Morimoto HID Lows-Morimoto 2 Stroke LED Fogs

I got my Morimoto HID and LED 2 stroke kits in but didn't get home from out of town until about 6 P.M. last night but was too excited to wait until this evening to install both kits so I decided to tackle the HID kit. I will say that it was much easier to access the low bean on the Tacoma Vs. the Jeep Grand Cherokee. I went with the 35 Watt 5500K kit as I Like the Whiter light but wanted the Lows to match the LED kit. The install was super easy and didn't take long at all until I got to the Morimoto to OEM connection. The male connection on the Morimoto kit fits in to the OEM female connection however I could not get it to snap in, I have it in there for now but I am not happy with it, So I'll have to figure out something soon. I am expecting to have the same issue with the LED kit as well. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions? Overall they are a lot brighter but I do not like the throw, My 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee had a much better light output with the same kit. There it also a big dead space that I am hoping the Fogs will fill in.

 

interesting

 

I have the same kit in my 2016 TRD Sport. The dark spot right in front of your vehicle isn't visible when you're driving so it would be a waste of light. I didn't have any problems with the connectors so you might want to take them apart and make sure the pins aren't bent at all.

I got the Morimoto drop in LED foglights because the stock fogs are not meant for anything other than a halogen bulb. With the LEDs in there you'll run into the HID in reflector problem. A sun spot in the middle of a ton of glare and not much of the light going in the right direction.

For the price of the LEDs you might want to see if you can return them and get the drop in fog lights. You'll have much more light output and a sharp cutoff if you do, and they're not much more money.

Just my $.02

PM or respond if you have any more questions. I've tried 4 or 5 different types of LED bulbs for highs, lows, and fogs and I've been disappointed by them all. The HID swap for the low beams and the morimoto fog replacements are the only thing that I've been pleased with.

 

Night time driving, you'd want less light up front of the truck and further out. Having too much light up front will impact your long distance vision, since your eyes are more focused to the light up front. That's why fogs are supposed to be used in inclement weather only. People who run fogs all the time, regardless of weather, are actually impacting their long distance vision at night.

 

Anyone tried to fit these in the high beam?

 

Well I think I figured it out, I was looking through everything that came with the LED kit and there was a jumper that had what I thought was the same connector but it was a little different it had a tooth on each end, plugged it into the factory connect and locked right in.

 

HID in the high beam reflector would work, but you're better off doing a full retrofit if you're looking for more light.

HID, LED, and Halogen bulbs all have very different ways of putting out light. Your low, high, and fog lamps are all optimized for halogen. HID are reasonably OK to use in the low beams because they are projectors, but the side effect is having squirrel finders (the little bit of light that escapes above the cutoff line)

Fogs suck with HID or LED bulbs. They create a sun spot on the front of your truck and scatter too much light.

HIDs are sorta OK for the High beam if you keep them on for long periods of time, but again the reflector was not made for them and you'll lose a lot of focus. Also, HID bulbs don't like being switched on and off. They also take a bit to warm up and actually turn on so you can't just flash your headlights to let someone go at an intersection.

 

Finally got the 2 Stroke LED kit installed tonight and it is much better, I am happy with the outcome.

 

Check out the difference between the two, the Fog lights fill in the dead space that was bugging me and shoots out to the side quite a bit.

 

hi guys, wanted to bring this thread back up as i am looking to do some lighting upgrades. freerider, could you elaborate on what you mean by "better off doing a whole retrofit?" this will be my first vehicle to upgrade the lighting so i dont know much about the best options. I was leaning towards HID 6k from Diode Dynamics for the lo, baja designs squadron fogs and I wasnt sure on the hi beams.

any insight is appreciated.

I would rather not waste money on upgrades that arent worth it and blind other drivers

 

Basically a retrofit is putting in an actual HID projector into the housing, the Lexus RX-non AFS projectors are a direct swap with no modifications needed. You will have to bake open the headlight to remove the factory projector but the actual light output is much better then HID's in a halogen projector along with less glare to oncoming drivers assuming the projectors are aimed properly

 

Alrighty. Here we go.

A projector or reflector lamp is designed for a specific type of bulb due to where the light is coming from on the bulb. Halogens have a filament that runs parallel to the front of the car (for the most part). HID bulbs are long and skinny and run perpendicular to the front of the vehicle. LED bulbs are sort of a hybrid where the bulb is long and skinny (similar to the HID), but only put out light up and down OR left and right (depending on socket orientation).

The low beams on the 3rd gen Tacomas are a projector that is designed for a halogen bulb. You can get away with using a HID setup in them, but you won't get that super sharp cutoff and you'll have a little bit of beam scatter (squirrel finders).

High beams are reflectors designed for halogen bulbs. You shouldn't use HID bulbs in these because you'll absolutely blind people and HID bulbs don't turn on instantly (and they don't like being switched on and off rapidly)

Fogs are reflectors as well. Putting HIDs in these will blind oncoming traffic.

A full retrofit involves baking the headlights in the oven to separate the lens and reflector, customizing and adding a projector or upgrading the projector, and re-baking to glue it all back together. You can do this to low and high beams with some $$$ and a weekend. You'll get huge improvements in light output.

As for fogs. I have the morimoto XB fog drop-in units and they are great. They are projectors with integrated LEDs so you won't have to worry about blinding oncoming traffic.

I'd get a 4500K-5000K HID setup so you can match your LED DRL (if you them).

I have a 5500k HID setup from TRS and it is a little too cool for my taste, but my fogs are 6000K so I can't really do much.

 

Wow, thank you for such a detailed response. ok so from this i think i have gathered the following.

1) to get the most out of an HID setup and not be "that guy" on the road you need to put a HID projector in the housing.

2) for high beams you should find an LED that is the same kelvin output as your lows, or close to it. or are you saying that because the high beam reflectors are designed for halogen, you need to retrofit a LED reflector in there while you have them baked apart?

3) Baking the housing terrifies me. ive seen people have awesome results with it but can it be done, without ruining a headlight housing, by someone who has never done it?

lastly, would putting LEDs in the blinker, brake/tail and backup lights be a waste since they are currently halogens?

** apologies if this is in the wrong thread, i asked about the HID then added a bunch of other questions. please point me to the proper thread if this is too much of a derail

 

to add to my previous post, it looks like i could order these - https://www.theretrofitsource.com/components/projectors/bi-xenon-lexus-rx350.html and this https://www.theretrofitsource.com/2016-tacoma-morimoto-elite.html?preselect=51866,50562,47309,48136 and be set for the HID lo retrofit? I know the H11 bulbs are 55w, and it looks like that kit from retrofit is 35 or 50 would i need the 35W or 50W HIDs?

 

1) Correct

2) Right idea, not really the best solution. There are a few tradeoffs with this. High beams are halogen so they can be flashed, and they are bright. LEDs are instant on/off, and are reasonably bright but with the wrong focus. HIDs don't like being switched but are very bright.

you can leave them alone and have pretty good light -or- you can install a HID reflector and an HID setup and realize they're not good for flashing people, but you'll have a ton of useable light -or- put LEDs in the stock reflectors and have scattered crap light but look "cool" -or- put the LEDs in a HID reflector and have instant on/off, reasonable light, and cool factor.

I vote for leaving the high beams alone or doing a HID swap. LEDs just aren't there yet tech wise.

3) There are videos and guides all over the web. These lights are notoriously hard to take apart so read and watch.

Lastly) I did LED front and back blinkers, reverse, and brake lights. They need resistors when the headlights are switched on, I'm still working on a fix for that. You'll need load resistors when the headlights are on, but not when they're off. Weird.

Stock bulbs are H11 55w halogens. HIDs are different. They put out more lumens (light) per watt, thus being more efficient. You can have the same amount of light at a lower wattage.

Almost all HID bulbs are 35w. The ballast is what dictates the wattage actually reaching the bulb. A 35w ballast setup will last a long, long time. A 55w ballast setup will cut the expected life to a couple of years.

A 55w setup will also lower the bulb temperature by about 1000K, so keep this in mind when you're ordering.

Somewhere around 4300k is the most light/watt. 5000k (ish) is the OEM LED DRL, 6000k is the morimoto LED fogs. I went for a 5500k 35w kit and it puts out a ton of light.

 

Awesome, i will start to see if i can learn how to disassemble the headlights properly and save up some money for the retrofit. im not sure if youve looked into it or not but diode dynamics offers a $10 "LED flasher kit" that supposedly replaces your current flasher module and removes the need for a resistor or they offer a "hyperblink resistor" that fixes the blink issue when going from halogen to LED.

Anyways, thanks a ton for the comments and help. ill take my future comments about process and retrofit over to the headlight upgrade thread.

 

I looked into the flasher mod and you can't do it without some serious surgery on the 3rd gens. Its not a simple plug and play deal, it's soldered onto the back of the cluster PCB. You're gonna need resistors.

I have resistors right now that I haven't put in yet because when the lights are on OFF or DRL they do not hyperblink. When they are on the two "on" settings they do hyperblink. Oh well, gotta plug and mess with it.

Any time!

 

strange, good luck! would you say the rest of the LED were worth it? what bulbs/lumens did you go with? and were they from diode dynamics?

 

I did the LEDs because I liked the look of them. They aren't necessarily brighter on directional and brakes but they look nice. The reverse lights are pretty bright.