Projector Headlights

[AH64ID]

Very dark and wet drive to work this morning and the LED's are still throwing traffic light.

 

[BigPapa]

I bit the bullet and went to the Sport headlights, and while not as good as the headlights on my wife's Lexus ES350 or my daughter's Accord, they're MUCH better than my originals. I got the Dorman's since OE's are long gone. They fit well and seem to be decent quality. I chose to go ahead and treat them with the Cerakote coating. Hopefully they won't get cloudy and yellowed.

I may have missed it in the numerous threads on the conversion, but since my truck is a '98 I had to cut a bit out of the core support, but only on the passenger side. I did mine one at a time instead of pulling both and I removed the passenger side first. I would suggest for others to either remove them both or do the driver side first since you can plainly see what needs to be removed.

Another note, if and when I need to replace a lamp on the driver side, I'll probably end up pulling the headlight assy. There's just not enough room for my fat paws in there.

 

[petersonj]

@BigPapa , did you convert from the OEM one bulb per side (9004) system? If so, did you add relays? Also, did you wire the Sport Headlight operation as an OEM Sport Headlight operation?

I switched over to the Sport Headlight system in 2016. I made my own relay circuit and wired the headlight operation in the OEM Sport Headlight fashion. I made my wiring decisions based on information from Daniel Stern. Much better lighting than the one bulb per side system. After adding the relays, the voltage drop across the bulb connector increased from 11.2 volts to 13.3 volts when the headlights were turned on. So far, I have not found an LED bulb that will perform as well as the Sport Headlights for the second generation trucks.

I use bulbs recommended by Daniel Stern in 2016:

The following are recommended by Daniel Stern:

The best 9007 bulbs presently on the market are the GE Night
Hawk Xenon 9007NHX or the Philips Xtreme Vision 9007XVS2

The best 9004 bulbs presently on the market are the GE Night
Hawk Platnium 9004NHP or Philips Xtreme Vision 9004XVS2

- John

 

[BigPapa]

Yes, I went from the OE to the Sport headlights and, yes, I had already built my own relay harness and did notice an improvement with it. Daniel's lamp recommendation now is some Osram-Sylvania's (I'm guessing they're Euro) that he stocks that are $25/each. I opted to run the Sylvania Silverstar Ultra's I had and went with some Philips Crystal Visions on the 9007's.

Something I forgot to mention, I had modded my wiring where the low beam stayed on when you went to high beam. While aiming them last night, I was amazed at the heat coming from them when on high. I removed my mod and am now running the 9007 only on low and both the high beams on high.

 

[petersonj]

Something I forgot to mention, I had modded my wiring where the low beam stayed on when you went to high beam. While aiming them last night, I was amazed at the heat coming from them when on high. I removed my mod and am now running the 9007 only on low and both the high beams on high.

Good move on your part! Thanks for the info on the updated bulbs to use.

- John