HID Reccomendations

[shutupkaren]

I ran a search and didn't find much (which is odd, I thought this would be a more popular discussion or I suck at searching).
I've got a gx460 and swapped some Morimoto 2strokes into my low beams projector housing (same housings you guys have, right?) and the throw sucks! Living in SW Colorado, we have a lot of dark county and highway roads, with plenty of wildlife and snow. I put something up on the GXOR FB page and the opinions were unanimous that LEDs suck in our projectors, and HID is the way to go.

There are an overwhelming amount of HID options out there, the H11 fitting really suffers from a paradox of choice.
I'm down to 4 options that I've heard good things about, and I was curious to hear if anyone here has experience with them.
Morimoto Elites for $165
GTR for $258
Xenon Depot w/ 4300 Phillips bulbs for $275
Hylux set up for $154

 

[TA22Husker]

I ran a search and didn't find much (which is odd, I thought this would be a more popular discussion or I suck at searching).
I've got a gx460 and swapped some Morimoto 2strokes into my low beams projector housing (same housings you guys have, right?) and the throw sucks! Living in SW Colorado, we have a lot of dark county and highway roads, with plenty of wildlife and snow. I put something up on the GXOR FB page and the opinions were unanimous that LEDs suck in our projectors, and HID is the way to go.

There are an overwhelming amount of HID options out there, the H11 fitting really suffers from a paradox of choice.
I'm down to 4 options that I've heard good things about, and I was curious to hear if anyone here has experience with them.
Morimoto Elites for $165
GTR for $258
Xenon Depot w/ 4300 Phillips bulbs for $275
Hylux set up for $154

For my 4Runner I went with OPT7s for high beam and fog lamps, Xenon Depot formmy low beams. My fog mights alone light up the entire area. Low beams are meh...but I have plenty of Rigid lights around my truck to light up the area. Just food for thought...OPT7 for your fog lamps should help a lot bruv. I will follow up with pics for FYSA.

 

[TA22Husker]

Here's a few pics...first and third are with my fog lights on, second is without the fog lights.

 

[Jetboy]

FWIW - I have a set of the XD's with Phillips 4300k lights. I've gone back and forth a few times and ultimately I took them out. There's just too much glare even with the best bulbs in the OEM housing. They're too bright and you'll be both annoying other drivers and also making it more dangerous for yourself when you drive in snow especially. Snow driving is terrible with HIDs in the OEM housings due to the light scatter up into the snow.

I think the best light upgrade would be a full housing replacement with proper HID projectors or save your money and buy some good quality high end H11 bulbs. That's where I ended up is just using some better output H11's and overall my night time vision is better than it was with the HIDs. I also have an RX350 that has great factory HIDs. Yeah - it's a lot better than H11's in the OEM bulbs. I'm sure the Lexus IS conversion is fantastic too. But HIDs in the OEM housings isn't a great setup.

Just my .02 from having done it.

I do LOVE the XD LED brights with the DRL dimmer box. They work great and are bright AF. I really have no need or want for other aftermarket lighting at night with those as the brights.


In a perfect world - the ideal setup IMO would be to retrofit high quality bixenon projectors into the fog light housings. They are actually at the correct height for proper light aim with projector HIDs for really good lighting. You could aim them almost flat with quality projectors and have great light reach without glare going to other drivers. Then use the OEM housings for another set of bixenons in the OEM projectors and ultra bright LEDs in the OEM bright bulb spot for off-road driving. That setup would require some custom wiring, but then you could have better lighting than 99% of people with light bars and other auxiliary light setups, great highway lighting, and all fit in the OEM housings. I had planned to do that at one point, but never got around to it. Live has gotten really busy for me the last 2 years an the 4R has been put on the back burner. But that's what I'd do if you wanted really great lighting on and off road and were willing to do some custom retrofitting.

good luck