The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

I have a broken passenger side headlight housing and a cracked grille that I'm planning to replace pretty quick here. Good excuse to do a little lighting upgrade at the same time. Just placed my order for the Headlight Services harness, have yet to order the Osram 100/90 bulbs. Currently running Osram Nightbreaker +200% bulbs on the stock harness. Light is alright, but wish it were a tad better at times. I'm in deer country, so I feel it's worth the cost to get this upgrade done. Will update when it all comes together.

 

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

Take the time to re-aim both lamps following the instructions in the link above, and you'll be very pleased with your headlamp upgrade. I have the OEM LED headlights in my '22 tacoma, but I did this upgrade on my old '99 4runner (lamos are similar in size to the tacomas H4 lamps) and it was a massive upgrade I wish I had known about years earlier.

 

Ok,
Thanks a Bunch!

 

Was asked to cross post in this thread for trouble shooting a 1st gen issue:

Having an issue with this upgrade on my ground switched 99.

Installed everything. Passenger headlight is good, measure high/low voltage on new connector etc.

Drivers side is extremely dim, no voltage detected. Unplugged the trigger took out the fuses from the new harness and measured voltage on the original drivers side connector. Voltage is good on both high and low.

Also swapped the bulbs, same issue.

it looks like an issues with with m/f connection on the drivers side but im a bit confused what to troubleshoot next... Both fuses on the harness look good as well

 

Ok I had an issue with not osram bulbs as soon as I spread the contacts out and fit them in no more issues. Then I received my osram bulbs and no issues.

 

Hmmm this is with the 100/90 Osrams

 

I only knew it was the 1 bulb because I switched sides and it went from left to right issue. Sooo maybe it's something that simple.

 

Yeah that was the first thing I tried, swapping bulbs. No dice

 

Wiring harness is in, new OEM smoked headlight housings going in sometime next week. Harness install was easy, all went well. I'm new to electrical and I do have a couple of questions I'd like some better educated members to clarify if possible. I'll try to keep it short.

I found this thread: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/grounding-point-around-the-battery-area.741699/
(yes it's 3rd gen, but general enough to not matter).

A reply there basically states that grounding to the battery is not a good idea. My harness has, per the instructions, the black cable grounded directly at the battery. Is this okay?

There is a body ground on the inside of the fender that stems directly from the negative battery terminal, I suppose I could just move it there if necessary.

 

You'll be fine with that. If you look the battery is grounded there too.

 

The ground is floating/isolated in this case, those rules don’t apply as noted in that thread saying it isn’t necessary for floating/isolated grounds. Grounding to the negative battery is fine, a chassis ground is fine too, but not necessary.

 

Well it took some time, but I ordered a male H4 pigtail and wired up a harness to run off of the passenger side connector. I couldn't find an accurate diagram for high beam / low beam / ground but since there are only 3 wires, I did a test to see which ones would make them light up. Interestingly there were two combinations that made the BD's turn on, but one was dim and the other was as bright as hooking them up directly to the battery. Also, the BD's stay on while the high beams are on which was interesting, as I had them wired to come on with the low beams and thought they would turn off when the high beams were switched on. Not a problem, but makes me wonder if high beams switched on still give the low beam filament voltage on the stock bulbs?

 

Are you all really paying $150 usd for a wiring harness? Lol

 

It hurt, I waffled for a while. But honestly it’s a damn fine harness and you couldn’t build it yourself for $100 so meh

 

I guess if money is no object for some its fine.
I have few harnesses laying around from past retrofits (motorcycle, tacoma, my 2 cars etc) and I can't ever remember spending more than $30. Never had one failure yet.

I don't think one needs to spend that much on a harness imo.

 

Your opinion is just that and, given you appear to have checked into this nearly nine-year-old thread less than two hours ago, it seems premature for you to render such critical opinions. Suggest you spend some time educating yourself on the preceding 5300+ posts before rendering judgement.

 

I have a $150 and a $30 harness going strong in two of my trucks for 6 months now. We’ll see if one outlasts the other…

 

Gladly, for:

• quality components
• quality construction
• decent paycheck for hard-working American

 

I did. I’d would do it again.

 

Considering the alternatives (and costs) for improved headlights, I feel it's the best $150 I've spent on my Tacoma. Your mileage may vary...