SERIOUS headlight upgrades? Thinking about Projectors...

[thewanderlustking]

On the Mini Cruiser, upgrading to H4 housings, rally bulbs (140/100watt), and new relay harnesses seemed to do the trick.  Although I didn't have a ton of seat time at night, the lights never felt like an issue.  My 4Runners though, SUCK.  Okay the new 2024 is actually pretty amazing,, and contributes greatly to my dissatisfaction with the 1993 and 1994 light outputs...   

 

I don't know when/if there was a crossover point on the pickup chassis?  But 1992-1995 for the 4Runners used factory housings, and not the rectangular  easily replaceable sealed beam sizes the earlier pickups and 4runners used.

 

On my 1994 I upgraded housings to clear Depo, and have tried a whole gambit of bulbs.  Even the rally type 140/100watt h4 bulbs with relay harnesses don't cut it.  I have LED bulbs in there now, they are probably worse than the halogens.   I haven't thrown any HID in there yet, but I am not a big fan of doing that in standard halogen housings.  

 

Option A:  HID might be an option still, and its cheap as chips these days.  But I would want a dual neon setup and fitting those would require removing the forward reflector.    I am not sure I can do that non/destructively.  I guess it doesn't matter though if I can get them out without opening the housings up.

 

1)  Any real point to trying HID in there without projectors?  My 1994 has the clear lens Depo's, but the 1993 has factory Toyota fluted housings, so I am probably not burning money if they don't work in the Depos as well as I want...

 

2)  Buy or make projector housings???  Next question before this one gets answered...

 

3)  LED or HID?  

 

Option B:  So there are only three companies making projectors specifically for my truck.  One uses LED modules and has a handful of design options.  Its a "cottage/garage" shop that I have used before.  I am confident the workmanship is on point.  Price is a touch steep at $550-600 a set.  I managed to reverse engineer and figure out the LED modules he uses.  They seem to be of reasonable quality, but I am not fully confident in them.  I don't like that I am stuck with the one color choice and light output option... Still these are at least American Assembled and supporting a small business.

 

Option 😄  The next option is most defiantly a Chinese company, CrazyTheGod.  Need I say more lol?  They are pretty big and make lights for a LOT of vehicles.  Their housings are under $500, and come with HID.  They use H1 style bulbs, so  replacing them with different color HID, LED, or even halogen bulbs would be simple.  This is appealing and the biggest selling point for these, other than they are already built.  Blue tinted lights give me eye strain.  Ultra white seem to be okay, but I do prefer the halogen yellow color.  The only drawback to these lights is the lack of reviews I can find on them, and if I am spending more than $400, I really want RGB demon eyes...  They appear to have a DRL bulb socket, so I "might" be able to use that, but info is kinda scarce.  Price and simplicity is right though.

 

Option D: The last pre-made option is a reputable tuner shop/company in the states.  They can customize and I can get the RGB eyes too.  They use hight quality modules, I believe Morimoto.  They are way too much with the options I picked out though, over a grand I believe it was.  And they were offering only LED modules for the primary light.   

 

If I buy a pre-made setup, I am leaning towards C.  I am skeptical on its quality, but the bulb is easily replaceable.  If the high?low cutoff beam solenoid is up to the task, then its worth the risk.  

 

The final option is to just DIY it myself.  This isn't the cheapest way to do it, but it does seem easy enough.  Actually I COULD do it this way for MUCH less than the other options, if I use less expensive eBay parts.  I could get it done for under $100.  But if I am going to DIY it, I will probably use all Morimoto parts.  It is a little difficult to nail a price down until I decide on every little detail, but it looks to be about $400-600.  I could likely cut that down a bit by using a cheap HID setup instead of the Morimoto HID bulbs and ballasts.  But if I am in for a pound, might as well lol.      

 

 

Anyways, has anyone here done the Projectors or DIY Projectors route?  Should I even bother, or just try tossing some HID bulbs into the housings as is?

 

My rig does see some brutal conditions and go off-road now and again.  LED modules are preferred by the off-road/overland guys for reliability.  But if I loose a bulb or ballast in a water crossing, they are easily replaceable.  And the amount of times that's going to be an issue, isn't a big concern.  Its a trade off I am willing to take to have flexibility in color choice.  With that said, I need to rewire my KC auxiliary lights I took out in the last storm crossing....   

    

Edited April 27, 2025 by thewanderlustking

[WME]

Cars...2007 Rav4, 1986 Toyota Escaper MH. General comments,

Stock-MEH

Stock plus relay- Still Meh but better.

Rally blubs-very unhappy alternator on 86 Escaper 

Early LED- brighter, but poor focus due to multiple LEDs 

HID brighter, single point of light, good focus. No color temp choice

New LED brighter 2 leds single light source, good focus color temp choices.

IMHO a GOOD HID is best, second would be a 6000k modern LED.

 

Clueless about Projectors

 

[IdahoDoug]

King,

 

You are wise in several comments you made.  The eyestrain comment - yes harsh blue/superwhite bulbs are a poor ergonomic choice.  Aftermarket LEDs are also a poor choice for rain/fog/snow/dust driving though they're getting better. FYI, I have some experience with various automotive lighting systems as a former vehicle developer, and have been a life long lighting enthusiast.  I currently have a BMW with factory HID and this is MEH to use WME's rating system (heh).  My wife drives a late model Outback with factory projectors, which came to life when I put HIR bulbs in it (not likely available for your application).  All the other vehicles I own have upgraded halogen bulbs and/or lamps, and have a set of full size (9" dia) Hella auxiliary beams (80 Series LandCruisers, Vanagon).  These systems I'd rate as "excellent" and people comment on them when all lamps are on.

 

Very specifically, I'd buy a pair of Koito H4 lamps from Daniel Stern Lighting.  You'll pay a bit more ($250?) but you'll get the real deal, not a repacked non European lamp.  I've had Hella H4s (real Euro) and the Koitos have a slightly wider high beam pattern and are higher quality overall.  Then, I'd get a pair of quality bulbs (Daniel will suggest), not cheap upgrades.  FYI, a normal wattage quality bulb will provide more light than a high wattage poor quality bulb.  For reasons of physics, the lamp filament must be EXACTLY in a 3 dimensional spot called the focal point in the lamp.  The entire lamp was designed around this tiny pinprick point to work optimally.

 

These lamps are made in the square for my 82, as well as the round for other years, which I have in a classic Porsche and they're truly the best quality out there.  These halogen bulbs will also be easier on your eyes, won't sear your retinas from freeway signs bouncing back LED frequencies, etc.  And on high beam they're powerful.  Best of all they're an easy fit. If these are still not enough, put a full size pair of Hellas on the bumper and prepared to be amazed.  Wups, just reread before posting and I think this is useless because you're asking about a 4Runner?

[thewanderlustking]

On 4/28/2025 at 11:40 PM, IdahoDoug said:

King,

 

… Wups, just reread before posting and I think this is useless because you're asking about a 4Runner?

Yea but that’s okay as the info is great and very suited to the pickup platform most of our RVs are on. 
 

In theory I can run those koito housings on my ‘runner, if I grill swap it. I almost went down this route too, but a couple pieces needed are really hard to find. 
 

But you may hit on a point I hadn’t considered too…  I had been running some good quality halogen bulbs I order from the UK, but my last set popped a bulb and I threw in some replacements I found that may have been dubious quality…. The good bulb may have burned out as at some point around that time I lost the ground from the battery to body. So everything was going through the noisy engine ground….  
 

I’m going to have to look into those HIR bulbs some more, VERY INTERESTING!  
 

Currently, I have some vintage KC Daylighter auxiliaries on my daily.  They take H1 bulbs and I’ve tried a couple different things out.  The wiring burned up after tropical storm Debbie came through…. Even a week after some, of the main roads around here were still flooded out.  I took a turn down a road that looked okay at first, but it quickly got deep. I ended up having to go into 4Lo.  It was 18-24” deep for close to a mile.  The only causality was that wiring, so I considered it a big win lol!  
 

Anyways lots of homework and studying to go do!  

[Ssunrader]

I’m keeping my original Koito sealed beams. The upgrade so far was to free up the rusted screws in case they need to be replaced.

I do like those Koito H4 lenses though.

[thewanderlustking]

Well my “before anything else” starting point is going to be charging  wiring upgrades….  I redid my grounds, but the other week my truck shut down on lunchtime. The power wire on the alternator vibrated itself apart. I was able to strip it back and replace the terminal and get back online in a few minutes, but it’s a silly small like 12g wire.  I think I will run a larger gauge wire from the battery to the alternator, and repurpose the current wire to install a secondary fuse box on the driver’s side. 
 

Housings…. The only way I get off inexpensively, is to DIY something and use what I have. I already spent money on crystal Depo housings for my truck. The other has Toyota fluted housings that are also supposed to be pretty good. If I’m buying a premade option, I’m going with the “Crazythegod” projector housings. Those at least let me swap bulbs out.   
 

But for that money I can probably DIY a better quality setup for a little less and use high end Morimoto parts….

[thewanderlustking]

I went with the "roll my own" approach.  I used the Depo housings I already had, and put Morimoto D2s projectors inside.  I initially went with Morimoto HID blasts and bulbs.  I had a failure caused by a bad connection of the ignitor cable to bulb that wiped out the ballast.  I found out I could use a different bulb type that eliminated that cable, so I grabbed that and used some other ballasts I had on hand for my 1993 (yes, I bought another one lol...)    

 

Unfortunately for the RGB Demon eyes, I just went with some cheap Amazon ones.  This part was just for fun, but I still should have sprung for better quality on anything going inside the headlight housings.  Within a few minutes of powering them up and playing around with them on the app, one side was dimmer/slightly different color.  I think it is a bad light/chip in the housing, as swapping the outputs from the controller doesn't change anything.  Lesson learned.  

 

Fortunately, opening up the housings was much easier than I expected.  This was the part that I had been dreading, and it turned out to actually be the simplest step in the whole process.   

 

The hardest part was wiring it up...  Toyota's dual ground headlight system made things unnecessarily difficult.  I thought I could use the H4 headlight conversion harness that was already installed, but it didn't play nice with the new HID system after I spent all the time swapping plugs out.  In the end I did find a cheap off the shelf controller/harness that worked without modification.  

 

Interesting sidenote:  On my 1993 I noticed the the high beam indicator is really bright.  On my 1994, it is almost impossible to see.  When I was trying to get the HID setup working on the 1993, the high beam indicator stopped working with the system plugged in.  My theory was the relay system didn't have enough resistance to light up the indicator.  To test this theory out, I went hunting for some "LED can-bus anti flicker resistors".  The relay harnesses just use one side/headlight input. leaving the driver side open.  This is the same for the high power halogen upgrade harnesses and for the HID controller setups.  So I plugged one of the resistor setups into the drivers side plug, and viola!  I now have a visible and BRIGHT high beam indicator!      

 

So with the right harnesses, wiring it up becomes almost plug and play.

 

Light output is MILES above the original halogen setup.  And I have room for improvement too.  Still trying to get the perfect aim dialed in.  I went from too high, to too low.  Also, I am using much cheaper HID bulbs and lower wattage ballasts.  It isn't quite up to the level of my 2023 4Runner, yet, but I think I can get it there.