The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

its some where in this https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/diode-dynamics-smart-tap-cf18-relay.471753/page-5#post-15090076
Thread...

 

Can someone post pictures best place to mount relay for harness made by Headlight Service?

 

I’ve spent some time on that topic. I think @Too Stroked did a custom mount to the fender bolts with aluminum flat bar. I have a 4 tine relay holder drilled for use but haven’t swapped it in yet. In my ‘02 Tundra I redid the brains with a GEP since I originally ordered ground switched by mistake and converted to power switched to match my truck. So that GEP is mounted in a cavity beteeen fender and battery and not super accessible but it only holds 4 micro relays so the fuses are still inline.

For my ‘95 Tacoma I have the two relays mounted to the fender with just one bolt for now. That’s a good reminder to install that relay holder and finish the work and grab a photo.

 

Edit: DRL DELETE COMPLETE not too bad took maybe 30 minutes total. And as usual I forgot to take pictures.
NO MORE MELTING DRL LENSES. Thanks @boomer6 and @BenMara for sharing the info. Now @crashnburn80 headlights are where they need to be as fast as lighting quality.
Thanks All.

 

Some comments on this amazing thread. I finally did this upgrade on my 1st Gen Sequoia. This one is conventionally switched (Sequoias are weird some seem to be conventional, some are ground). I have DRL stock, but with the gray DRL connector near the (HB2/H4) headlight unplugged, they act like normal headlights (except in one weird situation .... see my comment below). I installed the Osram Super 90/100s with the harness. Previously I had the recommended Philips Racing +150s and they were not bright enough.

I decided I better do the harness/Osram Super upgrade, but it still took 2+ years of having the parts on hand before I got around to building and installing the harness.

So far, the new setup isn't blowing my mind, but I've yet to try them on a lonely dark road. Seattle has gone nuts with WHITE LED streetlights, and combined with all the people with new-car lights or old-car with crappy new LED lights, these seem a little dim in comparison. edit: LOL, it turns out I had the ground and high terminals in each others' positions. No wonder the lights seemed dim.

For what it's worth, my headlight (buckets/lens) are in good condition. The PO had them replaced at the dealer right before I bought it. There's virtually no hazing/crazing. From what I can tell the reflectors are good, too. But if after trying them on a dark road trip (and I'll also double-check the aiming situation when I'm aiming the SS3 max fogs I just installed. But that's another story) and I'm still disappointed, I'm going order some new headlights.

A few more comments:

• If you're on the fence about buying the harness from Headlight Services... JUST DO IT. I decided to DIY because a)I've made harnesses in the past and b)have a lot of parts on hand. Still, I probably spent another $50+ on parts. And then probably 20 hours planning/fiddling/wiring/crimping/fiddling/installing/adjusting/installing the harness that I'm sure still isn't as good as the Headlight Services unit. If I could go back in time I'd gladly drop the money and buy the pre-made unit.
• No matter how many times I checked things as I wired them up, I still made a few mistakes. Reversing ground and high at the trigger was a real bummer. Luckily it just blew a fuse, but still stumped me for a while.
• I've got one WEIRD thing: I don't know if this happened before the harness (and it's raining and gross and I'm not going to dig out the sealed-up trigger connector so I can revert back to stock right now), but, if I start the car with the e-brake not engaged, the headlights turn on with the car (like DRL would). That really freaked me out when I was on my first road test. I assumed I fried something, but then when I got home and started testing connections, the behavior went away (because I had the brake on). I just finally realized and reproduced the behavior. As I said, the DRL are disconnected and otherwise don't work. Has anyone seen anything like this before?

 

I have an ‘02 Tundra w DRL so + switched and a HS harness but hacked from ground switched and custom relays.
I never park without the brake so I’ve never noticed. I’ll check for you if it ever stops raining.
Your stalk has auto?

 

OK, I couldn't just let this slide so I bundled up and went outside and messed with this again. Some interesting findings that tell me something is messed up.

1. The "weird" DRL-like behavior where the headlights turn on when I start the car without the e-brake on does NOT occur with the stock wiring.
2. While doing this, I realized the headlights ARE BRIGHTER on low beam with stock wiring (high beam seems similar or maybe brighter -- it's daytime -- with relays, but lows are definitely dimmer with the relays. Voltage is within a couple tenths of volts for stock vs. non-stock (eg matches battery voltage at). If I hook one light up to stock and other via the relay, it's rather obvious.
3. Some voltage readings at headlight connectors:

• Low Beam (car running):
  • stock: 13.96 at low terminal; .68v high term; .34v ground
  • via relay 14.06 at low terminal (seems right-ish), 5.41v at high term (seems weird?); 0v ground
• High Beam on:
  • stock: 13.45 at high terminal; .72v at low term; .51 at ground term
  • via relay: 13.96 at high term; 13.68 at low terminal (seems weird?); 0 at ground terminal.

To all this, I say, WHAT THE HELL? I've tried swapping the low and high relays, and even a new relay. No changes. I also tried taking the ECU/headlight switch out of the equation and triggered the relay manually with 12v, rather than using the 12v trigger off the stock headlight wiring. In both of these cases, the low beam with STOCK wiring is BRIGHTER than the low beam via relay (again, high beam seems pretty close but I think the relay version is brighter).

I'm seriously stumped. I'm supposed to be heading out on a long road trip on Saturday and I'd really like this working (though, yeah, I can always go back to stock if I have to. But I really don't want to!).

no auto position. Just off, parking, and the fog slider switch.

(edited to add clarifications to the voltage readings)

 

What gauge wire did you use for the wire runs? How long are the runs from the relay harness plugs to ground?

 

12 gauge for everything but the triggers. Those are 16 ga. Everything goes back to battery for ground. So driver side ground terminal to battery is less than 2'; passenger is ~7'.

 

Short the relays and test?

which relays specifically?

 

You mean jumper the 12ga "hot" (terminal 30) that's going into the relay to the 12ga that runs to the low beam terminal (dual 87 terminals)? Yeah, did this. No difference. Still brighter with the stock wiring. So weird. This is good anchor 12 ga marine wire. AMP connectors crimped with a ratcheting tool. I've checked continuity and everything is good. But Obviously something isn't right. Those strange voltage numbers via the relay (5+ volts at the high terminal when using low beams; 13.6v at the low terminal when running high beams) have me so confused.

I think in the morning I'm going to de-pin the relay connectors to make it a little easier to run tests. Then I'll try:

• 12v (fused) and ground straight to headlight from battery. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll start drinking.
• If it does work, I'll just add one leap at a time (from hot wire relay connection to headlight).
• Then jumper that to the headlight wiring from the relay to the headlight. And so on.

Hopefully I can track this down easy enough. Though I'll say again to anyone reading: take this as a cautionary tale about why you should just buy a pre-made relay from HS or another vendor.

 

When you say grounded to the battery you mean the battery terminal?

Move that to the fender? Or run a thick jumper to the frame from the negative post?

 

Interesting. I'd think battery negative terminal would be the best place to go. I'm actually split between two battery and fender ground. Two 12 ga from the headlights go to the ground terminal in the fender. Two 12ga go to the battery negative. There's an ~8ga connecting the fender ground to the battery ground terminal but I can double that if necessary (edit: I'll try extra grounds/new ground locations tomorrow, too).

 

Alternator grounds to the chassis and pushes power through the fuse box to the battery. So could be a weak link in the big 3? And rule out by using good chassis grounds for the harness?

 

Sounds good. I'll do that tomorrow.

 

Mea culpa incoming.... It wasn't the grounds. It wasn't the relays. It wasn't power. It was my dumb ass flipping the high and ground connections (I had the high going to the common and the ground going to high) when I assembled the ceramic H4 terminals. I actually marked them before assembly to avoid this from happening. But somehow I marked them WRONG. And every time after that I checked the wiring, I saw that the right colors were going to the "right" terminals and bypassed actually checking them. Yeesh. Immediately lights ARE way brighter than stock in both low and high. I don't even know how this was working at all, but whatever. It's fixed now.

Interestingly, the "weird" thing (headlights turning on when I start car without e-brake on) is still happening. I think it somehow confuses the ECU into turning on low beams -- maybe some vestigial behavior from the old DRL? At this point, I'm going to consider it a feature!

Thanks to @daveeasa for the t-shooting tips. You inspired me to keep trying, rather than just giving up and waiting for some spring weather. If I hadn't de-pinned the headlight connector to run new grounds, I don't know how long it would have taken me to notice the flipped connections.

Like I said above, if I could go back in time, I'd buy the Headlight Services harness and get back 30 hours of my life. Even if you don't make boo-boos building your own, but especially if you do, pro-built harnesses are the way to go!

 

261 pages of great info, but some contradictory details, recommendations with a follow up cancelling the recommendation. some older recommendations where the bulb is no longer available. Head is spinning at this point. Looking for the brightest headlight bulbs (especially for low beam), that would not require a new harness.

 

Brightest bulb w/o the harness is a Philips GT200 racing vision. You can get them on Amazon.

 

All info on the original posted is kept up to date. As @vssman mentioned the Philips Racing Vision GT200s are the best stock wattage bulb, review is linked in the stock wattage bulb section in the original post.

 

Thanks.. that link did not take me to the bulbs. Having a tough time finding them for the headlights for a 2016