sonerick
New member
Recently I was looking for an upgrade to the headlights on my '05 4Runner. The driver's side was OEM/original, but the plastic was starting to get pitted and discolored. The passenger side was a DEPO brand light that was installed by a body shop after an accident I had a few years back, and I had condensation issues with this light from day one. I threw around a few ideas... doing a complete retrofit, doing the '06-'09 swap with HID's, putting HID's in existing housings, etc. I was looking for an easy solution and had a budget of around $300.
Ideally I would have gone for a retrofit, but in order to do it right I would have needed to get another pair of housings (I considered what was already on my car essentially not re-useable). Then I would have had to buy the projectors, shrouds, HID bulbs/ballasts, etc. This would have been expensive, and would have required quite a bit of work.
The '06-'09 headlight option was also attractive, but again it probably would have ended up costing quite a bit for the housings and I would have been stuck with that weird little gap between the grille and the lights. I'm a pretty detail-oriented guy.
I also considered throwing HID's in the existing housings and calling it a day, but I didn't want to be that guy blinding people on the road.
Ultimately after seeing a few posts about them on the forum, I decided to give the Spec-D headlights a try since they fit my budget and required minimal work other than installation. [MENTION=78511]earthrealm[/MENTION] suggested I buy them from Protuning to save myself a step and have them pre-install the HID’s, so I did. Ordering was easy, shipping was surprisingly quick, and within 8 days of ordering I had my new headlights. They arrived in a big box and were packed pretty well.
The overall quality of the lights appears to be pretty good. I went with the chrome instead of the black, I just didn’t think the black would look too good on my truck. The plastic appears to be similar to OEM, not brittle or anyhting. The wiring and HID ballasts seem to be just as good as some DDM Tuning stuff I've seen. My only concern is that there are seven or eight holes in the back of the housing that have little plastic covers on them. I think they are air vents, but I'm afraid they may let some moisture in. Time will tell I guess. Worst case scenario I go back and plug up the holes with some silicone or something.
Before I started the install, I wired them up just to make sure they worked. The install itself was fairly straightforward, only four bolts. Three of the bolts are visible with the hood open and the plastic radiator cover removed, piece of cake to remove. The fourth bolt behind the fender is kind of a pain to reach, but really not a big deal if you go in behind the fender through the liner. The fit of the Spec-D lights was pretty good for aftermarket parts but not perfect. First I tightened up the bolt behind the fender, as this seemed to be the strongest mounting point and the bolt threaded into a metal insert. Then I snugged the other three bolts tight, but these thread into plastic inserts and I did not want to go too tight to avoid stripping them out. I had no trouble getting all of the bolts lined up and tightened. The final gap between the headlights and the fender is OK, but the rubber weather-stripping along the top of the headlights is positioned a little bit differently than on the OEM lights and creates a small gap between the weather-stripping and the hood. Not a big deal, but like I said I’m a detail oriented guy so it was the first difference I noticed when compared to stock.
Wiring was also pretty straightforward. The high/low beams are plug-and play (other than finding a place to mount the ballasts) and the halo’s/LEDs wire into the parking light/city light/driving light/whatever you want to call them circuit. Spec-D provided me with some wire taps, but they were the wrong size for this gauge wire, so I cut the stock wires and spliced everything in directly with some butt connectors I had. I’ll probably go back and re-wire everything with quick disconnects and heat-shrink tubing once I get some more time. I mounted the passenger-side ballast on the power steering fluid reservoir bracket with zip ties, and mounted the driver’s side ballast in front of the battery, also with zip ties. I’m probably going to change this around when I go back and clean up the wiring, but everything is secure for the time being.
After I got everything buttoned up, I took it for a quick drive. The light output is pretty good. 5k HID’s are a little bit different than stock halogen bulbs, so it will take some getting used to. I don’t have any before/after comparison shots, but the light output is definitely better than my previous setup. The beam pattern certainly isn’t the best and the cutoff is not as sharp and well-defined as a good retrofit, but not bad for a cheap set of lights. Right now I have the halos and the LED’s wired up with additional LED bulbs in place of the amber parking lights/city lights/driving lights/whatever you want to call them. The additional LED’s did not come with the Spec-D lights, I just happened to have a couple lying around (if you look closely in the photo, you can see they are a slightly different temperature than the others).
Below is a quick shot of the halos and LED’s, I’ll post more night time pics once I get the projectors properly adjusted. All in all, I'd say not a bad option if you're looking to add HID's to your '03-'05 4Runner and keep it cheap. I might end up eventually disconnecting the halos and LED's because it looks a little bit ricer-ish, but I figured I'd leave them for a bit and see if I liked them.
Ideally I would have gone for a retrofit, but in order to do it right I would have needed to get another pair of housings (I considered what was already on my car essentially not re-useable). Then I would have had to buy the projectors, shrouds, HID bulbs/ballasts, etc. This would have been expensive, and would have required quite a bit of work.
The '06-'09 headlight option was also attractive, but again it probably would have ended up costing quite a bit for the housings and I would have been stuck with that weird little gap between the grille and the lights. I'm a pretty detail-oriented guy.
I also considered throwing HID's in the existing housings and calling it a day, but I didn't want to be that guy blinding people on the road.
Ultimately after seeing a few posts about them on the forum, I decided to give the Spec-D headlights a try since they fit my budget and required minimal work other than installation. [MENTION=78511]earthrealm[/MENTION] suggested I buy them from Protuning to save myself a step and have them pre-install the HID’s, so I did. Ordering was easy, shipping was surprisingly quick, and within 8 days of ordering I had my new headlights. They arrived in a big box and were packed pretty well.
The overall quality of the lights appears to be pretty good. I went with the chrome instead of the black, I just didn’t think the black would look too good on my truck. The plastic appears to be similar to OEM, not brittle or anyhting. The wiring and HID ballasts seem to be just as good as some DDM Tuning stuff I've seen. My only concern is that there are seven or eight holes in the back of the housing that have little plastic covers on them. I think they are air vents, but I'm afraid they may let some moisture in. Time will tell I guess. Worst case scenario I go back and plug up the holes with some silicone or something.
Before I started the install, I wired them up just to make sure they worked. The install itself was fairly straightforward, only four bolts. Three of the bolts are visible with the hood open and the plastic radiator cover removed, piece of cake to remove. The fourth bolt behind the fender is kind of a pain to reach, but really not a big deal if you go in behind the fender through the liner. The fit of the Spec-D lights was pretty good for aftermarket parts but not perfect. First I tightened up the bolt behind the fender, as this seemed to be the strongest mounting point and the bolt threaded into a metal insert. Then I snugged the other three bolts tight, but these thread into plastic inserts and I did not want to go too tight to avoid stripping them out. I had no trouble getting all of the bolts lined up and tightened. The final gap between the headlights and the fender is OK, but the rubber weather-stripping along the top of the headlights is positioned a little bit differently than on the OEM lights and creates a small gap between the weather-stripping and the hood. Not a big deal, but like I said I’m a detail oriented guy so it was the first difference I noticed when compared to stock.
Wiring was also pretty straightforward. The high/low beams are plug-and play (other than finding a place to mount the ballasts) and the halo’s/LEDs wire into the parking light/city light/driving light/whatever you want to call them circuit. Spec-D provided me with some wire taps, but they were the wrong size for this gauge wire, so I cut the stock wires and spliced everything in directly with some butt connectors I had. I’ll probably go back and re-wire everything with quick disconnects and heat-shrink tubing once I get some more time. I mounted the passenger-side ballast on the power steering fluid reservoir bracket with zip ties, and mounted the driver’s side ballast in front of the battery, also with zip ties. I’m probably going to change this around when I go back and clean up the wiring, but everything is secure for the time being.
After I got everything buttoned up, I took it for a quick drive. The light output is pretty good. 5k HID’s are a little bit different than stock halogen bulbs, so it will take some getting used to. I don’t have any before/after comparison shots, but the light output is definitely better than my previous setup. The beam pattern certainly isn’t the best and the cutoff is not as sharp and well-defined as a good retrofit, but not bad for a cheap set of lights. Right now I have the halos and the LED’s wired up with additional LED bulbs in place of the amber parking lights/city lights/driving lights/whatever you want to call them. The additional LED’s did not come with the Spec-D lights, I just happened to have a couple lying around (if you look closely in the photo, you can see they are a slightly different temperature than the others).
Below is a quick shot of the halos and LED’s, I’ll post more night time pics once I get the projectors properly adjusted. All in all, I'd say not a bad option if you're looking to add HID's to your '03-'05 4Runner and keep it cheap. I might end up eventually disconnecting the halos and LED's because it looks a little bit ricer-ish, but I figured I'd leave them for a bit and see if I liked them.
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