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
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:
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
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