The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

I did not forget to consider heat when doing this mod. It was not an issue on my plastic lensed 03 Tacoma, and I don't anticipate it being an issue on my 2015 either. I do not have a laser temp to measure the delta. If any issues arise I will report back. While the harness would support going hotter, I would not recommend it for that reason, and it is just overkill.

 

After a few requests of bulb color pictures, I only have the following at this time. New bulb on the driver side. The bulbs are whiter than stock, but not at all blue. They have no coating to artificially filter the light into the blue spectrum. I tried to take some pics against my white garage door, but the new bulbs completely wash out the picture in pure white and overwhelm the camera. I'll try to find a better surface for bulb color temp pics. Function was more important than color for me in this mod.

 

Iam blinded by the light. Looks good. Ordering the 70w bulbs. Will post pics when installed

 

Good point on the camera. I'll try my nicer one tomorrow night.

That has nothing to do with wattage. That is the bulb UV filter. I'm betting your HID lights were made in China with little to no quality control. The UV filter failed, if there ever was one to begin with, and UV rapidly degrades plastic. If you have a UV source inside your headlight assembly all plastic surfaces are going to fog over in white like a cancer.

These lights are made in Germany by one of the most respectable lighting manufactures in the world, and include a UV filter. It won't be a problem. One of the so many uncountable reasons I only buy high quality parts.

 

I am wondering if you can run the lower 70w bulbs with the stock harness? (Asking anyone that might know the answer)

 

I like this solution over any of the others, and have been looking for a good writeup forever. But beware, there's lots of people on here with HID projector retrofits that will love to argue. In my opinion, this is the cheapest and simplest solution to a headlight upgrade, as opposed to almost spending a grand just to have them retrofitted properly, and it's 100% returnable to stock.
It just doesn't have that Bro look. Lol

 

By looking at this pic make me going back to stock tomorrow, stock lights last for decades, hid? Nah not even a week totally wasted

 

I actually did this mod and writeup earlier than planned specifically because I got so tired in trying to debate with members in the HID/LED camps. No one seemed to believe that you could exceed HID/LED performance with conventional technologies, at least without pics. But at the same time I think halogen wasn't 'trendy' enough to be cool.

I am not a fan of projector retrofits. Are they correctly engineered and tested? I've purchased poorly made aftermarket lights, and ended up trashing them due to poor performance, literally. As an engineer I hyper scrutinize everything and tend to lean toward conservative engineering solutions. A major reason why I like OEM upgrades and embrace the existing technology, and why I don't try to change it for something it is not.

As to the HIDs or LEDs: What do you do when a ballast fails? Or HID bulb fails? Or LED cooling fan fails and the bulb circuit overheats and fails? All these things will happen and you are SOL. Running this conventional upgrade there are no dependancies on fragile 3rd party systems and the system is far more durable like stock.

 

That is what I thought someone was going to say. So with either the 70w or 80w bulb, you should buy the upgrade harness.

 

Awesome write up OP. And your right. "you did have my attention" with that pic against the trees. Amazing.

Ordering up the parts right now !!

 

thanks to op.
op, since you did this with your other yotas you have a lot of info on longterm. can you add more of your experiences such as:
-bulb life-stock oem seems to last for years but going to a brighter bulb is like a sylvania silverstar ultra always burn out in ayear. why wont these?
- so you never been flashed- did you have lifts on the truks or stock.
-bulb price- how are these bulbs so inexpensive? are they that good of quality?
i love this solution and want to do it. but keep thinking theres gotta be a catch like all the other upgrades

 

OP, read most of 2 pages and didnt see this asked: Won't you just burn through bulbs at an increased rate?

I know from experience even running dif bulbs can a shorter lifespan than stock, and thats without increasing wattage or anything.

 

Ill chime in and say a few things:

I like this mod. I was looking at LED headlights but like this solution better.
Osram lights are outstanding. I ran them on my Subaru.
All headlights that that you get at Autozone and stores say offroad use only. Only stock output ones are non-offroad

 

I don't see why not. The reason for adding a harness is to get rid of the voltage drop associated with thin factory wiring. A small drop in voltage will result in a large drop in light output. Running the headlights directly off the battery will basically run the lights at full power. I did something similar as the OP although I got the harness kit & bulbs from Daniel Stern. It requires using your own wire and wiring it up yourself. I started this weekend but haven't had time to finish the harness yet. I'm taking my time building it to make sure it's done right. I would imagine this would burn out bulbs at a faster rate but even replacing them once a year isn't a big deal.

 

As a somewhat subjective data point, after running the lights for 25 minutes on the way to work with a ambient temp of 54 degrees, and the lights still on the headlight lens was still cool to the touch.

Good questions.

The bulb life is shorter than a standard 'long life' halogen bulb. Overdriving filaments and higher wattage both lead to reduced life span. Even without increasing wattage, any halogen bulb that claims increased light performance will have a reduced life span and inversely, the bulbs that claim long life will have reduced light output. Manufactures always put long life bulbs in their vehicles even though they produce less light because most people would perceive a bulb that burns out quicker as lower quality. In my experience these bulbs tend to last a little over a year. However the life span in calendar time will also depend on how much night driving you do. These bulbs are known to have good life compared to other performance bulbs.

I order these bulbs in sets of 2 (4 bulbs). Halogen lights should be replaced in pairs as all halogen light output slowly dims over time. When one burns out, I change them both and save the good used bulb. When the next one burns out I change out the bad bulb with the used one I have saved and order more.

My other trucks were not lifted. However the lift I have on my truck is very modest at about 2". If flashing becomes a problem, or if I notice blinding the rear views of other drivers, I will adjust my lights accordingly. I've also done this mod in my girlfriends escape. She does not get flashed by other drivers.

The bulbs are actually relatively expensive compared to a stock halogen bulb, it is just that halogens in general are pretty inexpensive. A standard halogen H4 is about $5, a silverstar H4 bulb is about $15 on Amazon. These are almost $20. Compared to the cost of a HID or LED conversion these are very inexpensive. Osram is a very high quality brand (the same brand Toyota uses as OEM). IMO they are some of the best quality bulbs you can buy, with the understanding that they will have shorter life than long life bulbs as mentioned above.

 

OP, Nice work! Definitely will do this at some point.

Go HAWKS!

 

As stated in another thread.

The stock harness is pretty beefe. It is NOT "conventionally" switched. There are two relays, first the HEAD relay which pulls directly from the battery, to power the DIM relay which chooses between high and low beams then goes out to the headlights.

Yes the harness in the OP is BEEF AS FAWK and probably nets a small voltage increase. That stated... the stock harness had 10amp fuses FOR EVER FILAMENT (2 for each bulb) @ 85w thats ~7 amps... which is fine.

See wiring diagram attached.


(Overall though, OP this is probably THEE most proper headlight upgrade i have ever seen on this forum. Props man, i might end up doing the same, though i find the light output of the stock headlamps pretty darn good!)

 

Good points on the fuses. Mathematically it should be fine without the harness. For reference the harness has a 30 amp fuse, meaning 50% greater capacity over stock, or 15 amps per bulb. The harness should still provide an improvement with less resistance than stock.

I'm not sure what you mean by not conventionally switched, the headlights are as shown by the test procedure. I tried using ground switched harness and it was not compatible with my wiring, unlike my previous Tacoma.

 

Thanks for the info, it does indeed answer my question!

 

This is awesome. I may do this. Thank you for the thread!