Headlight Hi-Lo Bulb Question

Having read several very long, informative and older headlight educational threads with crashnburn80 and others I can't find a few details I would like to know please.
I think he thoroughly convinced me just popping an LED or HID bulb in is not a good idea but I am not ready for a replacement LED or projector housing swap. Maybe later down the road.

1. What's the best DOT bulb I can buy without a harness upgrade?
2. What's the best bulb/harness upgrade I can do? DOT compliant is a plus but as long as I am not blinding oncoming traffic I am okay going with off-road options.

Still a little unclear about various bulb designations H11/H9/9003, base, wattage, type and connectors etc. If anyone knows of a chart showing this data I would appreciate it. From the owners manual below

 

Put the same H9 you have in your factory highbeam in your lowbeam. It will be fine on the stock harness. There is no need to try to find an H11 to H9 pigtail adapter, adding additional wire and connections just increases resistance, lowering performance. You can fit the H9 into the H11 socket foe the lowbeam projector with minor trimming of one of the plastic locking tabs. If you compare the H11 bulbs locking tabs and those on an H9, it will be very obvious. Some have luck fitting the H9 without trimming the tabs, but its more of a finnicky procedure, trimming the H9 tab to the H11 size with a small, sharp pair of sidecutters is easy to do, just be careful, the plastic tabs are generallt brittle. Then clean the bulb off with a lint free cloth and isopropyl alcohol. There is a small nub in the base plug of the H9 that prevents it from clicking into the H11 wires plastic clip. If you look at the clip on the lowbeam harness, you'll see a small colored (yellow, iirc) plastic insert inside the connector. You can simply remove this from the plug with a pair of needle nose pliers and the H9 bulb can then be plugged into the low beam socket.

The 9003/H4 bulb thread is for the 2nd gens, which use a 9003/H4 type dual-fialment bulb. Those bulb tests and the harness discussions are irrelevant to the 3rd gen, which uses a seperate high and lowbeam lamp.

Then, just make sure your headlamps are correcrlt aimed using this method here

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html

To minimize glare for oncoming traffic.

 

I have asked Cabre' and Crash' about an upgraded dual relay larger gauge headlight harness for my '17 TRD and both said it was not going to make a difference.
I run upgraded harnesses with my cars with Hella ECode glass headlight assemblies with H4 bulbs for decades.

I am still amazed at how good the OEM Tacoma headlight assemblies are with the H9 swap.

 

Are you saying you go higher wattage bulbs without a harness upgrade? H9's are 65W?

 

This is the best you can do if you don’t want to swap the whole headlight assembly. H9s are a noticeable improvement over H11s. Buy an extra and cut the tab from it and throw it in the glove box as a spare cause all 4 of your bulbs afterward will be H9s.

 

Great info, thanks a lot

 

The 65w bulbs are good to install and go.

An upgraded harness doesn't help for the 3rd Gen Tacoma.

 

Lots of great headlight info on this thread.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-hid-vs-led-vs-halogen-h11-projector-headlights.589465/

 

Removing the green insert on the harness to run the H9 is the new recommended method, much easier than trimming the tab on the individual bulbs:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ctor-headlights.589465/page-300#post-28111591

Recommended H9 bulbs:

$11 Philips 12361B1 H9 Standard Halogen Replacement Headlight Bulb, 1 Pack

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003YMPN3A

 

I just went through this. I ended up ordering 4 Philips H9 bulbs. Two for my lows and two fresh ones for my highs. I also ordered a pair of OSRAM H11 Night Breaker +220’s for the fog lights.