Best 08 lighting options and questions

I have an 08 XRunner with stock 9003 headlight bulbs & 9145 fog. I'm looking to upgrade to better lighting. My "bulb selection science eyes" have been opened recently. Seems my limited bulb designation knowledge was limited to just 9003, 9004, 9005 etc based. But h2, h4... and other (european?) cross Designations? Some seemingly are interchangeable. Such as the 9003 will work in place of h4, a 9006 with h11 but not always the other way around.

I'm not ashamed to ask for knowable direction.

I'm after the best 5k to 6k white light in halogen(?).
*I want the driving lights focused on being "non oncoming offensive"as possible but yet with maximum full coverage+.
*I want the high beams to flood and add fullness plus reasonable distance.
*The fogs to add much more extended range or simply put maximum distance.
*All in matching 5k to 6k color.

QUESTIONS
1) it seems some bulb designations have interchangeable plug in ends and identical mounts only differing in watt output options(?) Example being the 9006 & 9005. It seems the 9005 can be found in 100w where the 9006 cannot???

2) does the 9145 fog bulb create different pattern spacific to a fog light as it seems the same physically to the 9005-6? Does the bulb itself somehow create a different beam for a narrow fog light pattern???

3) How does the Sylvania gt200 @ 55w produce better lighting than the o.e. bulb @55w? Isnt wattage output and maybe color the only way to improve lighting? (Reflector design aside)

4) I gather 05 - 15 Tacoma's are + switched?

5) Do i need a relay harness for 55w 9003 driving lights ? What is the o.e. bulb wattage anyway?

 

Check the "Ultimate Headlight Upgrade" thread stickied at the top of the 2nd gen subforum. There's a massive amount of tests done by member Crashnburn80 comparing bulbs.

Good condition OEM lamps are the best performing lamps- if yours are hazed, crazed, if your reflectors are visibly looking dull and dusty, then remove the housing from the vehicle, and use a 10:1 warm distilled water/simple green mix by sloshing the mix around the inside of the hosuing *Gently*, then use multiple rinses of distilled water to clean out the housing. Use distilled, not tap water (or filtered) because you do not want to leave a haze of dried minerals from the water on the inside of the lens or on the reflectors surface. Then put the lamps on a wood surface, like a board or cutting board, in the oven at warming temp (lowest setting) to dry them out without heating them up like you're trying to open the lamp up. If the reflectors are still in gokd shape, then worry about bulbs.

You're not goint to get 5 or 6000k color temp from any halogen bulb. Don't waste your money trying for it.

Fog lamps are not a lamp meant to increase your ability to see any further from your truck than maybe 100' from a high performance lamp. If you upgrade your lamps (which are new/in good shape) with good bulbs and a relay harness, ajd the aim is correct, and you still need more light, then check out the SAE J581 driving light thread at the top of this forum.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...grade-h4-not-led-or-hid.398066/#post-11031383

and

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-led-sae-j583-fog-pod-fog-light-review.554813/

 

Fortunately it is very easy to upgrade the lighting on your 2nd Gen. It is also very easy to get lost in products that claim to be upgrades that are actually downgrades and/or unsafe.

Some bulbs have the same base and optically compatible filament location meaning you can effectively use a different bulb. Such as the 9003 and H4. 9003s have tighter tolerance requirements than H4 so a 9003 can technically be an H4, but not all H4s can be a 9003. For use in a 9003 lamp assembly, either work. There are a lot more performance options in the H4 designation. A 9006 and an H11 are not compatible.

5-6000k is not achievable in halogen with usable output. The way to increase color temps with halogen is to use filters to remove yellow/warm light so only light of a higher color temp pass though. Since the majority of halogen output is warm/yellow, you have to remove the bulk of the output so only the small amount of 5-6000k in the color spectrum passes through, leaving you with unusable output and very short bulb life.
*Driving lights are a high beam, high beams by their nature will blind oncoming drivers. I think you mean low beam here. Very easy to significantly improve the low beam.
*Easy to significantly increase the high beam performance.
*Fogs are a short range light for use in poor weather at low speeds to see the edges of the roadway, they are not a distance light. The early 2nd Gen fogs are not nearly as good as the later 2nd Gen units. Lots of upgrade options here too.
*All in matching 5-6000k is problematic.

9006 is a low beam bulb, which requires it to be 55w for it to be a legal bulb.
9005 is a high beam bulb.
The better upgrade for both is to use HIRs which are far higher performing and modify the base to fit the mount. 9011 HIR for 9005, and 9012 HIR for 9006. A 9012 high efficiency HIR is going to outperform a 100w 9006 while using less power and having better longevity. Not a lot of market then for a 9006 which cannot be sold for road use legally, so you are selling to enthusiasts only and there is a significantly better option already available.

The lamp defines the beam pattern, but the bulb is required to be in the optically correct location for it to work. The lamp is specifically designed for the filament to be in a very specific location, some bulbs have the same geometry and base and have the filament in the same position meaning they may be compatible. If the filament is even slightly off of its designed location, the beam pattern is affected and can be become garbage. Bulbs designed for low beam or fog applications also have glare caps on the end of the bulb. In a reflector low beam or fog application, the only light leaving the assembly should be reflected light off the reflectors, as that is how the light is controlled into a pattern and cut offs and created. If you use a bulb without the glare cap, then light escapes the assembly in an uncontrolled manner creating glare and losing the cut offs. Since high beams don't have concern of glare or cut offs, the bulbs do not have glare caps. The relationship between the bulb and assembly requiring it to be in a precise location and emit light a specific way is why pnp LEDs for halogen assemblies don't really work. PnP LEDs do not accurately replicate a halogen (regardless of what the vendor says) so the 'filament' isn't where it is supposed to be, and they don't emit light in all directions like a halogen. Since the light source will be shifted from where it is designed to be, the pattern is affected causing glare. And the directional nature of LEDs in a housing designed for omni-directional light causes inconsistent beam pattern and dark areas in the pattern.

By shrinking the size of the light source. There is a legal maximum output in lumens and wattage for a given bulb designation, unless it is an 'off road' bulb, so for most bulbs you cannot increase the wattage beyond a specific threshold. A smaller light source producing the same lumen output of a larger one means the smaller light source will have higher intensity output. The smaller light source also increases focus in the light assembly if you have high quality optics. The higher intensity paired with improved focus creates higher intensity output from the assembly. You can see a short article by Philips explaining how this works here. It important to note that very rarely do aftermarket assemblies have high quality optics, most are very poor which is why it is important to use OEM assemblies. Low quality optics may look the same to the eye but will perform poorly and will not reap the benefits of bulb upgrades the same way OEM units will.

2nd Gens are power switched, yes (often called conventionally switched).

A 9003 by nature is 55/60w, meaning 55w low beam and 60w high beam, you do not need a harness for stock wattage bulbs. And again they are headlights, as driving lights specifically refers to a high beam only pattern. The OE bulb is 9003, aka 55/60w.

While you don't need a harness it helps to understand that halogens output goes up exponentially to the power of 3.4 with voltage increase, and inversely down with voltage drop. What a HD relayed harness does is provide heavier gauge wire to pull power directly from the battery to the headlights. Having a direct connection with heavier gauge wiring vs going through the OEM harness reduces the voltage drop by a small amount, which means the bulbs get higher voltage boosting their output. This is not required for stock wattage bulbs, but is a way you can get a little bit more performance out of them. For high wattage bulbs, the power demands are too much for the OEM wiring and harness causing significant voltage drop so the output is severely reduced without the HD harness. On high wattage bulbs, the base also gets hot, which can pose a melting risk on the OEM plastic plug, where the HD harness uses ceramic plugs. On older vehicles, with small gauge wiring or that carry power through the switch in the cab vs a relay under the hood, can see significant gains from an HD wiring harness alone.

The 2nd Gen has outstanding headlights. Reflectors are higher performing than projectors, and larger reflectors are higher performing than smaller ones (everything else being equal). The 2nd Gen has very large reflectors. The best upgrade for these lights for maximum output is to have good condition assemblies, use the HD wiring harness and Osram Superbright 90/100 bulbs. Output improvements will be substantial on both high and low beam, but it will be stock-like in color.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-h4-not-led-or-hid.398066/

As covered in the above thread, the best stock wattage performance bulbs Are the Philips Racing Vision GT200s. Low beam output is significantly improved, and the color temp is slightly whiter than stock, but not anywhere near 5-6000k.

Because of that voltage relationship mentioned early, you can also increase output by running a voltage booster with an AGM battery. An AGM battery is required to run the booster. This will increase output more than the wiring harness on stock wattage bulbs.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-northstar-agm-battery-voltage-booster-upgrade.604478/

The only way to semi-legitimately get 5000k-6000k in the 2nd Gen headlights is to do a retrofit where you take the lights apart and install projectors to use a different light technology, they are not inexpensive to do it right. To do a retrofit correctly you'd want to use OEM projectors, the aftermarket projectors will not have uplight which will make it so you cannot see beyond you low beam and be somewhat blinded by your own headlights. All OEM lights have uplight (reduced output intensity above the cut off) so you can see beyond the low beam. For HID, the natural optimal color temp is 4300k. The more you stray from that color temp, the lower the performance. 5000k would be doable, you'll take larger losses at 6000k. For 6000k you'd want to use an OEM LED projector, which will be even more expensive.

For fogs there are not any great performance options for 9145. For the early 2nd Gens (05-11) you are far better off replacing the fogs assembly with an aftermarket LED unit which is designed for LEDs and has them fully integrated into the assembly. For fog use, 5000-6000k is actually a very poor color temp. Why do you want high color temp fogs? Fogs should only be used in poor weather at low speeds. Lower color temps will perform better in poor weather. Have you driven with 6000k lamps in the snow or fog? It is absolutely terrible. The best color for poor weather performance is selective yellow.

Lots of great fog options, in selective yellow, 4000k, 5000k and 6000k covered in the thread below. I'd recommend the Diode Dynamics SS3 Sport or Max, or the Diode Dynamics Elite fogs. Note that with LEDs they do not generate heat to clear the lens of snow, so if that is a concern the SS3 Max is the way to go with selective yellow, as it is one of the highest powered fogs and the filtration effect of the darker yellow lens causes it to get very hot.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-led-sae-j583-fog-pod-fog-light-review.554813/

 

Thanks for the huge educated response. VERY enlightening to say the least. I'll be lucky to retain 1/2 of this. Great stuff

So this answers the crossover numbers. Also each is obviously held to slightly different requirements

Did not know this. I've seen 4300k. Is that max. halogen. Should I be thinking H.I.D. anyway?

*Any spacific upgrade? i.e. watts, H.I.D. etc...?
*This was a senior moment for me... fog lights wouldn't be distance... I need to run max. overall visibility on high beams. Are gen 2.5 interchange able bolt ons? What is different?
* I just have the idea that factory high and low are the same color temp.?

So if the higher watt 9005 was used in the 9006 spot what would happen?
Obviously brighter but would pattern change (filament position)? Glare cap the issue?

HI(R)??? Do you mead HID?

pnp? Acronym meaning?

I like this! With well aimed beams will this be an oncoming low beam issue?
To confirm before ordering are these as noted? Any idea of the color temp.?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255435588697?epid=1136848293

Interesting

So my new and improved direction is leaning toward
1) high/low osram super brights with a harness

 

HIR: are halogen bulbs that reflect the infrared internally heating the filament to a higher temp producing more light at the cost of life hours
PNP: Plug and Play
H4/9003 are dual filament so yes they are the same basic color temp, a filter coating on the bulb might affect one filament more than another


a Driving pattern light-bar relay tied to the high beams might be a good option got you

 

Yes, for European vs Domestic bulb types the requirements can be slightly different, leading to different designations. Autoparts stores in the US are of course only going to sell the US designation which is why you only see 9003s in the autoparts stores and not the European H4.

I think it helps to see halogen output as a visual. This is a halogen light spectrum output measurement I recently took. Area under the curve is the amount of light output. To make your lights appear bluer or 6000k, you need to throw away all the output to the right of blue. And as you can see that is the vast majority of the bulb output, which means output will be completely worthless since you removed it all with blue filters so only the small amount of blue light can pass through.


4300k in halogen will be lower performing than stock. Blue filters just obliterate halogen output. Sylvania Silverstars have faced pricey class action lawsuits claiming otherwise. A true performance halogen will be in the 3000k range, maybe mid-high. 4000k+ is cosmetic bulbs that are sacrificing performance for styling in halogen. Now with a wiring harness and voltage booster and a reasonable 4000k bulb you might get acceptable results. But if you want 4000k+ and good performance, that is HID territory for sure.

Gen 2.5s fogs are incompatible with 05-11s. The Gen 2.5s get a very high performance wide angle H11 fog, which would later be reserved for only TRD models in 3rd Gen. The OEM TRD H11 fogs outperform many aftermarket performance LED options. They are using 55w headlight bulbs for the fogs with an exceptionally wide pattern vs the earlier trucks using a low powered fog bulb.

Matching is misguided. Nobody is going to see your fogs and headlights together if you use them correctly, other than other drivers in a severe storm more focused on trying to find the roadway than worried about the lighting cosmetics of your truck. Selective yellow is vastly superior for the purpose and far more beneficial to you as the driver. Do you want your lights to work to serve their purpose the best or match for others? And again, nobody should see they don't match because you wouldn't be running them unless needed in poor weather.

If you modify a 9005 to fit a 9006 in an assembly that is a projector or provides an integrated glare cap in the assembly then it is basically a non-issue. If it is in an assembly that relies on the glare cap being present, that would be a problem. I've not heard of anyone doing this though, it would be inferior to an HIR swap.

No. HIR. Halogen InfraRed. The highest performing halogen bulb type, the bulbs have an infrared coating to recycle the waste IR energy from the bulb and direct it back to the filament to overdrive it pushing output higher without consuming any more energy from the power source. Output gains are substantial and exceed that of using a 9005 in place of a 9006 while offering improved focus efficiency to drive higher intensity and longer bulb life with lower power consumption. HIR was a competitor to HID as they both emerged at similar times, HID effectively won the next gen lighting war. HIRs are still used, but not very common, consider yourself lucky if you have a vehicle that can utilize an HIR swap.

PnP = Plug n Play

Those are them. Rather than ordering on eBay internationally out of Lativa, I'd suggest Bulb America domestically:
https://www.bulbamerica.com/product...super-bright-premium-off-road-automotive-bulb

The bulbs will retain your stock pattern, but brighter. You will not need to re-aim your lights. Any need to re-aim based on a bulb change alone should be a red flag.

Output and color temp charts below, from the headlight thread linked earlier. Note that these output charts do not factor the harness, which will further boost performance. (You will need the harness, these were bench tested using power supplies). The Osram 100/90w Superbrights are only slightly whiter than stock. The highest color temp performance bulbs are the Philips Racing Visions.

 

Again mind numbing overload of information to digest. All this input is appriciated. I have had to reasses and alter my wonky misguided thinking for sure.

My takeaway thus far is
* osram super brights with relay harness.
* re-evaluate high & fog

I plan to thoroughly re-read the responses and refocusing any further Tacoma questions.

I have an 06 Sienna with factory HID. I just restored the factory o.e. lens by professionally polishing and automotive clearcoated. Big differance. Now I think I'll be able to ask a few appropriate high beam & fog upgrade questions (a new thread to come)