The H10 to 9011 HIR Foglight upgrade (brighter than LED)

Got my next harness in the mail today. Kind of a surprise since they never sent shipping info or even an order confirmation email but here it is.

 

Replaced h10's with the Philips 9011's tonight on the stock harness without glare caps. Only took the truck up and down the street in the rain as it was getting late. Definitely brighter, maybe twice as bright and throws light farther but nothing that would blind people. So many hills around here im blinded by led/projector headlamps nightly. Actually feel like true fogs now.

 

I’d still recommend glare caps. The uncapped bulb while it may not show glare on a wall test does result in glare due to the exposed forward facing filament. It will be significantly brighter than the stock H10s.

 

Tested then out tonight in both lighted and unlighted roads. Definitely at LEAST 2x as bright and throw farther but due to them being mounted low I can't see them throwing light in people's eyes as they don't throw as far or as high as headlights do. Maybe if someone is just about to drive by few car lengths it could? But I do understand glare can happen. No flashes or people giving me funny looks at all.

 

How much wattage can the stock harness take in the long term? Planning incremental upgrades in lighting. My fogs now are making my fogged up stock head lights look like tapped on old flashlights from harbor freight so I'm heading towards restoring and putting Philips xtra vision's or doing the ultimate headlight up grade.

 

Pretty sure the OEM circuit is 15A, if so it should be fine as you are drawing 10.5A. Double check. The harness in this case was really more about achieving maximum output buy supplying the bulbs higher voltage.

 

How is the foglight only a few dollars cheaper than the headlight assembly

I think I may try to polish them first.

On a plus note. I'm only 15 minutes away from that place, and just over the border so I'm not charged tax

 

That is crazy talk. I'd try to find some like new take-offs from the forum or eBay before paying that rate for factory fogs.

 

So I remember seeing this thread a while ago probably after a few beers. Just found out I needed new fog lights so I ordered a set of the 9011s and appropriate pigtails... when I went to wire them up I noticed how puny the factory fog harness is so I ran to the store and picked up a 12v relay.

My plan is to use the factory harness to trigger the relay and use a 12 gauge wire from the battery >relay >fog light . Is there a reason this is less effective or not a good idea?

 

That is exactly what is recommended in the thread by using a standalone harness. Utilizing a relay will decrease voltage drop to the bulbs causing them to burn brighter than they will on the factory wiring harness.

 

Im an idiot.

 

Just building your own solution vs using an off the shelf option.

 

Still running strong on the stock harness without applying a coat to the bulbs. No flashes or weird looks. There's plenty of hills around here and I'm blinded nightly by newer cars.

 

Are relays not standardized? Or do they have different versions of the same type of relay?

I had bought a few off the shelf 5 pin relays (30/85/86/87/87A) for a lighting project a while back. I had wired them up, and they didn't behave as expected. Double checked my wiring, and made sure the relays weren't defective. Ended up exchanging them for more expensive relays, plugged them in, then everything worked as expected.

 

It looks like 90%+ paint offgassing occurs within the first 2 weeks. So you could paint glare caps, wait 2 weeks then install as a possibility. The glare is nothing to the level of LED where people would likely flash you.

There are Normal Closed (NC) and Normal Open (NO) relays, the normal state defines the behavior without power. Are you sure that both sets of relays purchased were the same type?

 

I ended up with BWD 3177 relays. I don't see anything on them that states weather they are NC or NO

 

Not sure on the relays you got but a NO relay will complete the circuit when energized, an NC relay will disconnect the circuit when energized.

 

Well normally when you have a 87A terminal it alternates power between 87 and 87A. If it has an 87B terminal it runs in parallel to 87. I like to use the Toyota COR's for my lighting. It's a Toyota branded Bosch relay so it looks legit in the engine bay. It only has four terminals.

 

Well this is the setup I had for my amber LED strips under my doors. They come on with the parking lights and blink with the turn signals. If the parking lights are on already , it cuts power to the LEDs when the turn signal blinks.

 

Are 9005's a decent improvement over stock or does it take the 9011's to make much difference. 9005's are dirt cheap compared to 9011's