Roundeye and ARB/IPF Harness review

[FF LC FREAK]

I've been driving my 71 fj40 quite a bit lately to work. I drive to work in the dark and drive home in the dark. Between the rain, drizzle, fog, etc, here in the NW winters, I finally got fed up with the amount of light coming from my stock headlights. So, I ponied up for some new roundeyes. Since I was going with the upgrade, I decided to buy the headlight harness kit as well. It bypasses the light switch and draws the current straight from the battery. I did a little review here on Mud first, but most people simply upgrade to the Roundeyes. So I figured I would detail my experience with both the headlights and harness together.

Links to where I bought stuff:
Roundeyes - 7" Round Toyota® Landcruiser Conversion Headlamps - Toyota Headlamps by Roundeyes™ Inc.
ARB/IPF headlight harness - TPI4x4
Summit racing - summitracing.com - we'll get to this in a minute...

I started off by pulling my rig out of the garage and taking a picture of the stock lights. I pulled it back in and put in the new Roundeyes. They are very nice. It was as simple as removing the bezel, loosening 3 screws on the headlight retainer ring, pulling out the headlight, unplugging it, plugging the Roundeye in, putting the retainer ring back on and tightening the screws. That's it! So easy, a caveman could do it.

I pulled back out and took another picture. The difference in light output was tremendous. There really is no comparison. Unfortunately, I am no photographer. I took pictures, but they don't do it justice.

Next, I wanted to install the ARB/IPF harness. Again, this was incredibly easy. I would have taken pictures of the process, but there is really no reason. It is a plug and play harness. You attach 1 wire to the positive on the battery, 1 wire to the negative on the battery, find a place to mount your 3 relays, and then plug the harness into the stock headlight wiring harness. It uses the stock harness to switch the relays. The relay wiring then plugs into the back of the headlights. This is where I ran into the one snag I had with the installation. You have to get the 3 prong plug into the headlight "cup" for lack of a better term. I believe on newer rigs this is not an issue. But on mine, I have a sealed cup with a small hole for the stock harness to go through. I had to open up that hole quite a bit to get the 3 prong plug into it. It was fairly simple with my drill and dremel tool, but I just wasn't expecting it.

I backed my rig out of the garage one more time and took another picture. The difference was notable, but not as dramatic as changing to the Roundeyes.

1st picture is stock headlights
2nd picture is Roundeyes only
3rd picture is Roundeyes with the harness
Again, I'm not a photographer and these pictures don't do it justice.

 

[FF LC FREAK]

A few more pictures. The last picture is a side by side comparison of my old headlight to the new Roundeye.

 

[FF LC FREAK]

Above I mentioned an alternator pulley from Summit racing - Powermaster 111 - Powermaster V-Belt Alternator Pulleys - summitracing.com. Well, I, like many on here, have a problem with my headlights dimming at idle. I upgraded my alternator about 2 years ago to a 40 amp unit. It puts out plenty of juice while driving, but when I stop for a stoplight, it doesn't keep up. This is especially true in the winter when I have the headlights on, heater on high, windshield wipers going and the radio on. I pretty much had to shut down the wipers and heater when I stopped at a stop light.

Well, after upgrading to these headlights, I realized that they take a whole lot more juice to run than the stock headlights. Now at a stoplight, I'm to the point of killing my rig if I have more than just the headlights on (as in the above situation).

So, I did a little research and decided that I would just try to upgrade the alternator pulley for now. The stock pulley is 3 1/4" in diameter. The one that I replaced it with is 2 3/8" in diameter (roughly). Someone can do the math and figure out how much that increases the alternator speed, but so far it seems to be doing a pretty good job. I have my idle speed set at about 650 and it keeps up pretty good with the headlights and heater. It still drops the volts, because the alternator isn't putting out full amps even with the smaller pulley at idle. But it is significantly better.

One thing to note about this upgrade. For those that have a functioning ammeter, this draws directly from the battery. Because of this, you will notice your ammeter deflect way into the positive when you turn on your headlights. Since the load is taken directly off the battery, the ammeter doesn't "see" the load, it only "sees" that the battery is being charged. It caught me off guard at first, but I quickly realized what was going on.

Overall, I rate this a very worthy upgrade. Seeing clearly at night is worth it!

I added a couple more pics:
1st picture - The pulley from Summit racing
2nd and 3rd picture - A recent day up in the snow - still with old headlights


Everyone!

 

[centerlineseal]

Nice write-up. Thanks for the info!

 

[Splash]

I installed RoundEyes and was considering relays. Your thread was very useful. Thanks!

 

[ken_79-fj40]

I've had the hella euro H4 headlights for years and wasn't really impressed with them. Then 2 years ago I put a similar harness with relays on and now they are incredible. The stock wiring just can't feed these aftermarket lights.

 

[EWheeler]

In hindsight, would you do the harness again? It sounds like maybe the light upgrade and alternator upgrade would do the trick and the harness may not be worth the cost/benefit @ ~$100. Nice looking rig by the way.

Evan

 

[Splash]

It is my understanding that the relay will only help of you have voltage issues going to the lights. Can anyone confirm?

 

[bsmith123]

harness

this is a pic of the harness

Some people have noted high resistance in the headlight harness cutting down on the light output

the kit including new wiring too cut down on any unwanted resistance

I imagine the relays are just doing the usual thing---switching power cause you cant have it all run thru the switch

not sure why there are three relays---park, high, and low maybe? Or sidelights and high/low? there was no schematic on the site


BTW---That is a great looking cruiser, Love the paint

Here it is for anyone else, I see it caught my eye when it was ROTW too! https://forum.ih8mud.com/40-55-series-tech/181521-rotw-toyota-3.html

 

[FF LC FREAK]

Hey all,

Sorry, I've been out of town for a few days. In my experience with this kit, I would definitely do it again. Like I said above, everything helped. I wish I would have tried the harness with the stock lights. That would have been a good test. My stock wiring harness was in pretty good shape, and I still had a noticeable difference with the new ARB harness. Like I mentioned in another recent thread, I probably could have pieced together my own harness and relays for less than what I paid for the ARB harness, but this was plug and play. I had it in and working in less than an hour.

As far as the three relays, I can't remember. It seems like it was a master relay and then a smaller relay each for high and low beams. But don't quote me on that. I'd check the directions, but I can't find them....

Basically, everything in this post was a worthy upgrade for me - Roundeyes, ARB/IPF headlight harness, and alternator pulley. After a couple months, everything is still working well.

 

[wantatlc]

thanks for the tips, I pulled the trigger on the Roundeyes bulbs as I just could not take the weak, dim, dingy, yellow lights anymore. Stock seems so anemic. I will wait on a harness and/or pulley possibilities until I see how just the bulbs do as I do not, living in SoCal, run as many electric hogging devices.

 

[cronic]

How do the roundeyes compare to sylvania halogen replacement lights? I picked these up at auto zone years ago and have never been impressed with them. They are regular old cheapo halogens but the wattage is similar to the roundeyes. I am just trying to decide if it would be a significant upgrade. Thanks

 

[bdiemer]

FYI: I run JC Whitney polycarbonate headlights and I made my own relay harness and am using 80/130 watt bulbs aimed low. Cost $145! No problems with the PD or flashes in Scottsdale AZ. Another option

 

[FF LC FREAK]

How do the roundeyes compare to sylvania halogen replacement lights? I picked these up at auto zone years ago and have never been impressed with them. They are regular old cheapo halogens but the wattage is similar to the roundeyes. I am just trying to decide if it would be a significant upgrade. Thanks

No direct experience with the halogens, but compared to the old sealed beams that I was using, this was a huge upgrade. The light output was significantly increased. Like I said before, it was well worth it in my opinion.

 

[cronic]

Could you tell me if the roundeyes are any deeper that the factory lights? And if so, how much. Thanks!

 

[FF LC FREAK]

If I remember correctly (that was 7 months ago, I can't remember what I had for dinner last night), they were about the same depth if not a little less. They fit just fine.

 

[brooklyn]

round eyes and harness

I did this same installed harness, relays, and round eyes and it does make a big difference in brightness. The round eyes, looked about the same depth as the stock lights.

Total modification took a bit more time than expected as when you pull it all apart there seems to be a lot of clean up one can do!

Thanks to those who wrote this up, as I followed you instructions.

Cheers.

 

[cronic]

Good deal, thanks for the writeup and info. I will order the lights this week and make my on relay setup for them.

 

[cronic]

Wow, I got the lights in today and ran to radio shack and Home depot to pick up some pieces for the relay harness. Knocked out the harness and installed the lights and they are outstanding. The relay harness was a must for me as I was only getting 11.6 volts at the headlights with the engine running so the old wiring was dropping 3 volts. Now with the harness and relays I have a nice steady 14.6 volts with the engine running. The light output is amazing compared to the same wattage halogens I had in there. I am very happy with these lights so far.

 

[Slickdog]

I have made my own harnes for my Vehicle and made almost an exact copy of the Original apart from relays for my horns and Lights, I am in Indonesia so dont have the choice of Roundeyes however my Lights are white now (even at tickover or just on a well charged battery) I used a larger guage wire 3.0 mm (10 or 11 Guage) this improved my lights quite substantially!