Installed Morimoto D2S HID Projectors on my '04

[AKmoney]

OMG... What an ordeal this was.

Things I learned in the process:

If you decide to do this, get a second set of headlights before you begin. You might screw things up and/or it might take a long time to finish the job. Also, having a second car helps.

If you do get a second set of headlights and you decide to get a cheap set off eBay, know that you're getting what you pay for. BTW - I set my factory units aside and hacked the eBay lights, mainly because when used with halogen bulbs, the eBay lights throw off a pretty lousy light pattern which I knew would become irrelevant once the projectors are installed.

Be careful with JB Weld. I don't think I'm capable of wielding that kind of adhesive power without adult supervision. I used it to permanently set the projectors in place in the reflector bowls and I now regret it. I made things much harder on myself. Even though I did my best to align the lamps horizontally before I glued 'em, once mounted on the truck they're slightly off and the light being projected has jagged edges and a "hot spot" that's annoying.

This being said, the amount of light being thrown off is insane. 35W, 4300K.

 

[AKmoney]

For comparison purposes, here are the beam patterns from two others cars. Both are equipped with factory HID headlamps and parked in the exact same location. They look positively dim by comparison! The first pic is a 2008 BMW 328i (E90). The second is a 2010 Porsche 911 (997).

 

[dkyleb]

Nicely done!

 

[Casper421]

Very sharp cut off line! Nice job!

 

[AKmoney]

Thanks!

I admit I'm a bit of a perfectionist with these things and I'm not too thrilled with the projection pattern - there are some "jaggies" and some hot spots. It's extremely bright but the overall "smoothness" if you will isn't comparable to the factory projectors of the other cars. I'm curious to hear from others who installed the Morimoto D2S V2 projectors. I'm wondering if it's because I didn't get the alignment nailed down perfectly.

 

[MSRP.]

post on HIDP's forums (TRS's home forum).
They'll be able to give you some pointers.
(ps. pics aren't working at the moment)

 

[riceandpho]

cant see the pics on this computer, but did u try to use jbstick to mock up the perfect alignment, then jbweld after its perfect?

 

[AdmiralAugbar]

Pics aren't showing for me either

 

[AKmoney]

Pics should work now. Apparently Google Photo direct image links now expire after a limited time duration.

 

[RunnerAK]

Firstly, awesome job! It looks good and that light cutoff is sharp. Secondly, thank you for doing it the "right" way with projectors. There are too many d-bags around where I live that throw HIDs in their headlights and fog lights with reflector housings and drive around at night blinding oncoming drivers.

 

[AKmoney]

I actually started this by being one of those d-bags with HIDs in stock headlights. All it took was one 5-minute drive to realize that was NOT an option.

The new setup is MUCH better but even still, I'm not sure if I'll keep it. You really, really need to get the two headlights aligned horizontally, *with precision*. If you don't, those slightly jagged edges that appear in my photo become much more pronounced once the truck is in motion. It's visually distracting.

The other thing is most factory HID setups have active self-leveling to prevent oncoming drivers from being blinded, for example when you drive over a crest. This setup doesn't do that, so you have to set them slightly low and sort of "hope for the best".

Other thoughts on the install:
- Don't even bother with those 55W setups. Are you kidding me? Look how bright they are even with the standard 35W bulbs, especially compared to other cars with factory Xenons. 55W is totally, completely unnecessary.
- The OEM headlight wiring in the 4Runner has the polarity reversed. You have to plug the ballasts in backwards or they won't come on (don't worry; you won't fry them if you don't do this; they just won't come on). This does present an additional challenge as the headlight connectors won't lock into place when inserted backwards.
- The Morimoto projectors have a solenoid in them that flips open the "lid" so you can use them as a bi-xenon high-beam. I haven't wired this into place yet so for now I'm just using the standard halogen high-beams. With a wire splitter, I should be able to get *both* of them to come on. I'm sure once that's in place, anyone unfortunate enough to stand in front of my truck with the high-beams turned on will either become permanently blinded or severely sunburned.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Good stuff, I love my Morimoto d2's projectors!

 

[wahoossi]

I have the D2S kit in a box in my garage right now waiting for me to get some free time to do it. I have already replaced my stock lights with fairly cheap eBay housings, and you are right, they suck , scattering light everywhere. The 4Runner is not my daily driver. Do you fee the cheap $90 pair eBay headlights should be upgraded for the D2S or does it make a difference? They look ok.

 

[riceandpho]

when you did the comparison pics, I think the ones with hid already, need new bulbs, unless you don't drive a lot of hours during night, typical hid bulb start to go dim at 1500 hours.

 

[riceandpho]

I actually started this by being one of those d-bags with HIDs in stock headlights. All it took was one 5-minute drive to realize that was NOT an option.

The new setup is MUCH better but even still, I'm not sure if I'll keep it. You really, really need to get the two headlights aligned horizontally, *with precision*. If you don't, those slightly jagged edges that appear in my photo become much more pronounced once the truck is in motion. It's visually distracting.

The other thing is most factory HID setups have active self-leveling to prevent oncoming drivers from being blinded, for example when you drive over a crest. This setup doesn't do that, so you have to set them slightly low and sort of "hope for the best".

Other thoughts on the install:
- Don't even bother with those 55W setups. Are you kidding me? Look how bright they are even with the standard 35W bulbs, especially compared to other cars with factory Xenons. 55W is totally, completely unnecessary.
- The OEM headlight wiring in the 4Runner has the polarity reversed. You have to plug the ballasts in backwards or they won't come on (don't worry; you won't fry them if you don't do this; they just won't come on). This does present an additional challenge as the headlight connectors won't lock into place when inserted backwards.
- The Morimoto projectors have a solenoid in them that flips open the "lid" so you can use them as a bi-xenon high-beam. I haven't wired this into place yet so for now I'm just using the standard halogen high-beams. With a wire splitter, I should be able to get *both* of them to come on. I'm sure once that's in place, anyone unfortunate enough to stand in front of my truck with the high-beams turned on will either become permanently blinded or severely sunburned.

if you try 50w ballast with oem osram bulb, especially the night breakers, or cool blue intense, you wont want to go back with 35w ballast. I been running this setup for years and its bright, also better with oem modded projectors. hook up the high beam with the factory, youll love the quad high beams, just make sure on the low beam alignment, you are doing a 3 inch drop with lower step at 25ft.

 

[AKmoney]

I have the D2S kit in a box in my garage right now waiting for me to get some free time to do it. I have already replaced my stock lights with fairly cheap eBay housings, and you are right, they suck , scattering light everywhere. The 4Runner is not my daily driver. Do you fee the cheap $90 pair eBay headlights should be upgraded for the D2S or does it make a difference? They look ok.

The cheap eBay lights have a very lousy light projection pattern, even when being used with a regular halogen bulb. They "look" very similar to the OEM Toyota lights but they're clearly just cosmetic knock-offs that weren't properly engineered. That's why I chose to use them for my retrofit: If I used the OEM lights for the retrofit and if I screwed something up, I'd be forced to run the aftermarket ones and suffer with their lousy light output. But even now I can always revert back to the original Toyota OEM lights which have a known-good, albeit not particularly bright projection pattern.

Ironically, it's the cheap eBay headlight housings that threw off my alignment. Before I glued them back together, I mocked up the lights on the truck and adjusted their rotation by using a bubble-level to measure the beam cutoff on my garage wall. I then marked the position of the projector using a sharpie before JB Welding it together. I thought I had it dialed in. However, I cheated in that I didn't use all 4 bolts to mount the headlight housings when I did this. The lower-most bolt on our headlights is very difficult to get to (it's behind the bumper and you can't see it), so I skipped it. Unfortunately, the plastic on the eBay lamps is so flimsy that when you finally tighten the lower-most bolt, it literally causes the entire assembly to flex and bend a little, which then throws off the alignment of the projectors. It doesn't take much mis-alignment to make a big impact on the projection pattern; you really notice this due to the projector's sharp beam cut-off.

This is not an easy job. You have to be *very* precise in everything you do. At the end of the day, your overall satisfaction may depend on how much of a perfectionist you are with this sort of stuff. Although very bright, I'll never be able to perfectly align the beam pattern. If I had to do it all over again I may have just kept the OEM headlights and installed an aftermarket LED bar for those times I want to simulate daylight.

 

[AKmoney]

if you try 50w ballast with oem osram bulb, especially the night breakers, or cool blue intense, you wont want to go back with 35w ballast. I been running this setup for years and its bright, also better with oem modded projectors. hook up the high beam with the factory, youll love the quad high beams, just make sure on the low beam alignment, you are doing a 3 inch drop with lower step at 25ft.

I can see potentially using a 50W ballast when using a higher color temperature bulb, like 5000K or 6000K. They aren't as bright as 4300K. I wanted 4300K because that's what's used in factory setups and it offers the best color rendering index (for HIDs, at least). The pictures I took speak for themselves. The 2010 Porsche has under 50K miles on it and hasn't been a daily driver for almost 4 years, so the factory lights are nowhere near close to being worn out. They're very bright, but the Morimotos are just on another level, even at 35W.

 

[paraordnance]

Things I learned in the process:

Even though I did my best to align the lamps horizontally before I glued 'em, once mounted on the truck they're slightly off and the light being projected has jagged edges and a "hot spot" that's annoying.

For next time:

Set projectors final alignment in bowls (when gluing with epoxy) with the headlights mounted in place (the lens is off obviously)! Or build very precise jig which will hold your lights exactly same way as they are on the 4Runner. Dont try and level them, they are not perfectly level when in place. I learned that after two retrofits, haha. My last retro does not have alignment issues.

 

[paraordnance]

However, I cheated in that I didn't use all 4 bolts to mount the headlight housings when I did this. The lower-most bolt on our headlights is very difficult to get to (it's behind the bumper and you can't see it), so I skipped it. Unfortunately, the plastic on the eBay lamps is so flimsy that when you finally tighten the lower-most bolt, it literally causes the entire assembly to flex and bend a little, which then throws off the alignment of the projectors. It doesn't take much mis-alignment to make a big impact on the projection pattern; you really notice this due to the projector's sharp beam cut-off.

I actually left those bolts out. Headlights not going anywhere. They are so much pain to reach, unless you have a bumper off. The point is, before you use permanent epoxy you HAVE to have your lights mounted in place EXACTLY the same way as you planning to use them. Example - I wasn't planning to use lower mount point so I aligned mounted with 3 bolts and set with epoxy. If you planning to mount your headlights properly on all 4 then by all means align and set epoxy when all 4 bolts are tight and secure. This will make a big difference in output

 

[AKmoney]

I actually left those bolts out. Headlights not going anywhere. They are so much pain to reach, unless you have a bumper off. The point is, before you use permanent epoxy you HAVE to have your lights mounted in place EXACTLY the same way as you planning to use them. Example - I wasn't planning to use lower mount point so I aligned mounted with 3 bolts and set with epoxy. If you planning to mount your headlights properly on all 4 then by all means align and set epoxy when all 4 bolts are tight and secure. This will make a big difference in output

I agree completely. I intend to remove the lower bolts to see if it makes a difference. Will report back here if that's the case.

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