bbrock1415

Did you make your own wiring harness or did you buy a premade one?

Right now I am leaning towards the hella housing and my plan has always to been to switch the bulb to probably a sylvania. I haven't read much on the phillips

cobolt23

RAD, have you tried a well known name brand bulb in the Autopals?

I had gotten 5 3/4" round headlights and had the same issue. I had some GE bulbs from when I changed out my wifes (change bulbs every year just before winter for best brightness) lieing around. I tried them and it fixed the dull "spots" and had a better cut off.

xXbrutalXcoreXx

Check out http://www.theretrofitsource.com/ for a serious upgrade. I built my my headlights using Autopal housings and retrofitting their DS2 mini projectors into them. The output it amazing and the cutoff is better than any halogen. Just more options to consider.

RAD4Runner

Thanks for that idea, cobolt23. I was wondering about that. I asked the EBay vendor but he had no idea.

xXbrutalXcoreXx, yeah- Proper HID is definitely the ultimate. I love the cut-off and wide beam spread. How labor-intensive is it? hoe expensive? Got a write-up?

TIA.

xXbrutalXcoreXx

I haven't found a clear cut write up for retrofit projectors into an h6054 housing, but the process was pretty straight forward. I'd say from start to finish, I had about 20 hours invested in the retrofit. Most of the time I spent wondering how the projector would even fit in the housing. Once I had the first one done, I had the 2nd one completely done start to finish in just 2 or 3 hours. You can check out the prices on the site that I listed, but it looks like the current price for just about everything you'll need projector wise is $110. So all in all, it is really not that expensive at all if you look at prices of buying completed projectors. This is the thread that got me first interested in retrofitting: http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...trofitting-it!

RAD4Runner

Thanks for sharing xXbrutalXcoreXx

Richard

I've been using these with great results DDM

bbrock1415

Do you have any dark spots like noted in the post above? Also which bulbs do you run in these?

RSR

I'll try to post some pics this evening. I actually went back and did full pics for folks to compare.

The hella's come with Hella bulbs that are decent. I don't think the PIAA's do and the roundeyes do I believe.

Beam pattern is without question better than the AutoPals...

The bulbs in the Hella and wattage they are is, I believe, what is road legal. If you upgrade wattage, especially for low beams, you could potentially get yourself a ticket. Don't know that highbeams really matter.

I will note that I originally thought that swapping these lights would make bulb swaps easier. Well, I don't think so. I will still go the remove the grille route. Do yourself a favor though and order all 16 or so clips (note they're all the same size but the two top right and left corners are gray instead of black and a separate part number). I think all replacement clips were $5 or so. Super cheap.
But why remove the grille? B/c otherwise to remove the bulbs you have to remove your battery on passenger side and remove the air intake deflector on the driver side. It's easier for me to take 15 minutes with my long screwdriver and then pull the front grill cover. And to reinstall, I found it was easier to remove all the clips from the frame (twist sideways), install in grille, and then align one clip with the middle of it's slot when pushing on...

Cost for me was wiring harness was $30, lights were ~$95 (bought these ones - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hella-003427...-/161079324027), Dick Cepek stone guards were $15 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wire-Stone-R...-/121155277263), and then the clips were ~$5. So it was a ~$150 project all in. Which I figured was pretty cheap if it saves me from hitting a deer, a nasty pothole or something else... The stock sealed beams are crap.

RAD4Runner

Thanks for this info, RSR

Agree, Low beams should only be 55W. Upgrade bulbs typically have 55-W low-beams and 100W highs. Street-legal for high beams is 60 W so just don't go around driving in high beams.

On first gen 4Runner 22R /22RE, this is not an issue. Once you have replaced your sealed beam with the conversion fixture you only need access from behind the bulb. No more need to remove the grille.

.

I hate these clips and other hidden fasteners so I retrofitted my grille mounting with simple expansion nuts and screw combination

Exactly, and so is stock wiring. I looked at current model Corolla's and they still have same flaws explained in my write-up. (And I thought toyota has better electrical engineers now).

RSR

I posted some wiring harness pics here and added my writeup to avaitor's:
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f131.../#post52106589

Previously posted some pics of the Hella's vs sealed beams here: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116.../#post52093784

Will post more pics at some point this weekend.

RAD4Runner

Thanks, RSR.
Guys, if "you get what you pay for" applies here, I would expect Hella's to have a more uniform beam pattern compared to AutoPal's. Does anyone have a picture of beam pattern from Hella's, Roundeyes, and IPF so we can compare?

RSR

I posted some pics of the Hellas over here: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...version-272021

RAD4Runner

Nice! Thanks, RSR. So folks, comparing uniform beam pattern of RSR's Hella's and my spotty Autopal's ^^, you now can make a decision between the two.

Green93

These are all nice options but if you want an improvement without wiring and a big expense try some E codes. I got mine from rallylights.com. Definitely not as good as projectors but were a simple improvement.

RSR

E codes are european housings and not DOT approved, btw. I don't want a ticket and the Vision plus are at least 50% brighter than stock, so I'm happy.

I *think* the difference between e code and vision plus is that DOT requires some light to be scattered to up right and left to illuminate road signs. So that 5-10% of light you're losing up due to beam pattern is not going to the road like the e codes. Shouldn't be any big difference on brights however.