The ultimate headlight upgrade H4 (not LED or HID)

My build goal is to drastically increase the light output from the stock headlights without sacrificing quality, durability or the OEM lighting optics and improve the look of the truck at the same time.

Rather than trying to change the technology that is used by the halogen reflector headlights (like improperly stuffing HID or LED bulbs in a reflector lens designed specifically for halogen bulbs), I just improved on the same technology by cranking up the power, adding some new school tricks to old school tech, and improved the efficiency while selecting better looking OEM parts.

First off the results. New setup on the left, stock on the right (more output pics later in post):


Now that I have your attention...

This upgrade results in over a 2x improvement from stock. It consists of the following:
NOTE: 3rd Gen trucks using H11 headlights should see this thread.

1) Osram Hyper 85/80w 2400 lumen H4s - Made in Germany (Discontinued):
These bulbs produce 2400/1750 lumens, which is significantly more than the ~1500/1000 lumens stock. This is done by a combination of overdriving the filament and running much higher wattage than stock in a high efficiency bulb. Because the optics are correct for a halogen, a greater percentage of the light will also be placed on the road compared to an HID/LED conversion. These bulbs do not have a cosmetic bulb coating to look cool, which also reduces lumen output, meaning they are a true purebred performance bulb. They will still burn whiter than stock and also have decent bulb life for being a high wattage bulb, being rated at 200 hours. The Osrams will drastically outperform the PIAA style “60w=110w” type bulbs. These bulbs will be limited in output without the additional standalone harness upgrade. Also note Osram is Toyotas OEM headlight bulb supplier, so they meet Toyota’s strict product quality standards.
See how they compare to the Chinese knockoffs here. These are a high wattage, high efficiency bulb, meaning they increase output and extend distance projection.
There is an AllSeason version of this 85/80w bulb, see how it compares here.

German Osram 85w 2400 lumen performance bulbs:


Update: 10/5/16:
1) Osram Super Bright 100/90w 2900 lumen H4s - Made in Germany:
Osram has released a German made Bilux H4 100/90w bulb rated at 2900/1700 lumens. While the high beam rating has been significantly improved (by over 20%), the low beam rating and life remain nearly unchanged. Low beams always burn out first in a dual filament bulb. The low beam is still rated at 200 hours, just like the Hyper bulbs. However these are not a high efficiency bulb like the Hypers, meaning they have a less focused hot spot. So while they increase output they do not extend distance projection. You can see the comparison here. Stock wattage high efficiency bulbs that extend distance projection are listed at the end of the thread.

German Osram 100/90w 2900 lumen performance bulbs:


I have not found these bulbs available from a retailer in the USA yet. Powerbulbs out of the UK sells them for a good price and ships to the USA for free (linked above). I always recommend buying 2 sets. I have also found the bulbs on eBay, but Chinese versions are rampant on eBay, so be cautious of what you buy. Compare the boxes to the boxes pictured above and check where it is made and the country it is shipping from. If unsure I would recommend buying from PowerBulbs.

For other bulb recomendations, including "whiter" bulbs and those that do not require a harness, see the Other Bulbs section at the end of the thread.

2) Headlight Services Harness (Recommended Harness)
This harness is built in the USA with exceptional attention to detail using very high quality components. The harness uses heavy duty 12 gauge wiring and Bosch-Tyco TE European relays with ceramic plugs to bypass the factory wiring and switches, drawing power directly from the battery. The 12 gauge heavy duty wiring with a direct lead to the battery is more efficient, reducing voltage drop and causing your lights to burn brighter, and isolates the factory wiring from the increased loads of the high power bulbs. The harness is entirely plug and play, the factory switch will control the relay on the harness, to control the lights as if it were stock. You can see the excellent build quality documented here. You can see my side-by-side comparison with the Rallylights harness here.

Rallylights standalone harness
These harnesses are made in the USA by RallyLights using 12 gauge wiring and Hella components. Rallylights part number HL28200.

Ground switched harness:
Ground switched is more common on the first gen and older trucks. If you run the electrical ground system test listed below and determine you have a ground switched truck unlike my 2015, you need this ground switched harness instead of the conventional one linked above.
Headlight Services ground switched harness - listed under 4Runner (Headlight Services is the recommended Harness)
Rallylights ground switched harness - part number HL28200S


Rallylights conventionally switched heavy duty headlight harness. See update here.


3) OEM 2012-2015 TRD Pro headlights (optional cosmetic upgrade) - Made in the USA:
Right #81110-04221
Left #81150-04221
The Pro lights are similar to the BHLM, but factory, in a smoked chrome MGM-like color. This upgrade is only cosmetic over stock and not required for increased light output. Unlike the BHLM, there is no breaking of the seals on the headlights and no need to worry about condensation or leaks inside the headlight. Being OEM these will be the highest quality one can buy and also will have the correct lighting optics, which isn’t always the case with aftermarket lights. The links above were the cheapest I found online. I sold my OEM headlights for $180 without trying, meaning the new set only cost me $220.

OEM 2005-2011 smoked headlights:
These are like the Pro lights, but came on select Sport models. These are the updated TSB version of the lights that do not have the melting DRL issue. TSB is available here.
Right: 81110-04210
Left: 81150-04210

Stock light on left, Pro on right:


Determining your electrical ground system:
Toyota previously has produced their trucks with ground switched wiring. I’ve done this upgrade on my 3 previous Toyota trucks (89, 94, 03) I’ve owned, and all have used the ground switched wiring. Ground switched is when power is always constant and the ground is completed to activate the circuit, vs conventional the power is completed to activate the circuit. I originally ordered the ground switched harness but it did not work on my 2015 Tacoma. After emailing rallylights.com, the guy that built my harness sent me the following test info, which led me to conclude I actually had conventionally switched wiring.

Ground Test Procedure:
-Looking at the back of the factory Toyota H4 headlight connector, as installed, the outside two connections are vertical & the top connection is horizontal.
-The left connection, when viewed from the back, is the "common" H4 connection.
-On a Ground Switched vehicle, the left connection would have +12 volts (in relation to ground) as soon as the headlight switch is turned on.
-On a Conventionally Switched vehicle, the left "common" connection would ground directly to the chassis and would not have any measurable voltage present. Note that you are looking for 0v vs 12v+. A measurement of 0.xxv is noise and should be considered 0 for the purpose of this test.

I tested the common connection with a multimeter and determined my truck was conventionally switched. You can also use a simple bulb voltage detector for this test.

Testing ground:



Install:
If you can replace your headlight bulbs and change a car battery, you can install this harness, it is completely plug and play.

Install instructions:


I routed my wiring under the radiator shroud and used zip ties in the empty holes to secure it in place:


Shroud reinstalled:


Comparing the stock wiring and plastic plug vs HD harness wiring and ceramic plug:


For installing my Pro headlights, I used this thread to read up on removal. I won’t bother to re-invent the wheel: headlight-removal-pics

Be sure to tape off your horizon and alignment lines before removing your lights. I parked 20ft away from a wall and used painters tape to mark the horizon and the hot spot center points of the OEM beam pattern for each light. After swapping the headlight assemblies I put the truck back in the same spot and adjusted the alignment to match the tape marks. I also recommend doing one headlight at a time to use the horizon line from the untouched light to double validate the replaced light and adjust the horizon accordingly.

Aiming adjusters on back of the headlight.
I highly recommend only adjusting the vertical adjuster:



The hidden bolt seems tricky but after removing the lower flap it only takes a minute once you find it. Not reinstalling this bolt as so many mention is just unacceptable laziness. Take pride in your work people.

Picture looking up under the front bumper with the wrench on the hidden bolt:


In order to get the old lights out, I struggled to get the lower light tab to clear the bumper skin. I ended up disconnecting the bumper, but not removing it, just to get more play so I could get the lights out and the new ones in. I used instructions from grillcraft here.

Grill removed and bumper detached (but not removed) for headlight install:


New Pro headlights installed:


Compared to a stocker in the parking lot:


Testing output:
Scientifically quantitative results are always better than subjectivity. Using my light Lux meter to measure light output before and after the upgrade.

Stock high beam 290 lux:


Ultimate high beam 609 lux. Over 100% improvement from stock.


Glare:
While the lights are measure 100% brighter than stock, they are also correctly engineered so the cut off plane is still maintained and oncoming drivers are not blinded. Uninformed people so often look at their LED/HID upgrade head-on and see the glare and think that is good because it must mean they are brighter, when in-fact, it is because it is done wrong and the cut off is lost. A headlight upgrade done correctly, will be indistinguishable to oncoming drivers while the driver will see massive improvement.

Stock left (passenger), Ultimate 100%+ brighter on the right (driver). The engineered cut off is maintained and looks the same. No offensive glare or scatter, unlike HID/LEDs in reflectors.


Heat:
People have understandably expressed concern over heat output of high powered halogens. I took some IR laser temp readings of stock compared to ultimate, with the ambient temp of 57 degrees.

Stock operating temp, 121 degrees:


Ultimate operating temp, 148 degrees:


Why not HID/LED?
For an in-depth explanation with photos, and to see how this headlight upgrade compares to higher powered LEDs, read this thread.

For those that did not know you cannot put HIDs in a reflector housing (like the 1st/2nd gen Tacoma) without throwing significant light into the air, known as scatter which is caused by using the wrong bulb in an incompatible reflector. This scatter blinds oncoming drivers and wastes light that could be used to illuminate the road. With less light projected to the road this is actually a downgrade, despite the color and glare hitting street signs making you think otherwise.

LEDs have recently become popular, but most that improve light output over stock use microprocessor cooling fans to cool the LED circuit. Not a very durable design for off-road use, or any use. The cooling fan versions also require cutting of the rear headlight boot to fit, meaning the seal is shot and condensation inside the lens could become an issue. The optics are questionable as LED light is directional vs Halogen being omni-directional. Numerous threads on TW have had people go to LEDs only later to return to Halogen due to the lack of reliability, the incorrect optics, and superior spectrum of the Halogens.

Additional Notes:
Update 3/15/16:
Tacoma had a 85w bulb burn out today after 6 months. Swapped both bulbs with a new set.
Escape is going strong with 14 months on the 85w bulbs (also has standalone harness). Bulb bulb burnt out 2 days later. 3/17/16.

Headlight DRLs
NOTE: If you have daytime running lights that use the headlights (not the amber indicators) this mod will disable the headlight DRL function. This is because the headlight DRLs use a reduced wattage high beam, by installing this mod the circuit becomes an on/off switch due to the relay that is able to take the extra current. Since the relay is either on or off, the headlights are either on or off and do not operate at partial wattage like the DRLs. This has no effect if your DRLs utilize the amber indicators like the majority of Tacomas.

Additional output pics after adding the Ultimate fog light upgrade:

And some people claim halogens have no cut off.



Output of just the 85/80w All Seasons. More info at post #1520 here.


Additional reference:
There is also a 1st gen spin off thread, with independent results and more pictures: proper-headlight-upgrade

Other bulbs
I often get asked for other bulb recommendations, here is documented measured output data:







Whiter high wattage performance bulbs:
Optilux H4 100/80w - Not Recommended. See my experience with Optilux.
These bulbs are a subrand of Hella, but for H13s were actually repackaged bulbs from 'Heliolite'. The H4s are rated at 2600/1575 lumens, with a life of 150hrs compared to the 2900/1700 lumen 200hr bulbs from Osram. That is the performance penalty of having a coated bulb to produce whiter output.
Why do I recommend non coated bulbs? Read this from Daniel Stern.

Stock wattage performance bulbs
Stock wattage high performance bulbs do not actually put out more light, instead they use smaller high precision filaments to make the light more focused and intense for the headlight to use more efficiently and project a brighter hotspot further. You can see an short article by Philips explaining how these bulbs work here.

These are currently the highest performing stock wattage bulbs on the market:

• Philips Racing Vision +150 or +200 - Best low beam, reduced high beam output. See updated +200 review in post #3169. Followed by Osram Nightbreaker +200 in post #4066.
• GE Lighting H4 NHX/BP2 Nighthawk Xenon Replacement Headlight Bulb, 2-Pack
  GE Nighthawk Xenon +120 - Full performance high beam

Which bulb is best? Depends on your needs. The +150 bulbs are going to provide excellent low beam performance, but coat the high beam reducing performance. The Philips are rated at 200hrs. The GE +120s have a blue coating on the tip but leave both the low and high beam uncoated giving superior high beam performance with a slightly lower low beam performance over the other bulbs. You can compare lux performance over stock in the above charts.

Other bulbs
Hella 80/100w

Philips vs Volsa:
While Osram and Philips are constantly compared and about equal when running the latest version of each bulb, I hadn't seen any comparison with Volsa +100, which was marketed as a replacement to the outgoing 70w Osrams. So I took the opportunity to compare them on a 1st Gen later in the thread here.

Note that Sylvania Silverstars (different than Osram Silverstars) are not on the list, as a fully coated stock wattage bulb is lower performing. The Silverstar XZE have an output of 1500/910 lumens and a life of 150hrs.
Here is a breakdown from Candlepower.

Replacing bad headlight assemblies
Replacing bad headlights alone can make a huge difference. The best headlight assemblies are OEM. Large reflectors like the 2nd Gen has are the highest performing type of assemblies, see how the large reflector 2nd Gen assemblies compare to the 3rd Gen projector assemblies here.

I did some testing when replacing stock badly hazed headlights on a 1st Gen with new CAPA Depo headlights and Volsa +100 bulbs and it made a massive difference. We didn't use a harness or high wattage. See info posted later in the thread here. However the original lights were is such poor condition from decades in the AZ sun, that anything would have been an improvement.

Halogens dim over time
Halogen bulbs dim over time, typically loosing ~20% of their output by the bulbs end of life. You can see my post covering this with measured data on the Hyper bulbs in post #1465. Which is one of the reasons bulbs should be replaced in pairs.

Link to the headlight wiring diagram
Here.

Shopping List
I often get asked for the abbreviated version of what to buy for a harness and high power bulbs.

Buying from Headlight Services:
Conventionally switched wiring harnesses - Dual H4 Headlamps
Ground switched wiring harness - listed under 4Runner
Note you can also buy Philips/Narva 100/90w bulbs from Headlight Services.

Buying from Rallylights:
Conventionally switched wiring harness - H4 part number HL28200
Ground switched wiring harness - H4 part number HL28200S

Buying from PowerBulbs:
If wanting maximum high beam performance instead of the 85/80w bulbs.
100/90w Osram Super Brights


Other lighting upgrades
If you found this interesting you may be interested in my other lighting threads.

Fog light upgrades:
The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Other lighting upgrades:
3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights
Gy6.35 HIR 921 reverse light upgrade (vs high power LEDs)
The 921 LED Reverse Light Bulb Study

Rock Lights:
The Rock Light Showdown

More information on automotive lighting:
Automotive Lighting 101
Why LEDs should not be run in Halogen reflectors

Home lighting upgrades:
High quality efficient home lighting using LEDs, HIRs and Halogens

Need Help?
I am always happy to help anyone on their truck projects. If you have any questions don't hesitate to message me or post in this thread.

Testimonials
I thought it would be helpful to have a few quotes from other members in this thread who performed the upgrade, I only included a few:

 

Never heard of this. So "properly" retrofitted headlights (not ebay headlights) are not actually proper? When analyzing their cutoff lines they don't seem to throw light at any other drivers. Either way, good job.

 

If you are putting HIDs in a halogen reflector, it is not 'properly" done. If you have retrofitted your reflector to a projector it is a different story.

 

Can we get a couple more out put pics?

 

I've done this on my previous Tacoma and did not get flashed. As long as the lenses are properly aligned, which I forgot to mention, if the other drivers are below your headlight horizon they will not be affected. I got flashed far more running HIDs in halogen reflectors.

Most my immediate surrounding streets have street lights. Next opportunity to take pics on an unlit road I will post them, though the lights are now installed on both sides so there isn't much of a comparison. However, the lumen output is quantifiable, and these are rated at 2400 lumens, which is approaching 2x over stock.

 

So all in all how much money did you have to put out for everything and do you recommend the pro light housings or are stock ok to use in this situation as well?

 

I don't think that's what OP cares about maybe his truck is a dedicated off road toy

 

$132 without the new Pro headlight assemblies. The bulbs and harness are all that is required for this upgrade. The Pro lights are just a cosmetic upgrade for those wanting something more aggressive looking.

Correct. Just like HID retrofits are not legal. Most LED retrofits are not legal. Most projector retrofits are not legal. Pick your poison, this upgrade keeps light where it is designed to go and out of the eyes of oncoming drivers.

 

Not only on the box but also on the item description it states. (Not legal for highway use). I like it.

 

Everybody seems to be missing the point here

 

Hey OP. How come you whent with the 85w and not the 70w bulbs. Do you know what the line out put in on the 70w bulbs ?

 

Op in the description it says "this is a good choice for cars with questionable wiring". If the Tacoma wiring is questionable then we are good. No need to re wire. The wiring kit is not expensive in my opinion. It's a good upgrade and without new headlight housings not expensive. I might give the 70w bulbs a try.

 

What about the "Not legal for highway use" part?

 

The 70w bulbs are likely fine without the harness. I wanted the best upgrade possible and the 85w will put out more lumens. Running direct HD wiring alone will improve light output, so combining the two will only make it better.

See this post:

 

Thanks man. I was typing my question as this response was uploading so I missed it.

Go Hawks!

 

But it smells so good!
Legit question though didn't think of it

 

Subbed for an answer to this, and the sheer simplicity of it GJ OP

 

Iam shure we do more illegal things than run brighter headlights. Disclaimer (no undocumented persons were harmed by this post).