with a relay to allow the fog lights to work because the factory wiring used the high beam filaments as a relay ground, so I'd have to duplicate that setup. In retrospect I do not know why I couldn't have just spliced that wire into the high beam feed of the relay harness, I probably should have done that and put a bullet connector inline. I do remember DS saying that the Speakers were objectively better than the Cibiés, but *subjectively* I can't imagine a better light (I had a similar setup on my old Porsche 944 with round Cibiés and it was equally fantastic.) I agree, what I don't like about the Truck-Lites is the artifacts in the foreground and also the difficulty in aiming compared to E-codes due to the DOT beam pattern. A little birdie told me the same about a new Speaker product but I don't know if I want to wait to see it? Trying to decide whether to put the Truck-Lites or Cibiés in in the meantime. Truck-Lites would obviously be far easier to install...

Edit: I should mention that I wouldn't be using Jeep-specific headlights as an XJ uses sealed beams in stock form, specifically I would likely be using the 8910 Evolution 2 out of Speaker's current product line were I to buy from them.

Of course @Toy_Runner had to mention Z-beams; I had a pair of those in the last "toy car" I owned, a '55 Studebaker coupe with an R1 (high-compression unsupercharged 63-64 Avanti engine) 4-speed and 3.73:1 limited slip... it makes me sad to even think about that car, I was real proud of it but never got it 100% and life intervened I no longer have the Z-beams, I didn't remove them from the car when it left my possession.

Driving lights/light bar - this is where I'm really lost. Do I even need this? Maybe not. I remember the Cibiés being good enough for most situations. But if I'm going to buy something, it's going to be good. Yeah I kind of misphrased that, I know that whatever I get should be tied into the high beam circuit so as not to be used in traffic. And an XJ is not confidence inspiring over about 90 MPH anyway, and high-speed driving not only requires a lot of attention but is highly uneconomical as well as it has the aerodynamics of a literal brick.

And yes, I miss when Virgil and Alaric and a few others were on the automotive lighting forums at CPF, those guys tried to keep everything straight and I do not know what happened but apparently they are not only not mods anymore but not even posting. That all happened while I was going through some life stuff so I missed the kerfuffle. Hence my going elsewhere to try to find the real info on what not only will help me see but also not attract any unwanted attention or make me less safe.

 

Hah. My Facebook memories tell me I got home with my first XJ 13 years ago today.

 

Your SS3 Max should be fine on stock wiring if connected to a circuit that ran halogen fogs. No relays needed. Super simple.

Sounds like you have "good" Cibiés. I'd pair them with the DSL +250 bulbs I linked earlier. If you want more output you can add a standalone HD harness. They will outperform the Truck-lite LEDs.

For driving lights, note that the DSL +250 bulbs provide a nearly a +50% improvement in high beam output. +50% more light with a simple bulb swap, even more if you add a wiring harness, that is pretty massive. I'd start with the simple headlight/bulb upgrades and see what you think afterward. The dividends of substantially better headlights will be far more beneficial than a high beam option alone. You may find the with upgraded headlights there is no need to spend extra on more.

 

I hope so. The stock wiring is a little undersized but I guess we will find out. Worst case, I have to order another relay harness.

Edit: after thinking about it, I'd have to do a lot of custom work. Although I'm going to have to anyway as all the Max lights have backlight now don't they? Even if I just use a straight adapter from the factory harness to the Deutsch connectors I'm still going to have to manually make them up myself and then run a wire from both adapters to the parking lights for the backlight.

I think the bulbs I have are the older Osrams mentioned in that link. So maybe I need to go rummaging in my storage locker and find them and then suck it up and order another relay harness for my headlights.

Do you have any idea when JW Speaker may be releasing new headlights? I was told that there was a new product coming maybe 3-4 months ago but I keep looking and don't see anything.

 

@crashnburn80

hey buddy did you see this new diode dynamics stage announcement?

https://youtu.be/H4s4F4TYfo8?si=V8HF5LcXAWgDfktl

 

I'm interested as well! They're not on DD's web site... this would be right up my alley though.

Now I'm sorta kinda having regrets? Rather than SS3 Max fogs should I have done two 10" (or maybe 20"? If I could fit them? I'd have to go measure and it's 19F out which is as warm here as it's been all day) light bars, one fog and one driving? I don't even have the SS3s yet and I'm already second guessing myself.

 

You're not going to be disappointed in the max fogs. Don't sweat it. Run them for now. You can alwsys sell them later when you upgrade.

 

The stage series bars were getting pretty dated, it will be exciting to see the performance numbers of these new units.

You won't be able to run the lightbars on your stock fog light wiring. And for fogs on street use, I think using the OEM wiring with dedicated SS3 fogs is going to be better than flashing your light bar on and off to get the desired patterns to turn on for fog use. If you have a place in the bumper to mount fogs, I think you're still ahead. You can then add a light bar later and use the extra optics for other options, such as flood on the outside, and driving/spot/ in the center, giving you more functionality and better ease of use than you'd otherwise have with the light bar alone.

 

I was thinking of one light bar all fog pattern right on top of the bumper (instead of the pair of SS3 Max that I'm waiting on) and then another on the brush bar for aux high beams. Just thought it'd look cleaner and if the fog light bar was as bright as or brighter than the SS3s so much the better. Also would block less of the grille opening, although a) I have two enormous KCs in front of the grille now and b) it's 11F outside so there's that.

Yes I realize that the SS3 Max will likely be perfectly adequate, but if I'm going for "the best" one starts obsessing over this stuff.

 

Don't forget about the SS5 Pros as yet another option. They're not nearly as popular as the SS3's due to their larger size, but they're enormously powerful. I have a set behind the grill on my 4Runner with spot pattern lenses and they're awesome.

 

I don't think I could actually fit them, I have 6" KCs hanging down under the brush bar right now and I don't think that the SS3s will fit without me removing them (which I plan to do, I just haven't done it yet), so neither would they fit with the SS5s. I think that if I mounted SS5s *above* the brush bar I might be too high for legal on road use in my state (I'm in Maryland where max height is 42" for aux high beams - yeah I know it's pretty much the wild west here and no vehicle related laws are actually enforced, but I'm trying not to be too blatant.)

I guess another option would be to cut holes in the face of the bumper and mount the fogs in there which might actually be functionally better, but I don't really have the ability to make that look good in my current situation (no garage or even driveway)

 

The lightbar won't be a legal fog