2014 4Runner Ltd - Stock Low Beam Projectors HORRIBLE

I've just replaced the stock Halogen low beam (& high) bulbs with LED's, then tried HID's (whitest & highest Watts possible). BOTH options have TERRIBLE low brightness.

Assuming this is because the stock housing has sideways mounted bulbs on the low beams as the high beams that I replaced with LED's, are AMAZING and those bulbs insert into the housing forward.

Can someone tell me if ALL or only certain aftermarket housing has forward facing low beam bulbs? Seems like that's the way to go.

Lastly, would you recommend LED's or HID's to replace the stock fog light halogens?

Appreciate any guidance here!!

 

GTR Ultra2 LED bulbs are the best I've tried so far. Try if that works, else return them.

Next would be buying entire headlight housing with LEDs. I've seen some housing you need to remove entire housing to change LED bulbs if you have to.. So be careful. I haven't tried entire housing yet.

My testing- (there are few other bulbs I have tested on my 4Runners and my friends on my channel if you are interested.)
https://youtu.be/ADUV156Rr7c

 

I'm also interested to see anyone has installed stock headlight housing from 2020+ SR5/ TRDOFFROAD with LED lowbeam and halogen highbeam (I can swap the highbeam on reflector to LED).

I'm not a fan of stock TRD Pro/ Limited headlights with LED lowbeam and highbeam in same projector lense because the highbeam is very poor.

 

You might want to solicit some feedback from those who have the newer 20-21’? OEM headlights. I got the impression from some other threads that they weren’t really impressed with the new OEM LED headlights.

 

can't speak to how aftermarket housings are designed, you might just want to see the different options available to find out if they provide pictures of the backside of the housing. that said most of the aftermarket upgrades you see have integrated LED projectors that don't require bulbs. Morimoto and Alpharex are the common choices for this gen. Alpharex does have their Pro line that does not have LED projectors. You can put your own bulbs. However it uses H7 bulbs, which typically is cheap chinese projectors.

I'd recommend against putting HIDs or LEDs in the foglight. those housings are made for halogen bulbs. HID/LED in halogen housings will not utilize the optics correctly and just blind you and others in foggy situations. Diode Dynamics' SS3 foglights are amazing with proper cutoff and throw.

 

So what are your overall thoughts on the headlights you installed the factory ones on my 2019 are not cutting it

 

my best upgrade (and cost effective) is the H9 mod and I purchased the OEM fog lights on Amazon for like ~$100 (LED). No need for LEDs in halogen housing. Never put LED bulbs in a halogen housing, everyone else on road will thank you.

 

Drop in LED bulbs don't play nicely with our stock projectors. For the low beams I’d go H9 bulbs since they’re cheap and it’ll be a decent upgrade from stock. Just don’t expect that bright white light color unfortunately. If you're looking for that, as kmeeg suggested you might want to look at the GTR Ultra 2s. Seems to be one of the very few that do a pretty good job.

For complete headlight assemblies, I'd recommend retro-fitting OEM MY '21 and above LED housings. You'd have to swap out some plugs/wiring, but it would be a worthy upgrade. That or the Morimoto Gen2 XB headlights. They perform similarly and each have their pros/cons. After reading up on Crashnburn's testing, these two seem to be the only two worth considering.

OE housings have a softer cutoff which helps with the light/dark contrast. And the color temp is slightly warmer. So if you have sensitive eyes, that may be the better option. The biggest complaint most ppl have is that dead spot in the center but the projector hotspot. Some find this very distracting.

The Morimotos have slightly better CRI and higher peak output... But with it's whiter/bluer color and sharper cutoff, those with sensitive eyes may have issues with that.

A third option if you don't mind splitting your housings apart is to completely replace your halogen projector with a upgraded Bi-LED/LED projector. Requires a bit of work but it would be more cost effective that buying housings which usually range around $1200 when on sale.

Fogs, I'd go with OEM LED fogs or Diode dynamics for an upgrade over that while being SAE compliant. I personally went with the amber pros and love them.

 

This. H9 makes a huge difference. Seriously. I did H9s and the OEM LED fogs on my 2020 and honestly they produce overall better illumination than a lot of factory LED systems I've seen. My wife has a 2021 Honda Passport Elite, which come stock with LED everything, and I think my 4Runner with modest old H9s produces better visibility, both in distance and width.

Like a million other people, I hope for the day when drop-in aftermarket LEDs like the GTRs will produce better distance illumination AND not blind oncoming drivers. When they will work exactly like OEM halogens, just more powerful. So far as I know, none of them can do that now. I've tried a few myself and personally never got good results except in small reflector fog lights, where projecting light a long distance isn't the goal.

Try H9s. Trust me.

 

LED Options I tried -

I really like these as an easy mod vs an after market housing having to remove the bumper to install and then mess with inj fuse for drls where some seem to have problems. I can see the cutoff line with low beam too.
The down side - None of the LED bulbs had a wide field of view like the stock LED headlights on my 2021. So I have to run the fogs at all times to fill the sides.

I will try to make a side by side video of stock LED vs Headlight Revolution SV4 where the light patters is much narrower than GTR Ultra2. My current video software "Windows movie maker" does not have this side by side option. Since I don't make any money from Youtube I don't like to spend money.




For a cheaper option these $55 Nilight Lowbeam + Highbeam package is pretty good too. They have a cutoff line as tested on my Limited.





Halogen options I tried -

I tried these high power halogens but they are no where near as the light output of any of the LED bulbs I tried so far. (Free to pickup these for anyone here in CO)
BTW don't trust pics from sellers. If I was a seller I can easily make these look brighter than any other light by using manual settings on my camera with high iso and lower shutter speed.

 

I too would recommend the H9's for your low beams.

For high beams, you can do a 9011 swap.

I haven't seen anyone else do this but I swapped out my H16 fog light bulbs for H8's. That worked out really well when you compare the price I paid for the bulbs vs the price for upgrading to an LED foglight housing with LED bulbs.

All these together made a big improvement over stock.

 

https://www.lasfit.com/collections/...14-2020-toyota-4runner?variant=32056052514900

I recently bought and installed this LED light, it comes with dual fans. Fan on the build base and also its own custom dust cover that replaced the oem dust covers.
Very bright and good distance IMO, very happy with them.
For fogs I upgraded to BD LED street amber fogs a year ago, still doing great, love those too.

 

I have 4300k HID bulbs in our 4R with 50w hylux ballasts and get much better performance than stock.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/35W-H8-H11-Xenon-HID-KIT-Driving-Light-Car-Auto-Headlight-Straight-Lamp-Cnlight-/272209066666

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2pcs-Hylux...-for-Headlight-Replacement-Bulb-/113685340851

For the fogs i have the Morimotos but if they blow eventually I will replace them with OEM Lexus fogs like I have in my Taco, IMO they are better than the Morimoto.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Toyota-Led...ack-Bezel-Genuine-OEM-Accessory-/254116733804

 

I had 35w HIDs before I tried GTR Ultra2 LEDs. It definitely had good light output than stock. But I had 2 problems.

1. I didn't like the wire mess. The relay, ballast, ignitor. It was ugly. Also wasn't happy about drilling holes on dust cap and relying on the rubber washer comes with the kit to prevent moisture getting in to the housing.

2. After running about an year couple of times my friends told me that one of the bulbs not working on trips and I didn't notice because I always run fogs. When I turn off and turn back on it lights up without an issue and I cannot reproduce the problem when I need. It's just random. I run a relay harness from battery and not relying on headlight socket current. Headlight socket was only used to trigger the relay and a good fat wire is providing current to the HIDs.

#2 made the biggest impact to switch to LEDs and bought new dust caps from dealership. I was very pleased to have the clean look back.

(Just shared my experience and by no means to say not to run HID. It is just my personal preference.)

I bought the HIDs from LEDRwR here in CO that sells all sorts of headlight related stuff. HIDs, LEDs, Some kind of ringlight around the projector like in BMWs(forgot the name), etc..

 

Before you spend big bucks and high complexity, for $70 you can buy 2 Philips low beam H9 bulbs and 2 Philips high beam 9011 bulbs on Amazon, modify them per this thread. See post 11.
https://www.4runners.com/threads/af...ver-side-light-stuck-to-on.22447/#post-284482

Lots of folks have been doing this for years. It’s a big improvement over stock.

For fog lights here’s a good option

$134 Toyota Fog Light - PT413-42190

https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-PT413-42190-Fog-Light-Chrome/dp/B07DBPYC4D?keywords=Toyota+PT413-42190+Fog+Light+%28Chrome%29%2C+1+Pack+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2FB07DBPYC4D%2Fref%3Dcm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_67SY60Z29AE4KFMKV9NW%3F_encoding%3DUTF8&qid=1637956325&qsid=133-1928613-4631942&sr=8-1-fkmr0&sres=B07DBPYC4D%2CB084JR82XB%2CB07FZ8S74R%2CB00R92CL5E%2CB08HGPHCVT%2CB07J579C7Q%2CB077SGQKQQ%2CB07FJPMML6%2CB082VJ1WJM%2CB07B1656WY%2CB07ZJHL2ZJ%2CB08D943B15&srpt=VEHICLE_LIGHT_ASSEMBLY

For even better fog lights, these are recommended by many 4Runner owners:
Diode Dynamics SS3 Sport fogs
https://www.diodedynamics.com/ss3-led-fog-light-kit-for-2010-2021-toyota-4runner.html

 

I never run harnesses, just wire ballasts in between stock wiring. The grommets have never leaked in almost 8 years and 100k

 

It is great that you have no issues what so ever for 8 years.
However it is advisable to to have a wire harness for HIDs and not run from stock halogen wiring. Halogen wiring does not have a big startup current / spike like HIDs do. When HIDs already started (ignited) its not a problem. Its the startup current from the igniter needs a big current. So having a wire harness from the battery is the safest way to supply power for HIDs.

 

Yeah, I am familiar with all of that, been working with HID for many years. Some vehicles need harnesses, some don’t. The 4Runner does not for most ballasts.

 

It’s not so much that the stock wiring can’t handle the current, it’s that the push button switch may be close to its rated limits. Switching heavy DC resistive loads can cause arcing and pitting of (cheap) switch contacts over time. Relays generally have higher contact ratings.

 

Push button switch?

I thought all 5th gen headlight switches were on the stalk.

 

True. I was thinking more along the lines of when adding auxiliary lighting.

 

Maybe we arent talking about the same thing so means i am correct in what i was talking about.

 

Can you please give some examples of what vehicles needed harness and few that is not needed?

(I'm seriously asking for my knowledge it's not for sarcasm. Genuinely trying to learn. )

 

Yeah, you can make it work like that. The topic is kind of controversial. Some insist that the conservative best practice is to use a separate heavier gauge wire harness to minimize any voltage drop.