3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Sylvania doesn't have a good reputation for 'performance' bulbs. They have been found guilty of false advertising and had to pay out many millions of dollars in class action lawsuits on their XtraVision bulbs. Some bulb manufactures try to play 'whiter' as 'brighter' in claimed performance even though that isn't the case at all. In addition Sylvania's performance bulbs had shorter than promised bulb life as well. Don't be fooled by the marketers, which is also true for the PnP LED products.

Truth is with halogens increased performance equals shorter bulb life. There isn't a way around this. 400 hours is a very good/reasonable lifespan for a high performance bulb, which should last roughly 2 years based on my personal use. The Philips H9s are 400 hours. The best H11s will be shorter, attempting to get an H11 to perform near H9 levels as with the Osram +220s come at a cost though performance for an H11 is exceptional. But life is shorter at 250 hours vs 400. 250 hours would be 1.25 years based on my use. But you have options, choose what is the best fit for you.

Full LED assemblies obviously side-step the issue of halogen bulb life with increased performance for good LED assemblies at a substantial premium. For many doubling output with a simple $20 H9 swap is the sweet spot.

For those looking for the easiest plug and play H9s in the low beam, Daniel Stern does sell H11 base Volsa H9s. That is a German H9 Volsa bulb, mounted on an H11 base so it rotates and locks into position exactly like an H11, but has an H9 capsule for maximum output. Does have a price premium.
https://www.danielsternlighting.com/products/products.html

 

^ Thanks again sir!!

 

Thanks @crashnburn80 and @Yoshi I for all of your work and info.

I put the Hikari LED’s in my ‘21 about 4 years ago for $75ish and frankly was fairly happy with them. However, my one low beam just crapped out and is on at about 5% brightness. Searched for another pair of them and they seem nonexistent now.

Scanned this thread as a refresher and saw the 2Stroke 3.0 was a decent choice but saw the new 4.0 and ordered them. Of course after brewing a cup of coffee and diving into this thread in even more detail, I find the helpful write up that the 4.0 performance isn’t as good with our housings and the crazy resonating noise.

Then I saw Yoshi’s mention of the XB EVO and figured it can’t hurt to read up on those. The video on their site about the headlights is very well done and impressed me enough to stop crapping around and swallow the price.

Looking forward to installing them. Also given the price I think I’ll have my detail guy put a PPF layer over them to help any rogue branch scrapes or smacks.

Curious to see crash’s official test on these but I’m pretty confident it won’t be disappointing.

Question for @Yoshi I Could the supercharges be installed in a switched way? Meaning a switch on the dash could activate the superchargers so that they aren’t always on, but they are there and ready for off road situations?

 

No. The supercharged drivers completely replace the standard DOT Spec drivers. It is one or the other to power the headlights. You can see the DOT Spec driver installed on the bottom of the assembly below. If you want to swap drivers to the off-road driver, you need to do so before install.

 

@crashnburn80 Since you have these headlights in your hands and are doing your thing on them, any chance you can check something for me?

I run strobes with my turn signals, they run right into the turn signal bulb using a piggyback harness. Do these headlights have a just plain LED bulb in there that could accept my strobe signal? Looking for something that doesnt have any processors or chips that control the bulbs, just straight 12v to the LED itself.

 

No. Do not wire with any strobe pulse system nor modified timing signal into system. Only designed to work with the vehicle's original signal input parameter.

 

Not the scientific data take you’ll get from Crash, but a real world view of thr Morimoto XB EVO .

This is my truck on the left side parked adjacent to a 4th gen with the factory LEDs. I realize these are different than the OEM LEDs in the 3rd gen but still wanted to see what it looked like compared directly next to it for light pattern, color and simply the height of the lights.

FYI my truck is lifted 2” but with the light cutoff height matching my friend’s nonlifted truck, I think it’s fine leaving them aimed as-is (side fact, the 4th gen headlights are almost 2” higher than 3rd gen stock for stock)

One pic of low beams, one pic of high beams.

initial impression is very impressed with them

 

What are the 2 halos above the light on the left (1st pic)?

 

Not sure but I think they are from my XB EVOs. Couldn’t notice it at all on the road

 

It's required upper illumination. I set the upper illumination at upper end of the allowance for strong upper illumination visibility comfort. Read below Post #168

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...adlights-are-here.848777/page-9#post-30382841

Once you review presentation, then you may have this questions.
Why some OE optics can get away without this pronounced dip? answer is simply due to OE optics are much lower intensity.
For example, OE LED reflector does NOT have as pronounced dip shading as XB Evo headlamp, but this is because OE LED reflector distance zone(near cutoff) center intensity is only about half of what XB Evo outputs.
In this case, as long as defined test points remain under 12000Cd limit, it can still pass as compliant beam design.
However, high potency headlamp that project much stronger beam, dip shading contrast naturally become higher, this is another reason many may notice more than some of other OE design.

 

I suppose both could be run if you had a harness that wired in both drivers, with an external trigger input that let you switch back and forth between the two, but that would be a lot of wiring and bulk to have to mount and keep dry, plus any damage to one of the harnesses could cause problems with the entire setup.

 

@crashnburn80 thank you for all these informations , I try to read your post about 5 times, but I never was able to find what your recommendation for best halogen bulb to run on 3rd gen Tacoma, for high beam, I know in your post you say Phillips H9 is the best for low beam. I was also wondering as well , about what is best white temp color halogen bulb for high and low beam. Thank you so much again for this great write up, as well as replying if you do!

 

Just remember that with halogen bulbs, the nominal color temperature is going to always be in the 3200 - 3400 Kelvin range. The only way to get a higher Kelvin (whiter) light is to put a blue coating over the bulb which absorbs the yellow from the halogen filament but also significantly cuts down on the output. To be honest, your eyes adjust quite rapidly to the color of the halogen through a process called white point adaptation when you're out on a dark road at night and as long as there's nothing to compare it to, the halogen white will seem perfectly white to you. You can also get a slightly whiter halogen by running higher than recommended voltage, but that causes other issues like drastically reduced running time and could risk damaging other electrical components. The standard H9's that came in your high beams are more than adequate for the job and were, from my memory, very nice high beams when I had them.

 

Take a look at post 5515 (last page) of the 2nd gen h4/9003 upgrade thread to see how big an impact filtering a halogen to get "white" high kelvin light has.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-h4-not-led-or-hid.398066/page-276

This is the same reason that the best choice of bulb, in terms of performance, has minimal to non-existent color filtration. Filtration is always subtractive. And at the extreme ends of the margins is absolutely not worth the cost in performance.

 

@Sasquatchian thank you for your input. My thought exactly, in my opinion I do like the stock high beam. I will go ahead and get the Phillips H9 and convert it for my low beam. Thank you so much!

As well as thank you all for the informations or inputs.

 

No conversion necessary to use H9 in low beam. Just remove the green insert in the harness for the low beam bulb ... takes about 1 second.

 

Exactly what I did. I was dreading trying to dremel out the notch in the bulb until I read up on that quick and easy method. A pair of needle nose pliers is all it took. Been loving the H9’s in my Tacoma. Definitely keeping me satisfied until I decide to splurge on some LED’s. Hopeful that Crash will get back to us on the XB Evo’s soon!

 

A reminder that you can finesse an untrimmed H9 into the low beam space. (the green bit still need to be removed though)
A few videos earlier in the thread show how.

 

I went ahead and bought a set of the Diode Dynamics SL2 Pros. So far I’m really liking them.
They focus the light on the road, I’ve not been flashed by oncoming traffic at all.

 

@crashnburn80 any potential timing on a full review of the new Morimotos? Thanks! Been loving them.