The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

So what bulbs currently on the market are good to use with this harness? Currently I have osram night breakers in my truck. I have use Phillips extreme vision with good luck in the past as well.

 

Im pretty sure if you read the first post of this thread the OP does a great job of keeping it “Updated” with the latest & greatest products/bulbs. Not trying to be a smart butt but just please read the first post. You find most the info you are looking for there.
Good luck & enjoy your new night vision…

 

Agreed. I use whatever bulb was recommended in the first post and they are BRIGHT.

 

I read the first post. I must have read over it. I saw the first set of lights but they were marked “discontinued”.

 

Order these, they are the best

 

It's worth mentioning that whatever bulbs you are currently using will be much brighter using the aftermarket harness. Stock bulbs or your nightbreakers might be enough for you. The really good bulbs won't last as long, so decide how often you want to replace them before you buy some. Mine last over a year, but I don't use my headlights very often. They aren't terribly expensive if you want to try them, but now you can make a more informed decision.

 

This is good info. Thank you

 

Need help. I believe I've read all the postings .... but I think I made a mistake. We have a 2012 Tacoma SR5 4x4 and installed LED lights thinking --->?! right! no. It seems that both Hi and Low beams are very bright (which is good) but light patterns scattered.
I'd be grateful if someone could recommend bulbs. I'd like them to be an improvement over our fading OEM bulbs, but a reasonably easy install. The LED's install was ok.

Thanks. Haasman

 

LED bulbs in a halogen housing is a no go. Are you asking about halogen bulbs? Osram night breakers are a good upgrade.

 

Get the harness noted in post 1 and the bulbs 3 posts up above yours.

 

Thank you for the help here. I just saw a variation of the recommended bulbs-

• OSRAM NIGHT BREAKER LASER next generation: The brightest halogen H7 bulbs from OSRAM in the practical duo box.

Are these the latest variation? Good choice or too much?

 

Did you see the best stock wattage performance bulbs section in the thread? Or the output charts? Nightbreakers are good, but Philips Racing Vision is better, and the Tungsram/GE Xenons offer best low beam without reducing the high beam like Racing Vision and Night Breaker Laser.

If you want brightest plug and play bulbs, those are the IPF Fatboy Superlows 60/80w bulbs, but they are stupid expensive. The best overall performers are the Osram SuperBrights 100/90w bulbs listed and shown at the very beginning of the thread, with huge increases in both low beam and high beam, but they require the use of a heavy duty harness.

Copy/Paste from thread:

Stock wattage performance bulbs
Stock wattage high performance bulbs do not actually put out more light, instead they use smaller high precision filaments to make the light more focused and intense for the headlight to use more efficiently and project a brighter hotspot further. You can see an short article by Philips explaining how these bulbs work here.

These are currently the highest performing stock wattage bulbs on the market:

• Philips Racing Vision +150 or +200 - Best low beam, reduced high beam output. See updated +200 review in post #3169.
• Tungsram Nighthawk Xenon +120 - Full performance high beam

Which bulb is best? Depends on your needs. The +150/+200 bulbs are going to provide excellent low beam performance, but coat the high beam reducing performance. The Philips are rated at 200hrs. The GE +120s have a blue coating on the tip but leave both the low and high beam uncoated giving superior high beam performance with a slightly lower low beam performance over the other bulbs. You can compare lux performance over stock in the above charts.

 

Finally completed this upgrade and I must say it is an incredible mod! Only regret is that I didn't do this sooner, along with doing a HID retro fit which wasn't for me! Thanks @crashnburn80 for sharing this with us all!

 

Question:
It has probably been discussed somewhere in this lengthy thread already, but I am looking at getting Philips Racing Vision +200 bulbs. On the first page it states that I can run this on a stock harness. However, if I get the headlight services harness, will this improve light output even more? Or would I maximize the light output just by running the stock harness?

 

The Racing Vision bulbs are stock wattage and can be run without a harness. Adding the harness will increase output ~8-10%. If you have an AGM battery you can also use a voltage booster to get even better gains than the harness, or combine both.

 

Would you recommend the harness for that 8-10% increase in output? Is it significant enough where you would recommend it? Thank you for your help.

 

Noticeable, yes. Worth the cost for stock wattage is a steep price for a relatively small gain. Once you have the harness though you might as well go with the much higher output bulbs. I wouldn't advocate for it for stock wattage unless you really wanted to squeeze that last bit of performance out.

Here is the voltage booster thread, which will return higher gains than the harness and apply to all incandescent bulbs, however it does require the use of an AGM battery.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-northstar-agm-battery-voltage-booster-upgrade.604478/

 

FWIW, for someone with patience running stock wattage bulbs, it is possible to find fairly inexpensive harnesses of good quality, they are just made overseas and take a long time to ship. This might be an OK middle ground for someone who doesn’t need a harness right away. I found a ground switched one on wish.com which was $31 + $10 shipping + $3.50 tax. It did take a long time to reach me but the quality is very good. At that price, it’s cheaper than my time to build one myself, not even counting the tasks of sourcing connectors and fuses.

Of course there is always some risk with this type of purchase but I was pleasantly surprised. I intended to use it as a template for lengths and build my own, but after looking it over, I’m not sure I could improve upon it in any meaningful way.

 

Sorry if this was already asked but I couldn't find it after reading about 15 pages... Someone mentioned a 70w bulb would work without an added wiring harness but also that OSRAM hyper lights draw more power so does anyone know if the Osram 70/65w hyper work without a wiring harness?