The SAE J581 Aux High Beam Thread

42" to the center of the lamps, so that gives you some wiggle room.

 

The SS5s are an SAE driving pattern, but too high in output intensity to be a legal driving light. Being that it’s a high beam, nobody should see you running them from the front anyway. Same goes for the driving light bar, output will be too high. So your already not legal.

For the fogs, a solid continuous light bar also won’t be legal either. Compliance spec is by lamp, with max of 2, so you actually get higher legal output running 2 separate lamps, like the pair of SS3 Max, than you do one lamp/bar meeting the max compliance spec. But a solid fog bar will be over compliance as well, the difference being you do run fogs in oncoming traffic, unlike driving lights. So again your better off with the pair of SS3 Max over a full fog bar.

 

So I FINALLY received my SS3 Max fogs a couple weeks ago and finally last night I finished up the install.

I guess the question is now what do I do for driving lights? Another pair of SS3s? SS5s? (I would have to mock that up and make sure they'd fit though.) Or wait for the new light bars that DD is releasing? Go with someone else's product entirely? The more I think about it the less I'm concerned with legality because I live in MD where there is zero enforcement of any traffic law anyway, although I do care about using safe and properly engineered products.

Right now I just have a pair of Truck-Lite 5x7 headlights that were used on my last XJ, and a pair of DD SS3 Max fogs on top of the bumper. The fogs are pretty silly, in a good way. I've thought about getting better headlights but I was told that JW Speaker was coming out with new ones "soon" but then again that was in November and I have seen no new products... or is the 8910 Evo 2 the supposed new product?

 

Having a set of SS3 Max Selective Yellow fogs and a set of SS5 Pro Spot beams, I might be able to help you. The first question you have to ask and answer is "What do you want these "driving lights" to do? Are you looking for longer reach with some width to the beam pattern? If so, the SS3 or SS5 in a Driving beam optic would both work well with the SS5 having more power. Are you looking for pure distance? If so, the Spot optic would be best.

For reference purposes, here's the view from the driver's seat of my 4Runner with the SS5 Pro Spot beams and my high beams both on. There's a solid half mile of light in front of me.

 

sounds like you have the exact setup I was considering, although I was thinking of doing a driving beam rather than a spot beam. Mostly looking for throw for high speed night driving, although some light to the sides is an absolute necessity for spotting deer, believe it or not even near the city there's tons of them and also if I visit any family or friends most of them live in areas with deer as well. I had some KC halogen lights but I just took them off and threw them in a box as I'm thinking I could do much, much better and it's probably not worth fixing the previous owner's installation (and now they wouldn't fit with the SS3 fogs anyway)

Another option is I could simply find the old Cibié H4s that I had on my first XJ and install a relay harness for them, those I felt were perfectly adequate without any driving lights, although overkill is always on the table.

 

With my SS5's. I started with selective yellow Fog lenses, but ordered a set of clear Driving lenses because I wanted a slightly warmer color temperature. I didn't like the width of the Driving pattern (too wide), so I swapped in a set of clear Spots. The high beams give me all of the peripheral lighting I need and the SS5's give me the distance I wanted.

You mentioned Cibie lights. I actually started with a set of Cibie Oscar driving lights that I had from a previous vehicle. Even with the best 100 watt H1 bulbs money could buy, they didn't hold a candle to the SS5's.

 

on my first XJ, I use a pair of Cibié H4 5x7 headlights that I got from Daniel Stern, and a relay harness from Susquehanna Motorsports. I also retrofitted factory fogs to that one and used selective yellow H3s in them. that was honestly sufficient for 99% of my driving. I want to say that I also had to add another relay behind the driver's headlight to make the fog lights work because the circuit relied on the high beam filament for a ground so that the fogs wouldn't light when the high beams were active.

Second XJ was a complete beater so I just bought some used Truck-Lites and tossed them in. However, I always felt that the Cibiés were better or at least I felt more comfortable driving behind them. That one had factory fogs so I just left them alone.

Third and current XJ came to me with crappy Amazon headlights and no fogs, although the wiring was there for them. Original front bumper had replaced with a JCR fabricated steel bumper and some cheap KC halogen driving lights hanging from the tabs on the brush bar that couldn't even be aimed correctly without my adding spacers, and wouldn't allow the SS3s to use the lower mounting holes anyway. (I assume the original fogs were tossed with the front bumper) So, once I got the SS3 fogs, I binned the KCs and the Amazon lights (if you really want them PM me LOL) and installed the SS3s and the Truck-Lites. I guess I should get more seat time with the current setup before I make any rash decisions...

Fog lights were the first thing I wanted to add because a) I live right by BWI so there's lots of water around, meaning a couple days a year we have a real pea souper in the morning and b) having switches on the dash that do nothing bothers me

 

I have a set of selective yellow SS5's in the Sport model. They're excellent, lots of extra beam width and reach even behind my oem grille. Too Stroked raises a good point that the Spot lens on the Pro SS5 model is similar in width as the SS5 Sport driving light optic, with more distance reach. I'd say either sport ornpro SS5 would be the way to go. But I would suggest still going eith the driving light lens.

I bought a set of the clear driving lenses when I bought my SS5's, intending to swap. But being behind my grille currently, they're lower profile, and I find the resulting color mix with the ~6000k white tacoma LED headlamps is very close to driving behind a set of normal halogen lamps, so I haven't swapped the optics out yet.

 

Legality is less of an issue with driving lights when used responsibly. As a high beam pattern, it shouldn't be run when other drivers are ahead of you, which means it shouldn't affect other drivers, unlike low beam and fogs.

Negative on the Evo 2s being the new product. You can see some posts on the round Evo 2s here and here, the optics are dated and not impressive. There is supposed to be a next gen JW product release, but I haven't seen it yet. Best headlight performance may actually be quality halogen assemblies with excellent bulbs and a standalone wiring harness. The new DSL +250s are outstanding bulbs to consider if going with halogen assemblies. The 1st post in the thread is worth reviewing.

As @Toy_Runner points out, the pattern is much wider with the Pro lights, this is due to their larger emitters having less focus which creates a larger pattern. You can see examples of this in the SS3 output photos in the first post comparing Sport vs Pro. I wouldn't go with a Sport in Spot as that will be extremely focused with little light spill and not as wide as the Pro output. Fortunately the optics are changeable if you want a smaller or larger pattern. Generally speaking driving is going to be the most ideal pattern for long distance street use.