The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

Liking this so far, have some questions and concerns for the op. My main issue with the stock lights isnt necessarily luminosity itself (though it does suck a pretty large one) but with the spread of the high beams. When I have my brights on there is almost no light hitting the first several meters of road in front of me, which is very important for my needs. Im used to vehicles that use dual bulbs or just have much lower ground clearance. Will this upgrade help with that at all? Was also considering going with the bright box

The Brite Box Model 4 - Headlight enhancer - Keeps low beams ON with high beams. MAKES NIGHT DRIVING SAFER - your lights become high performance lights! Vehicle bulb data: Headlights - 9004.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Brite-Box-Model-performance/dp/B002N2LCMS but that combined with higher wattage seems to be a recipe for disaster, weather it be in the form of a truck fire or just needing to replace bulbs on a bimonthly basis. Im also calling matching color temp into question here. I do A LOT of night driving on remote roads and run my LED bars more than anyone I know. Its unfortunate that after spending any amount of time with them on, I feel blind once I switch back to just the headlights for legal road travel, but also it takes my eyes quite some time to adjust to the color change... which I just cant have in my line of work. How white is white? Last and also least is aesthetics, I know Im not going to fork up the cash for the pro housings, and am not patient enough for the BHLM(which was why I was leaning towards projectors) but looking back at my running truck, it hits my fashion nerve to see my lights mismatched by a few thousand ˚k. That being said I plan on throwing an amber cover over a few of my pods for foggy conditions. See attached photo. Just cant have that, now can we?

 

And for comparison


^Totally shopped bumper color btw

 

+1 on the °K deviation. Drives me crazy for some reason. I'm watching this thread for a possible alternative to HID/LED with a matched K scale to my LED offroad lights.

 

So can I run the osram bulbs on my 2015 with stock harness? All links are fused so I'm not worried about a fire, worried about melting my housing on a hot summer night..

 

Nice work!! Interested to see if any extra heat has an impact over time on the housings. Props on pulling the trigger on this and the work you put into it!

 

I would think that even for peace of mind an upgraded harness would probably be a good idea.

It seems as though then the older Taco's are ground switched, however the newer models are conventionally switched? Would that mean my '07 would run a ground switched harness?

 

LEDs need cooling fans??? they are suppose to run cooler, brighter and more efficient. only downside is the one time use, thus have to do a full replacement but they last long.

 

In the same sense you can't just run to the parts store and pick one up. you still have to "order" one to replace. Since you buy multiple it would be OK but the vast majority would still have to wait for the replacement. And most reputable places would send out a warranty replacement within a few days.

LEDs do not. the circuit board they are attached to does since it acts as the "driver" for the light.

 

LED is a diode. A small increase in voltage results in an almost exponential increase in current. In short, they can get super hot. Even my small Rayovac camping lantern has an aluminum heat sink and it's operating voltage is about 3.3 volts. It gets hot. It got super bright and super hot when I gave it 12v, used someting like 35 watts power!

 

Some time ago I had a Pontiac Fiero and I installed they hella h4 lenses and 55w/100w as well as a upgrade harness. The low beams were still legal at 55w. Legal high beams are 60w.
Later I did the same mod on a Jeep Cherokee. Using IPF lenses, h4 bulbs 55/100w and a wiring harness upgrade.
I was specifically aware that the Cherokee wiring harness would not withstand the draw of the hundred watt. The biggest weakness was the switch. An upgrade wiring harness isolates to switch from the circuit by using a relay. While I am sure the wiring harness in a stock Tacoma is of higher quality I would still recommend replacing it with a higher gauge and relay isolated harness.
My biggest concern but the op set up is that prolonged use of the high beams and even the low beams at 75 watts may melt the plastic of the lenses. The upgraded lamp housings I was running were glass.

 

Nice! Definitely the way to go IMO. I've been running the Osram 70/65W bulbs for a year or so now on the stock harness, with no problems, or anyone flashing me. Even those are a pretty noticeable improvement over the stock bulbs. Probably will take this next step now. Thanks for posting this.

 

It isn't the color change that is the problem, the cause for your blindness is your light bar mounting location. If you mount a light bar on the roof you need to run light bar deflector shields. The amount of glare off the hood in the photo is substantial, while the bar helps you see, it also blinds you. Your eyes adjust to this glare off the hood as if it were daylight, destroying your night vision. Then you turn the light bar off and you eye pupils are near closed when they should be wide open so there will be a significant recalibration time. Moving your light bar in front of your hood line eliminates the glare and this problem. Another option is to put a forward protruding shelf below your light bar so that your hood does not light up at all when turning it on.

Your link is for a 9004 bulb. Our trucks take H4. In a 9000 series bulb, there are separate low and high beam bulbs. The H4s combine it to one bulb. Running both filaments at the same time in one bulb would overheat the bulb and lead to extremely short bulb life. I would not recommend it.

Function > form to me. I'm not as concerned about light color. They will not be as white as the LEDs, but they will be whiter than stock. I'll take a pic with the fogs on so you can see a color comparison. I haven't tried out the high beams yet, but they will have the same pattern as the lenses are stock, just the lighting intensity will be significantly better. Another option for you could be to do the fog light anytime mod, so you can run the fogs with your high beams which will help in some amount for light immediately in front of your truck.

I've run this setup for years in my 2003 Tacoma, which had smaller plastic headlights (meaning hotter interior temps) and it was never an issue, even in the summer.

I agree running the harness is a good idea for peace of mind. Though as nd4spdbh points out it mathematically is not required. I would still do it again.

I'm not sure when Toyota made the change, so test your 07 with the procedure specified in my original post.

I just put the original H4 back in there like any other bulb change if I didn't have any on hand.

There is only a 5w difference, 85w/80w, so not a major heat change from high to low. Again, I've run them in my 2003 Tacoma with smaller plastic headlights (which would get hotter than the large ones on the 2nd gen) and it was never an issue.

 

Hey crashburn, when you ordered the bulbs from the website in the OP, do they sell the bulbs as a set of two, or sold individually?

 

sub'd.

 

Bulbs are sold individually.

 

I was referring to the difference over stock specs.55w vs 80w and 60w vs 85w. A 25w difference.
Considering people have had issues with the daytime running lights causing melting I figured it might be an issue during long periods of driving with the lights on.

 

Thanks, I was going to email the company that you listed, but they don't have have an email address.

 

You have to use their contact form on the site, and then they respond by sending you an email. If anyone needs to contact them, be sure to specify 'electrical' on the contact form. Ray is very responsive and helpful. Many companies use contact forms vs publishing email as a way to eliminate spam.

 

Ah, I did not see that. Wish I looked a little harder! Thanks again, I will most likely be ordering lights from them.

 

ordering this thanks for the write up