The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

I have the Nokya 2500 H11s. I'm about to buy my 3rd set in 10 years.

 

Would like to see how these look. Might go back to stock. I thought I "upgraded" with Caliraised led pods. Nice light, but no cutoff. Worse, one of the set filled in with moisture pretty quickly. To their credit, caliraised replaced it no questions asked right away. The replacement has stayed sealed and fog free but now the other one if fogged up. Going to try to dis-assemble and reseal myself. This is NOT a bash cali post, I can't swing Rigid $$ and for the price there's no way I expected the calis to compare, but they should be sealed better. Props to them on their mounting bracket, and their pods to oem harness connector.

 

I will put one in tomorrow and wait for dark, and only turn the fogs on my Garage Door

 

Nice, but wrong thread! Those are for the fogs, not headlights. Those will definitely out perform the XZE. Look forward to the photos. Remember to disable the headlights for a good comparison shot.

Those 75w bulbs were a suggestion for an uncoated high performance foglight bulb that is higher than stock wattage without going to a high output 90w bulb requiring a harness.

 

My URD fuel pump on my workbench is giving me the look.

I take issue with passing off LED pods as streetable fog replacements vs the reality of converting the fogs to off road only aux lights. Thank you for being informed.

Those Nokyas will not work for your 2010. 2012-2015+ only.

However...

Stay tuned. My next lighting mod in R&D will be the most powerful lighting mod to date, should keep the OEM optics and apply to 2005-2011 Tacoma fogs. Will also cost less than $100. Still requires testing.

 

Why do you mean by disable the Headlights? I have the anytime Fog Light Mod done.

 

Nice! No need to disable them then.

 

On a different lighting project, I purchased some Optilux H13 4000k 100/80w bulbs, because they were the lightest coated H13s in high wattage I could find. Clear is not available from any reputable brand in H13.

Optilux is a value brand Hella company, but not the same quality as Hella, made in Korea instead of Germany. I've run many Hella products over the years and always been impressed with their quality, so being a Hella company I thought even value brand the product should be decent, and the specs looked decent.

This was the first time I bought Optilux. I was appalled by the quality of their products. I will no longer recommend Optilux as a reputable brand.

What I pulled out of my Optilux package was 'Heliolite' bulbs, not 'Optilux', so it appears this is a rebranded mark up of an even cheaper bulb. The filaments in both bulbs were crooked, not even crooked in parallel with the other filament, but independently crooked in differing axis.

Compare the 'Optilux' bulb (left)to the Philips Xtreme (right).


Philips filaments look to be laser aligned. I could freehand filament placement better than the Optilux. Precise filament placement is critical in halogen headlight beam quality.

Looks like I'm going to have to try my hand at retros for the H13 project.

 

I pulled out those terrible Optilux bulbs today after one test drive. The bases came off of both bulbs. Complete trash for quality. Now the bases are stuck in the harness, and trying to remove them the flanges cracked off the remaining portion of the bulb leaving the harness plugged. Fortunately it is a stand-alone harness I put together and not the OEM harness. I’ve never experienced such a poor quality bulb.

 

Wow how much were those garbage lights

 

$35. Which is about $50 too much.

 

Ouch

 

Thanks for doing this thread, I'm still early on in the reading. But now that I know better, I'll be removing my HIDs right away, and putting the factory lights back in. Then slowly pick up the necessary parts. Have you maybe considered putting together a complete kit? For rookies like myself?

 

I've been asked for kits before, but I'm not into this for the money. Just knowledge sharing. I don't sell anything.

As for a kit, based on your 2008, all you should need is:
Harness
Listed on the pages as: PREMIUM-PLUS Headlamp Wiring Harness for Vehicles with two H4... (first add to cart button)
http://www.headlightservices.com/Wiring.html

Bulbs
2 different options, I recommend buying 4 at a time to have spares on hand, so you don't need to reorder.

Osram 100/90w = 2900/1700 lumens (high/low) PowerBulbs ships to the US for free, and surprisingly quickly, I recommend PowerBulbs because sub-par Chinese versions of the bulb are everywhere, and PowerBulbs sells the real deal. These are also cheaper, but not quite as efficient as the ones below.
https://www.powerbulbs.com/product/osram-super-bright-premium-h4

Osram 85/80w = 2400/1750 lumens, much lower high beam just slightly higher low beam though lower wattage rating.
http://www.rallylights.com/h4-12v-osram-hyper-bulb-not-legal-for-highway-use.html

With the 100/90w bulbs being cheaper and having a much greater high beam while nearly equivalent low beam, they seam like the winning choice. They are not quite as efficient as the 85/80w based on lumen output per watt but that isn't an issue with the standalone harness.

 

Thanks for putting it all in one spot, I'll order everything my next paycheck.

Something I was wondering, with HIDs already upsetting oncoming traffic. Wouldn't it be similar when running Halogens that at low beam, are way brighter than factory high beam? Aside from much less scatter, do you ever have trouble with people thinking your high beaming them?

What are you thoughts on this wiring harness vs the rallylights?

 

HIDs (retrofits) upset traffic because they don't have proper cutoffs. With proper cutoffs you can have lights bright enough to cause small fires and it won't effect oncoming traffic (except the fires) because the cutoff stops light from hitting them in the face.

 

FYI, Powerbulbs is having a 20% off sale right now. I tries to order 4 bulbs, but my order wouldn't go through. Posting in case anyone else has better luck.

 

Thanks for the great write up.
But the last line that "issue with the standalone harness"
Does that mean with a new harness or with a stock one?
'Standalone' can be taken several ways in this context.

 

Maybe not enough stock? I too saw the sale, took advantage of it. I was able to order 4 bulbs no problem.