mynameistory's not-a-build thread

What SS3 fogs did you go with?
They have several to pick from!
Thanks

 

I have the pro yellow fogs. I've thought about upgrading to the yellow max fogs, but frankly I think these are the best bang for the buck. The max offers slightly higher intensity but lower overall pattern coverage. You can see the isocandela plots attached.

Take a look at reviews here for sport and pro: https://www.tacomaworld.com/posts/22622437

And the max review here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/posts/24528029

 

I love a good isocandela plot.

 

Awesome, thank you for the info!

 

I'm just going to rename this thread "How many lights can I jam onto my truck?"

So I finally got my hands on a set of OEM bi-LED headlights. Originally, I was hoping to get the single low-beam units from select 2021 trims for the sake of simplicity. However, I think it's a moot point now. I'll explain below.

Once the headlights were in transit, I contacted Dave Easa on Tacomaworld for help on adapters. We agreed on a plan for him to ship a pigtail with bare leads so I could connect to 12V and determine pin functions.





As most have figured out, red is to light the lamp, blue is to activate the high-beam shutter, and black is a common ground. What's interesting is that the connector appears to be the same for both types of headlights, with the populated pins dropping to 2 for the low-beam only units. That's not the only similarity.

So Dave built me some harness adapters to go from the existing halogen connector on the truck to the new LED connector on the headlights. This way I wouldn't need to de-pin the connectors and I can easily return to halogen headlights if desired. But, we added an extra trick: an additional wire lead out of the shutter connection that can be controlled externally. I terminated it with a single weatherpack connector for my own harness.



The lights work perfectly. Here they are paired with Diode Dynamics SS3 Max fog lights.





As with the low beam units, they have those goofy shadow artifacts in the beams, just below the cutoffs. My theory is that Toyota used the exact same projector for both models of headlights, and then just depopulated one of the wires for the "cheaper" trims. It would be really funny if someone opens up their SR5 headlights and finds inactive shutters in the projectors. I digress.

Temporarily, I have the shutter circuit connected to the relay and switch that usually control my auxiliary driving lights. I'll need to add more relays to control my growing collection of lighting upgrades. Maybe a Bussman box or SPOD is in my future.



Warning: If you attempt this mod, you will need to figure out a way to prevent your DRL mode from pinging the shutters. Older 5th gen 4Runners use PWM to dim the high beams for DRL duty. If you are using a trigger from the high-beam circuit (like an add-a-fuse etc.), you must not directly connect it to the custom connector. Otherwise, when you turn on DRLs you will rapidly signal the shutters at a high frequency, which may wear them out or destroy them.



The way my switch and relay is laid out, I have dual control- meaning I can activate the shutters anytime in LOW and they toggle with the ordinary high beam circuit in HIGH. I can also can turn it off completely to avoid DRL buzzing the relay. However, the circuit can still be exposed if I forget to turn the switch off. Eventually I plan to build a capacitor filter to prevent the problem entirely.

Since I messed up my harness and need to wait for more wire sleeving to try again, I have not had any road experience with the quad high-beam setup. However, I am VERY impressed with the quality and intensity of the factory LED units in low beam in comparison to the older halogen units. As Crash shows in his test data here, the LED units are nearly twice as performant as the best halogen bulb upgrade and nearly three times as intense as the factory equipped halogen bulbs.

Also as suspected, the halogen reflectors are much better than the bi-LED only high beams, and they can get even better with a 9011 bulb upgrade. With an older truck and some custom wire harnessing, you can easily achieve a quad high beam setup for ultimate headlight performance! I will update when I get the new harness finished.

Dave on Tacomaworld was hugely helpful in making this happen. If you're interested in the same modification, you might want to contact him here. If it is popular enough, he might consider adding it to his custom wiring store here. He is an awesome dude and huge asset to the Toyota community.

Update: shutter controls work. Quad high-beam!
https://youtu.be/nlAaJKRtO2o

 

The extra lead is so that any 12V trigger can be connected to it. Since I have an older truck, it uses the halogens as high beams but now I also have control over the shutters in the LED projectors. Essentially I'm using the new bi-LED headlights as QUAD high beams.

Sorry for the confusion- basically the harness I'm using can be used to connect any accessory to the high beam trigger.

Right now I've disconnected my driving lights and am using it to test these shutters. I'll put them back in the grill in after redesigning the mounts (the current ones vibrate when going off-road). When that happens, I'll design a more permanent harness for these bi-LED shutters. It will likely trigger directly off of the high-beam circuit without a switch. In order to do that safely, I need to get around to making a capacitor filter so as not to flutter them in DRL mode.

That is correct. Dave can build you a harness with just the two leads, and plug off the shutter wire. Then you have perfectly usable low beam LEDs. I'm pretty convinced that they're the same headlights either way.

 

Looking forward to your impression once you mod it to have quad high beams!

 

Quad high-beams are up! Check out the video added to my post. Still have the stock 9005 bulbs installed. I have one Osram Korean 9011 bulb in hand but all of the local AutoZones are out of stock so I'll need to wait before installing.

I'd say that the halogen reflectors add more flood light (along with their hotspots), and the LED high beams add a bit more punch downrange directly above the low-beam cutoffs. So why not both?