The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

I'd hit up Dan stern via email. He seems to stock primarily Koito lamps now, but he uas sold a variety of Cibie/Bosch/Koito lamps for years. If anyone has one handy it'd be him.

http://danielsternlighting.com/

 

Forgive me for not understanding, but are there any bulbs reccomend for projectors that don’t require the use of a harness? Or are there no real “upgrade” to those? I desperately need more vision at night from my headlights.

 

2nd Gens do not use projector headlights. Are these on a 2nd Gen? What are you running?

 

Based on profile picture, he's running an aftermarket headlight setup on what appears to be a 2nd Gen.

Assuming my profile picture observations are accurate, the single biggest thing you could do to improve night visibility is follow the advice in Post #1 of this thread.

 

Agreed. But was checking if that wasn’t the case.

 

I see 2 options assuming the headlights in your profile picture are the ones you are referring to.

1. Get new OEM headlights and Philips Racing Vision bulbs if you want to retain your stock wiring. The headlights you have (not sure if they are Alpharex or Spyder?) won't do much better with a high performance bulb because the optics are terrible. You can't fix poor optics with a bulb. It's like comparing a cheap rifle scope to high end rifle scope.

2. Install a different projector (aka retrofitting) using the Morimoto MH1 8.0 and the conversion brackets below. The projector kits are available through many vendors (like Lightwerkz) as well as through CB&D (linked below). If you contact CB&D, they can set you up with the full setup including the brackets, projectors, bulbs, ballasts and wiring harness. 35w is standard and plenty of output, going any higher will burn the projector bowl and bulb quickly. I would guess that it will probably be around $250-$300 total depending on your component choices and it could be cheaper with current sales.

Alpharex headlights
https://custom-brackets-designs.mys...ducts/alpharex-to-mh1-8-0-retrofit-c-brackets

Spyder headlights (MH1 8.0 has the same bolt pattern so it can be used)
https://custom-brackets-designs.mys...oducts/spyder-mini-h1-retrofit-7-0-c-brackets

 

Yeah I’m in a 2nd gen but have aftermarket’s that have projectors. I’ve read post #1 multiple times and I’m still not sure which bulbs were just popping into which housings, and which lights require a harness I’m sorry lol

 

It really does though, the "Stock Wattage" portion of it tells you what you can run without a harness. The other bulbs mentioned are not only higher draw but also higher heat output and are infinitely safer in ceramic plugs that are included with the harnesses, alongside additional relays to feed them.

 

I'll save you the effort on this as I too had the Spyder projector headlights and chased after better light output from them. Long story short the projectors are trash, best bet would be to retrofit some decent D2S HID projectors if you want to keep the lights. Better option would be to go back to the factory housings and do the ultimate upgrade with the harness and the Osram Super Brights, the difference in output is night & day (pun intended).

 

I see I see. Thank you.

 

Okay I think I’m starting to understand lol thank yoy

 

Projectors are a different animal compared to reflectors. A better comparison would be the 3rd Gen projector based thread.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-hid-vs-led-vs-halogen-h11-projector-headlights.589465/

See post #2 there. The best plug and play bulbs for a projector are the Tungsram Platinums. If your projector is H11 based, then you can do a Philips H9 swap for even better results, although I don't believe your lights take H11s.

However, the problem is those aftermarket projectors are junk. Performance bulbs don't actually produce more light, they produce more focused light which a quality focused optic can then use to increase the light output focus on the road and increase the output intensity significantly, giving you brighter light. But if you don't have a quality focused optic, then the enhanced bulb focus isn't really utilized, so you don't get nearly as good of gains in output. Kinda like developing a more advanced rifle round and putting it in a musket, thinking it will improve the musket performance. It won't.

In a headlight larger reflection surfaces are more efficient and perform better than smaller ones. The 2nd Gen has very large reflector headlights. And OEM is going to have the best focus and quality, the headlights are quite good. The small reflection surface is a projector is much lower performing than a large reflector. The 3rd Gen OEM high quality projector headlights are a significant step down from the 2nd Gens reflectors, the 2nd Gen lights are 56% higher in output comparing stock for stock vs 3rd Gen. Your cheap Chinese projectors will perform way worse than the OEM 3rd Gen projectors, so you will be at a significantly greater loss than those numbers. The upgrade documented in this thread doubles the 2nd Gen headlight output. It just isn't remotely possible to achieve those kinds of numbers without proper quality optics. And while using a 3rd Gen projector with bulb upgrades can double the 3rd Gens headlight output it is still far behind the 2nd Gen's reflector bulb upgrades.

The ideal solution for better lighting output is to return to OEM assemblies and follow the upgrade laid out in this thread.

Another solution is to replace the projectors in your headlights with something better. You can see what a good build looks like in doing that with OEM Lexus RX350 projectors in post #5506. A quality OEM grade HID solution will outperform all other options, but is the most complicated and expensive. You can use aftermarket components instead, which won't have as great of results but will still be a huge improvement. Note that many aftermarket projectors by those like Morimoto lack uplight in the beam pattern. OEM projectors and headlights have uplight. Uplight allows some light above the cut off so you can see beyond your low beam at reduced intensity to not blind other drivers. Without uplight you can only see what is below your low beam and the high contrast high intensity cut off is blinding to your ability to see beyond it. If choosing to use aftermarket projectors, be sure to select a real HID base projector like D2S so that you can buy good HID bulbs. If you chose something like an H1 base, well there is no such thing as a legitimate HID H1 bulb, since H1 is a halogen base not an HID one. This means you will only be able to buy cheap Chinese HID bulbs, not quality performance bulbs from Philips and Osram. But HID also has the complications of needing ballasts and ignitors, opening and resealing the headlights, the actual removal and remounting of projectors, whereas the halogen solution is simple plug and play.

 

I appreciate the write up. That def helped me wrapped my head around some things lol I gotta be honest, I was not concerned with the projector quality when I bought my headlights but I am now seeing why it’s important.

 

Yep, those companies sell based on the looks of their product and are successful at doing so, but to keep prices appealing they use poor quality cheap components in their builds.

 

No association, but this is a good deal and would get you back on track:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/fs-oem-headlights-for-2009-tacoma-seattle-wa.787513/

 

Anybody know if 12-15 oem headlights would fit on an 05??

 

Wont fit. 05-11 headlights are a different shape. As well as the hood, grille, and bumper. There are a couple of threads in which people have gotten the parts and “updated” the front ends. From 05-11 to the 12-15

 

Awesome. Thanks.
I polished my old headlights, but now the plastic tabs are all broken...

I was just confirming what years i need to look for.

 

Cross post from my build thread.

Installing this upgrade on my 1st Gen. I had Headlight Services make me a custom length harness based on my measurements sized to the 1st Gen. We reduced 30" off the harness length in optimizing the design specifically for the 1st Gen, and in high performance harnesses the shorter the harnesses the better the performance while also providing a cleaner install. I also picked up 4 of the Superbrights from Headlight Services as well. As these bulbs are not readily available in local stores, you should ideally have a spare set on hand.

Exceptional build quality. Looks like my headlight thread made the cover on the install instructions. Compared to my earlier review in post #1262, relays for the ground switched units have switched from Bosch to Picker relays due to supply chain issues.


The headlight wiring guage comparison on a 1st Gen is a massive difference.


Removing the battery, there are plenty of unused holes in the fender to hard mount the relays. Simple bolt with washers and nut on the other side then reinstalling the relay afterward.


There is enough room to remove/replace the relays on the fender without removing the battery.


Ran the wiring up and over the radiator with zip ties on either side to keep it in-place.


I was conservative on the passenger side wire length and ended up keeping it longer than necessary. It is 6" shorter than spec, but could still be a bit shorter. Otherwise the wiring length reductions were great to eliminate unnecessary wire and further reduce voltage drop.

This lighting upgrade is paired with the Northstar AGM + HKB voltage booster upgrade plus new OEM housings for maximum performance gains.

 

Enjoyed reading your write up. Very interesting info. So, without going through 7 years of posts, I'm going to ask a simple question. Is this "upgrade" doable with out the wiring harness, i.e. just bulbs. If so, is it still a measurable difference between stock bulbs and the osrams. I'm not scared to add the harness, just curious. I've just bought a 2011 Tacoma, and Id like to upgrade the lighting. I'd like projectors, but Ive done the research and learned to either diy a good brand projector, or staw away entirely... I still have a feeling this mod is cheaper...