Lighting upgrade for oncoming traffic

[occamsrazor]

Hi,

Looking to upgrade my lighting on my stock 100 series (no bullbar or roof rack yet). My priority isn't for long distance offroad use but for lighting up the road in front of me when facing oncoming vehicles. As far as high-beam on an empty road goes, I'm OK.

Here in Kenya most roads don't have any lines painted, almost no street lighting, and oncoming cars & trucks often drive with their high-beams on permanently and/or their low-beams maladjusted to point onto oncoming traffic. This goes for both city and highway driving.

Which all adds up to some scary moments where all you can see on the road are the blinding lights of oncoming traffic. Being a "nice" driver my desire isn't to blind them either, and with oncoming traffic I use my dipped beams, but I also don't want to have an accident hitting them or going off the (unmarked) side of the road.

Without a bullbar my mounting options are a bit limited, but my question is what type of lighting upgrade would be best for the above particular situation? I'm already using the factory driving/fog lights which help a little lighting up the sides, but it's still not enough.

Currently I'm thinking to try Philips HIR 9011/9012 bulb upgrades - some people seem to say its a very worthy upgrade over stock, others that it makes little difference.

I'd also consider HID or LED options if that would be better, though the mounting could be an issue and I also don't want to spend a huge amount of money.

Any suggestions? Thanks...

 

[SmoothLC]

Did the HIRs a couple months ago.

Biggest difference was low beam lumens - translated into much better visibility.

In your circumstances, not sure this would be enough of a difference though.

A bull bar or front bumper may not be in my future, so have also considered other options on the OEM bumper.

Look forward to others' input here...

 

[occamsrazor]

Did you do the high-beam HIRs too, are you saying there was not much difference there? But the low-beams were worth it? How easy was it to trim the plastic tab people talk about and install them?

I've seen some pics of people who've added LED bars to a stock bumper in front of the grill but looked a little fragile to me. Likewise I've seen some stock bumpers with additional round halogen type lights but also thought it didn't look great.

One other idea, are there any ways to upgrade the factory driving/fog lights to something more substantial?

I guess I'm not really clear where the problem and solution lies in terms of lighting (direction, spread, intensity), but in simple terms it's seeing the road immediately ahead and where oncoming vehicles are exactly, when being blinded by their bad headlights.

 

[SmoothLC]

Did you do the high-beam HIRs too, are you saying there was not much difference there? Yes, I did both the low and high-beams. But the low-beams were worth it? The low beam lumens "appeared" more significant than the high beam. How easy was it to trim the plastic tab people talk about and install them? Very easy. Took less than a minute to trim per bulb.

I've seen some pics of people who've added LED bars to a stock bumper in front of the grill but looked a little fragile to me. Likewise I've seen some stock bumpers with additional round halogen type lights but also thought it didn't look great.

One other idea, are there any ways to upgrade the factory driving/fog lights to something more substantial?

I guess I'm not really clear where the problem and solution lies in terms of lighting (direction, spread, intensity), but in simple terms it's seeing the road immediately ahead and where oncoming vehicles are exactly, when being blinded by their bad headlights.

See responses above.

I decided to do the HIRs first and see how they work over the course of the next year and under winter driving conditions. Depending upon results, I may change next year and do the HID + Projector Retrofit using Morimoto Mini H1 with XB35 Bulbs and 35W ballasts per 2000UZJ's thread.

Going further, I'd like to get some offroad lights - just not sure what direction to take here though since I'll probably be stuck with the OEM bumper for a while.

Here's a pic of the Morimoto kit that was linked to from the group buy post:

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/im...retrofit-kits/Mini H1 Stage III Kit-1860l.jpg

 

[lrowe_csp]

I tried the upgraded harness and HIR's on my 80 series, and was not impressed with the mod. I then did the Morimoto HID in Depo lenses and the difference was incredible. So that was the first mod on the 100 series. I highly recommend the Morimoto 35 kit from Retrofit Source, but in both vehicles, I used DEPO lenses rather than the OEM lenses. PM if you want more info. HTH

 

[SmoothLC]

Just PM'd you...