Headlight upgrade - bang for the buck - thoughts

@bmf4069

 

It's somewhat pertinent to the conversation so I'll allow it.

 

Fair point.

 

The newer style $37 Katanas (fan less) seem to be pretty nice in terms of light. They have more fullness out straight in front compared to the older $50 versions which were nice, but only lasted 14 months a Chinese lucky number.

 

Overruled.

 

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Updated with OEM headlamp housing. Truck looks better but I didn't get the improved lighting that I had hoped for.

 

You don't have to pay anyone to retrofit your headlights, it's very straight forward and there is a convenient write-up that was made by some super awesome dude!

You don't have to buy Morimoto, the only reason I did was due to it being my Dad's truck and if anything goes wrong, the warranty will cover it 100%

It's amazing to drive his truck now, so much more light, and most importantly safer for my aging father.

https://www.tundras.com/threads/how...ofit-w-mini-h1-7-0-bi-xenon-projectors.41187/

 

I used that amazingly awesome write up and was so glad I did it, single best upgrade I've done to anything!

I just bought a dirt cheap sequoia and and trying to keep costs really low so I bought acme super projectors with shrouds for $60 and the xtreme kit for $50. I'm going to install it this weekend so I can compare the super high dollar morimoto I did on the tundra to the budget retrofit.

 

Nice. I’d love to hear the comparison.

 

I plan to replace the headlights with A-1 Auto lights. I'm wondering if I can replace the bulbs with LEDs? Is it worth it? If so, any suggestions on LED lamps?

 

I installed the lights yesterday and I'm pretty disappointed. The build quality on the projectors is definitely lacking, the hardware that came with them is mediocre and half of it looks like it swam here. This is only my second retrofit, but I'm glad it wasn't my first. Getting the projectors lined up was much harder than with the morimoto, with the morimoto I just put the projector into the housing and they were centered, then I pot them on the car to make sure they were level. With the acme they didn't center well at all, when I first put them on the car, they were both aimed really high so I had to loosen them and angle them down. The bolt that threads onto the shaft is also really rough and hard to turn.

The build quality of the ballast and wiring kit is also a lot different. The morimoto ballasts are metal and the wiring kit is thicker wire. Time will tell about longevity, but the morimoto kit felt much nicer. Warm up time is about the same though.

The light output isn't as good as the morimoto, it's much better than stock, but the width and brightness aren't the same. I'm also pretty sure I received 6500k bulbs even though I ordered 4300k. I'll update this again after I get the correct bulbs.

When I retrofit the tundra, I'll definitely get morimoto projectors, I'll probably get the xtreme ballast kit again, but buy different bulbs.

 

Good review. Sounds like a pain in the butt even though they were cheap.

Anyone out there seen the Morimoto LED Projectors? Or, another type brand of LED Projector? The Morimotos LED look like superb lighting.