Upgrade headlight housings on 5th gen

92RC

Member
Hi everyone, short time lurker, first time poster, I'm looking into some H4 headlight housings and I'm curious of you all's opinions/experience, I have a bunch of info so hopefully you all can see my motivation for changing them, hopefully I can gather some information on some good ones for me to purchase. I could in theory go LED or projectors but I'm not interested in that much work and trouble right now, I even read some reviews on Amazon on LEDs that replace H4 bulbs and none seem DOT approved (blinding oncoming driving seems unsafe for me and others so I don't want that) and many seem to have downsides like FM radio interference...which seems odd to me.

I got to watching this video from Donut Media about headlights, the housings I have currently seem to spread the light out too much to be effective and I'm looking for a better solution. Here are the main *high*lights...of the *head*lights

  • https://youtu.be/_ZrBIEpatZU?t=4m40s Introduction to Nokya Headlamp conversions, note I don't plan to get the high wattage bulbs or the lighting harness shown in the video, the exact bulbs in the video actually aren't DOT approved (not that it actually matters, I would guess many modern OEM projector bulbs are actually brighter than these, it's mostly laziness on my part, plus I'm not finding a buy link on that harness)
  • https://youtu.be/_ZrBIEpatZU?t=9m54s Aligning the headlights, you can see in the video the light seems focused and well collected, my photos are below of my current situation for headlights, the light isn't nearly as grouped together as shown in the video, I noticed in both the lights Nokya makes for the Miata and the ones for the Celica there is a reflector over the bulb and in general it seems pretty darn modern, I would guess this would be a good choice.
  • https://youtu.be/_ZrBIEpatZU?t=12m30s After they aligned them, again they look pretty darn great, I would imagine with DOT approved bulbs they would still be focused and effective and the high voltage units would simply make them brighter not improve the focus.

OK so here are the options I've found, obviously there are tons of replacement housings on the market, these are just a few, prices are in USD as of 2021-07-11:

  • H6054 Nokya Sealed Beam Replacement - https://amzn.com/B01IGIEGXO - $89.95 - This is the same brand from the video but obviously with the housings that would work with the Celica. All of these housings (including the one I already have glass on the outside, I prefer this since I want it to have the 90s look). I imagine with the reflector over the bulb that would help more than ones that don't have that.
  • Hella 003427811 Headlight kit - https://amzn.com/B001G72VIK - $96.48 - Hella is a very recognized brand and it appears this exact product has been on the market for a while, I found an older webpage that had people reviewing this for jeeps, many people commented they liked how the housings had metal sides which I don't see would matter. As far as I can tell it doesn't have a reflector over where the bulb mounts. These come in 2 colors (White and Clear, those sound the same to me) and they're also available individually with the part number 003427291 https://amzn.com/B0002M9QRE
  • Oracle Lighting 6908-333 - https://amzn.com/B01498F7QU - $146.45 - This seems high quality and has support for LED running lights on the outside but still uses a regular H4 light in the middle, I figured I would include it even though I won't go for it just to show the various options.
  • Koito Halogen XL88 997-19515 - https://www.croooober.com/en/item/cpart ... logen-Xl88 - Unknown price - These are the housings I have currently, I don't think they're all that great, one site I found said some Toyota vehicles came new with these housings, I don't know about that.

Photos of my current setup

My first aiming of the headlights when I drove the car home


The bulb that was originally installed, no visible brand name


All of the stuff that needs to come off, the English owner's manual I bought mentions to pop the fuse before starting so I did that too, that's my flashlight on the bottom.


This was the best I could do for the first attempt, I aimed slightly above my tape line because the garage I'm in isn't completely flat, I didn't take a picture of how the car came but it was super low and aimed to the left (it's a JDM car so the aimed to the left makes sense) with the blue bulbs and the light aimed essentially at the ground in front of me I pretty much couldn't see anything on a night drive when it was raining.


Switching from the blue bulbs




Here are the bulbs I'm running now, I think these have some sort of break in period because the first few times I drove at night with these it doesn't seem like they were all that improved but now it sure seems much better. These are the same ones my other car uses so I just grabbed these from my trunk, I have the blue bulbs in my other car as a spare, if I need them and they're terrible on that too I'll throw them out
https://i.imgur.com/Gjrltuul.jpg[/img]

The nice thing about the regular bulbs is they last a reasonable amount of time, I used to run the brighter bulbs in my other car but the low beams sadly are the DayTime running lights and they would burn out super quick.


No more silly blue


Way too high for the lowbeams


Ah much better
 

92RC

Member
It's an imported RC from Japan! I just picked up in May (I bought it in January), it has a lot of older mods but it doesn't seem too far from stock (lowered suspension, front and rear strut tower bars, a separate front bar underneath, an old school boost controller, battery in the trunk, a few other odds and ends), it's a real homologation version and a blast to drive! The fuel pump has been bad since I got it but it's now undrivable because of it so I bought a Walbro 255LPH replacement thanks to this page on AllTrac.net (although the actual model number seems to be missing from the page, I talked with their customer support on the phone and actually asked about some of the downsides mentioned on that page, the person I talked to was like "our fuel pumps have never had problems at 12v" and mentioned if I wanted to go with the 255 vs the OE I will have more overhead for power but at mostly stock my fuel economy will drop just a bit which I'm fine with). It actually was failing on the 1,000 mile drive from the port to my home but I had no idea until it got bad the other day.


 

92RC

Member
simple":3rffsme4 said:
Beautiful! That steering wheel is so perfect.

I think so too, here are some more pics, I probably want to pay to have the leather redone on it. The thing that surprised me is the horn only works on the Momo Toyota logo, not the entire middle part.




 

underscore

Well-known member
I haven't purchased them yet, but I plan to get the Hella conversion housings. Like you I want better lighting but I don't want to blind oncoming traffic and I want the light to actually be useful. Just dumping light everywhere doesn't actually help. Hella has been around quite a while so I trust that their stuff is actually compliant and well made.

I'm guessing the metal housings are considered a plus so there isn't a chance of them being melted by hot bulbs + not much airflow.

Gorgeous RC by the way, I wish mine was white. Maybe one day.
 

92RC

Member
Makes sense, theirs are slightly more expensive and have a free return policy on Amazon so in theory I could buy them, drive at 11pm or something, install and aim the Hella units after that, drive the same route, return them if they're not up to par.

Thanks I love this thing! I wanted a white one because I love a white car with black accents (I didn't realize until after buying the thing people often go for the white so they can get the rally livery on it, I don't think I want to draw that much attention to myself so I don't think I'll ever do it), I think I want to vinyl wrap the mirrors to be black as soon as they arrive, the white paint on the 2 I'm receiving and the 1 I already have isn't that great and I think it'll look good. I considered a couple gray ones and I really would have liked a green one but I don't know if they were available/all that popular in Japan.

Here's my first good wash of it, it has some subtle black/brown drips in the paint so I'll need to claybar it when it cools down and wax it, it's also super dirty in a lot of the nooks and crannies like underneath the spoiler right in front of the windshield wipers.


I browsed some of your pics, I like your Celica a lot, those wheels go well with the black!
 

underscore

Well-known member
That's one way to do it, I'm curious what your findings are so keep us posted. Most of my vehicles have had sealed beam headlights and I'm getting tired of having fireflies in jam jars when everyone else is getting freakin' laser beams lol.

Thanks! White is my favourite colour for them too, the grey and green pop nicely as well. I actually don't really like black (it's a hassle to keep clean and it hides all the details) but I kinda fluked into this car a bit. I'd love to repaint it white but that's pricey to do even half decently.
 

grip-addict

Active member
appreciate the writeup and your car looks great! nice pickup :)
I'll probably be buying some housing and new bulbs myself here soon, because who is ever done modifying their car?
 

MacGyver

Member
Nice car! I switched my housings over to some clear ones I found on ebay a while back. That made a big help. I still have the box my bulbs came in and I was really happy with them. I'll find the info tomorrow for you. Not having the housings disperse the light made the most noticeable difference to me. Also there is a drop in replacement from a company called "trucklite". It's an led made for older semi trucks. Has high and low beams. They are pretty pricy if I remember correctly.
 

92RC

Member
Thanks MacGyver, yes any info you have I'll take it! I did a quick search for Truck-Lite and sure enough $175 for a single light (only 1 in stock at time of writing, part number 27450C), here's the link https://amzn.com/B007ED7HNY

I read the Amazon reviews and other than the price most of the complaints are winter time driving, because the lenses don't get that warm ice and snow will build up over time and cause visibility problems, I don't plan to drive my Celica when it's snowing but it's a thing to consider. Also they're plastic which is a bit of a bummer for me, not that it makes a huge difference. Similar LED housings are not a look I want to go for (see the below embedded image, the giant lenses or the little LED diodes are too utilitarian for me, I don't want my Celica to look that modern or retro), at least the Truck-Lite and the this particular pair (https://amzn.com/B074LT5B1M I should also add many people compare these particular housings to the Truck-Lite and the Hella H4 housing specifically mentioning both price of the Truck-Lite and the brightness of the Hella) have a minimalist style that I like and would go with.


 

FC Zach

Active member
I have the Truck-Lites on mine and love them. One other thing to consider is the lack of current draw (I'm no electrician so whatever it is) with these. Because of that, when the high beam is used, unless you have added extra load to the low beam circuit, the high beam indicator will not illuminate.
 

92RC

Member
FC Zach":2u1y0wvx said:
I have the Truck-Lites on mine and love them. One other thing to consider is the lack of current draw (I'm no electrician so whatever it is) with these. Because of that, when the high beam is used, unless you have added extra load to the low beam circuit, the high beam indicator will not illuminate.

That makes sense, could that be fixed by using one of the high voltage wiring harnesses? I read a similar comment on the cheaper Truck-Lite knockoffs on someone's XJ which might make me not want to go with them, I'm sure that's a silly thing but I'm lazy at the moment, I don't want to jump into too many electrical things yet although looking into this now will obviously get my feet wet on when I want to do stuff like this in the future (I assume I will want to down the road).
 

FC Zach

Active member
It's a simple fix. For me, I just added 194 bulbs/sockets to the connector for the low beam circuit and that was enough to fool the electrical system so that the high beam indicator illuminated when in use. There are other ways too, like resistors but those get hot. . . Small 194s don't get near as hot so that's why I chose that route.
 

92RC

Member
Just an update for y'all, it rained the other night so I went for a drive (it's been killing me to leave the car parked but it still hasn't had its first service yet, my mechanic has me scheduled for 3 weeks from now, I'll probably make a separate post about it first, it has some gremlins at the moment) and I've determined the Philips OE quality 9003 H4 bulbs I have in the housings are much better than that first drive.

The rain came and went, it was boarder line torrential at some points but the visibility was not the best but it certainly wasn't the worst. I think my quest for better highlight housings is still justified but man was it great getting the thing on the road again. Seeing the car makes me grin but I can't stop when I drive the car, it's really something!

The lighting is still not as good as my other car (which is also running OE quality 9003 H4 bulbs, they might be the Sylvania brand instead of Phillips but they should be pretty similar) but I never thought my other car's housings were all that great either, I drove an older car with both 9006 and 9005 (it had daytime running lights, the lowbeams on the 9005 ran those, I'm not sure what they used the 9006 highbeams for) which had some pretty decent headlights so I figure the memory of that older car car would be a good benchmark.


I'll keep you all posted again, once the car is more mobile I'll start doing some Celica headlight science again. In the meantime I'll be following a post on here about fixing the tachometer, I have a bag of capacitors, I'm waiting on an order for a good soldering iron, and hopefully while I have the cluster apart I can see what's up with the speedometer reporting inconsistent (and wildly inaccurate) speeds, the strange thing is the odometer seems to be correct so maybe the speedometer is something simple, we'll see.

 

92RC

Member
Alright lads and lasses, it's t-t-time for the latest installment of the Celica saga, headlight Science!

I bought both the Hella 003427811 190x132mm kit and the Nokya H6054 Sealed Beam Headlight Conversion 7x6" 200mm Pair so I could compare them head to head.



Lets start with the Nokya brand, here are my old housings side by side with the new ones, right off the bat you can see how faded and cloudy the old ones are, the Nokya brand has lines built into the reflector (I'm assuming this is for some sort of consistent light spreading) and the glass it almost perfectly clear.




Side view with the bulb installed



There were no instructions in the box but looking at the back of the rubber cover it's obvious which way it goes, it'll stick up if you don't install it correctly



First one installed



Testing the Nokya vs old housings








Unboxing the Hella headlights, so far these might be a better value since they come with Standard bulbs so that's pretty nice (you can buy these for about $11 on Amazon



Here's what the rubber piece looks like, it's not as snug and the plug is a bit more exposed/sticks out more but I'm sure it's fine. It is all metal (it gets hot) but I'm not sure what the discoloration is all about.




This is quite interesting, these headlights are designed for one pair, you can see the other 2 options are specifically for cars with 2 sets of bulbs on the front, I'm not sure what the product numbers for the other ones are but this does confirm I did buy the correct ones.



Testing both Nokya and Hella headlights, notice how spread out the Hella headlights are vs the Nokya




Head to Head close ups, I didn't notice this until having the housings in person but the Hella does actually have a cover/reflector that goes over the bulb, it's not as reflective as the Nokya but perhaps that helps with directing the light. I'm also interested in the design that swoops to the right when you're facing the light, I have no idea if it's functional or not but both are the same, I'm curious if right-hand-drive markets have that section on the other side.




Cutting art, state of the edge testing method, my patented "Headlight Cover-er Upper-er Jacket"



Low beams head to head, again, I'm honestly not sure if one is better over the other, they're just clearly different





I'm not sure what's up with this dark spot on when the brights are on, one would think this would be nice to see road signs/pedestrians on the right and whatnot.



Sidenote, I need to find a different brand of screwdriver for this one screw here or find a slotted screwdriver to work with it, this one only is getting super hard to adjust because of how stripped the screw is.


I swapped sides, the Hella headlights have a wider spread so I moved the car off my centering marks so it would be easier to see, I centered them to my tape marks first. Now that I've moved the car you can see the brights both have that dark spot so I'm sure that's fine.






So what do you all think? Which ones should I return? I'm going to do some brief driving around in the city to see I feel one is better than the other, to wrap this up I think I'm going to have to take the time to install both, aim them, drive them a specific route super late at night, come back, try the next pair, aim, and drive that same route again. Hopefully I can do that tonight, this "lab" work can only go so far. Both do seem better than what I have so I don't think I'll be super disappointed with either.


Side notes I've discovered (that I might make other threads about both of these):

  • I think my alternator is failing, when I was idling the car working on testing this I had to rev it to about 3,000 RPM (I did fix my tach last weekend thanks to this forum so that was cool) to see the lights a bit brighter, I did have my car die when I was idling a few weeks ago and I'm thinking at 1,100 RPM it just isn't enough to charge the battery and it gets slowly depleted (that or I have some gremlins and something installed by a previous owner is drawing too much power). Thankfully I have a portable battery jump tool which works very well.
  • This is a bit comforting overall but concerning for the Celica, I think the indoor structure I park in has an emergency carbon monoxide detector/fan. Twice when I was running the car this "beeeeeeeep" alarm went off and this super heavy duty fan kicked on and stayed on until about 10 minutes after I shut the car off, it did this twice only when I was idling the car a lot. The year or so I've lived here I've never encountered that going off. I failed emissions here in Denver and my mechanic doesn't have super high tech tools to track down the problem, I did buy a diagnostic cable to OBD2 wire but I'm curious if that does anything other than allow for engine light codes to be noted. Worst comes to worst I'll take it to a place that advertises they can track down emissions problems. If anyone knows stuff about emissions tests I can provide some paperwork I was given (after I black out some personal info), again on a different thread.
  • I think what I thought were fuel pump problems (that I mentioned previously) actually appear to be problems with the Octane booster I was using, I've been running regular 91 octane and the turbo lag is more noticeable (it's better with the boost controller on) but I'm guessing I still need a fuel pump replaced.
 

underscore

Well-known member
92RC":2vlv4yw3 said:
This is quite interesting, these headlights are designed for one pair, you can see the other 2 options are specifically for cars with 2 sets of bulbs on the front, I'm not sure what the product numbers for the other ones are but this does confirm I did buy the correct ones.

When you ordered the Hella's, did you have to order 2 or did they come as a pair?

92RC":2vlv4yw3 said:
I'm also interested in the design that swoops to the right when you're facing the light, I have no idea if it's functional or not but both are the same, I'm curious if right-hand-drive markets have that section on the other side.

My guess is maybe to throw light up for street signs? I've seen that pattern masked off in tape when Top Gear would go to continental Europe with RHD cars so it must be something RHD/LHD specific.

QYoSVHLh.png


92RC":2vlv4yw3 said:
I'm going to do some brief driving around in the city to see I feel one is better than the other, to wrap this up I think I'm going to have to take the time to install both, aim them, drive them a specific route super late at night, come back, try the next pair, aim, and drive that same route again. Hopefully I can do that tonight, this "lab" work can only go so far.

If you could have someone drive the other way to get feedback on how they are for oncoming traffic that'd be handy to know too.

92RC":2vlv4yw3 said:
This is a bit comforting overall but concerning for the Celica, I think the indoor structure I park in has an emergency carbon monoxide detector/fan. Twice when I was running the car this "beeeeeeeep" alarm went off and this super heavy duty fan kicked on and stayed on until about 10 minutes after I shut the car off, it did this twice only when I was idling the car a lot. The year or so I've lived here I've never encountered that going off.

I think that's pretty normal, any engine is going to put out a fair bit of CO.

92RC":2vlv4yw3 said:
I failed emissions here in Denver and my mechanic doesn't have super high tech tools to track down the problem, I did buy a diagnostic cable to OBD2 wire but I'm curious if that does anything other than allow for engine light codes to be noted. Worst comes to worst I'll take it to a place that advertises they can track down emissions problems.

These cars aren't even that high tech, you pull codes from them with a paperclip or piece of wire and there's only 20 codes possible (compared to hundreds or thousands in modern cars). The emissions system is just 2 cats and a 1 wire O2 sensor so it should just be a matter of ensuring you don't have an exhaust leak before the O2 sensor and that nothing is making the engine run rich.
 

92RC

Member
  • The Hella lights come in a pair thankfully
  • I’m quite impressed I got an answer to that so quickly! This must have been common knowledge back in the day or something at least for brits
  • That’s a good idea, I have a friend that might be available to help me at night with seeing how things look from oncoming traffic
  • Makes sense about the other 2, it has an exhaust smell when I’m outside of the car running and for emissions tests they have a lot of sensors they put outside the car for testing so I’m not sure how to figure out where it’s coming from, the people at the testing center said “any Toyota guy will know what to do” so that’s…..Uh….big help there :/
 

92RC

Member
OK folks, the verdict is in, my preferred headlight housings are the Nokya H6054!

Here are my closing thoughts starting with the Nokya

My new testing facility - I was hesitant to do this outside because...you know...I would have to wait until night time but this was a fairly convenient spot so no major complaints (it still wasn't perfectly flat but that's fine). I didn't cover up either of the headlights for this test.



Lowbeams close up - I kinda like the "old CRT television" look up close, obviously I wouldn't be seeing this view very often



Highbeams close up - Another not so useful view



Lowbeams at 25 ft - I actually didn't adjust these from my previous tests, I like how both of the focal points are aimed to the right and I have a relatively flat wall of light spreading on the bottom, this seems very modern and driving around in dark parking structures is nice because I can see pretty well.



Highbeams at 25 ft - I commented this on one of my previous posts on the dark space below...well duh...they're high beams for a reason.



I tested this earlier in the week and drove around here and there at night. I think this is better than my daily driver, I can see the clear line on highway signs where the light stops, things are lit up well, where I think these really excel is medium distance. I kept observing on the original housings I could see signs well at night and up close well but 3 car lenghts in front of me was a bit dark. Not with these, it's a really nice amount of light obviously a bit dark-er but I think it's on par with how the lights should be. Another great thing is highways with a sharp drop off I can see down the ditch well so if lets say a deer was to run up I feel I could adequately prepare for it to cross the road.

Per Underscore's suggestion I asked a friend of mine to help me test the headlights, she only went in the car with me when I had the Nokya headlights installed but it was nice getting her perspective from the left side of the car where of course the driver normally sits, she felt it seemed normal in that perspective.

I then had her sit in her car as I drove by on a flat section of suburb (so there was a slight drainadge bump I had to go down into), she then moved for me to be coming down a hill, and later coming up the same hill, all from the opposite car's perspective as if we were driving by eachother.

She felt the light was pleasant both in color and where it was aimed, even coming down a hill, going down and up on the bump, etc. she mentioned nothing was out of the ordinary from an oncoming perspective and she wouldn't think twice passing a car like that on the road. There was a car that drove by us while we were testing and she was very critical of where their headlights were aimed.

This is exactly what I was looking for as a ringing endorsement.

One quick sidenote, I swapped these housing out about 30 minutes after this test, they had a bit of a burning plastic smell, nothing seemed melted or messed up so I'm sure that smell would go away after a short period of time but it was worth mentioning
 

92RC

Member
Ok, onto the Hella headlight housings

Freshly installed Hella Headlights, I also didn't do the individual light test.



Lowbeams up close - No television like effect but they are well focused up close




Highbeams up close - That's a bit of a fun effect on the outside



I love how this car looks :)



Lowbeams at 25 ft - I chose not to adjust these again, it's my understanding I would still want the headlights aimed to the right but I didn't have the knowledge, experience, or instructions in the box to aim these so I used my best judgement. You can see that slanted part I pointed out earlier goes up the side I like how the left side is pretty flat but the right side seems to be lacking some, more information on that below.



While typing this up I looked it up and it appears for aiming asymmetric headlights I did it wrong. Hella's website shows a guide and the image below implies the diagonal parts are supposed to match up, as you can see I did not do that. In my defense I've done a few google searches today on "aiming headlights", "aiming asymetric headlights", etc. and I'm not getting a lot of great results. This car is before my time (it's about as old as I am) and perhaps this was something many people knew before and it never got extensively documented on the internet because most cars around this time/shortly after moved to model specific housings. Another thought on this is even the Amazon descriptions don't mention the word "asymmetric", this individual headlight appears to be symmetrical but of course the page contains different headlights so I can't confirm by reading the reviews (I thought Amazon added a feature where you can filter out reviews by the product you have selected but I'm not seeing that at the moment). I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't feel that bad for seemingly messing this up at the moment.



Highbeams at 25 ft - They seem fine, going back to "I'm pretty sure I did it wrong" they seem too far to the left now that I look at it more closely.



My driving impressions of these are mostly me not being a fan. The medium distance on the Hella housings was darker than I would have liked, I drove the same testing route later that night and they didn't dip down into a ditch as the Nokya housings did.

When it came time to test with my friend, right off the bat she mentioned they were brighter and a bit harsher for her as I drove past on flat surface, we switched to me going downhill while she was facing uphill where she mentioned it was fine, not great but fine. When I was going uphill and she was facing downhill that's where she mentioned it was too much and the icing on the cake was when I pulled up next to her while she was still facing downhill the light in her left side mirror was quite intense and right in her eyes.

I made no more adjustments that night, I pointed out the differences in the housings side by side and explained the major differences, what surprised her was I was using the same exact bulbs for both, she felt the color was more harsh and not as pleasant in addition to the fact that she was a bit blinded. Honestly this isn't what I expected at all, I assumed these would seem about the same to oncoming drivers.

I would have liked to have her perspective riding in the car and aiming the headlights so I'm feeling silly for not having her come along for the hour and a half in-between these tests but that's ok.
 
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