Dimmable High Beams? Options

[SaulGoodman]

I love the look of my 6gen but I really hate how only the outside headlights light up. Takes away from the 4 eye look whenever I see my reflection on another car. Now I know that messing with headlights can be sketchy or illegal or whatever, but I was thinking of having an adjustable hi beam switch? I want to have a two setting switch so I can flip on my low beams with hi beams in "low power" mode, and a setting for normal hi beams. What would I need and how would I do it? If its done right then there shouldnt be any conflict with road laws either, since the hi beams would still function normally when in the high power setting

[Box]

The issue with that is the high beam cutoff, or the lack thereof more precisely. You'd have to somehow make it to where there's either a cutoff shield that moves or change the housing completely to accept and work properly with a dual beam bulb. The only thing I'd know to do is to get the "JDM projectors" and then bake open the high beam housings and do a mini H1 or perhaps D2S HID conversion, then you could have them come on with low beam and only have high beam controlling the solenoid for the cutoff shield. Rather or not that's feasible I couldn't say as I've not seen it done, but it'd be a starting point.

You might could look into and try a DRL or city light in the housings as well, though it'd be fairly faint but should be visible enough at night at least.

[Bitter]

You could install some parking lights into the high beam bowls to give them a light glow at night without being illegal or looking like the high beams are on all the time, that would be the simplest way. But you still need to pull the lights off the car, drill things that aren't meant to be drilled, add wiring, etc etc. If you're versed in doing lighting modifications it's not very hard but if this is your first go with something like this I'd highly advise grabbing a spare pair of lights to work on/experiment with first so you can get a handle on what you're doing.

[SaulGoodman]

You could install some parking lights into the high beam bowls to give them a light glow at night without being illegal or looking like the high beams are on all the time, that would be the simplest way. But you still need to pull the lights off the car, drill things that aren't meant to be drilled, add wiring, etc etc. If you're versed in doing lighting modifications it's not very hard but if this is your first go with something like this I'd highly advise grabbing a spare pair of lights to work on/experiment with first so you can get a handle on what you're doing.

How would I go about doing something like that? What would I wire the parking lights into, and where would I put them in relative terms to the hi beam bulb? Any tutorials or builds to reference? I might go this route, seems simple enough.

[Bitter]

Sorry for the wait.

You'd need to remove the high beam lamps from the car and then open them in the oven and find a suitable place to locate a small push in T10 socket on the lamp that would allow it to shine into the reflector without hitting the bowl or making a hole in the bowl. A single sided flat LED bulb shining into the bowl would work well, I do something similar with my 7th gen Celica. You would wire the lights to the same circuit as the other parking lights so you'd have to run wires and tap circuits. Since I haven't done this, I can't give exact directions but generally you're just making your own copy of what a lot of others cars came with from the factory.

Alternately you might be able to run a large resistor and drop voltage across both high beams and the resistor to make the high beam bulbs glow like DRL whenever the low beams are on but you'd need a fair amount of electrical circuit design knowledge to create that circuit correctly and it would be always eating the high beam bulbs putting them into a partial halogen cycle which gasses the filament off onto the glass making a black spot that's likely to burst and shortening the life span of the high beam bulbs a lot.

Google for 'city light head light' and you should see some results and ideas for bulb placements.



Amber or yellow is the typical color for these but white is also acceptable, as long as the bulbs meets your local forward lighting color regulations you should be just fine legally speaking.



You know, I had another idea just now. Take the lens off the high beam and, if you don't mind possibly doing the project again in a few years because eBay quality, glue in a small amber or warm white side firing LED strip into the lamp just ahead of the bowl at the top of the housing. You'd only need a small hole to fish the wires through and just wire both to the parking lights.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2X-Amber-30cm-12-3...xQAAOSweBFcjGrG
You can cut that to fit the area you're working with, cut between the pairs of copper pads. That would put amber glow into the high beams whenever the parking lights or head lights are on. White LED's never match whatever color the headlights are so I suggest amber.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Aug 10, 2019 - 1:53 PM

[SaulGoodman]

You know, I had another idea just now. Take the lens off the high beam and, if you don't mind possibly doing the project again in a few years because eBay quality, glue in a small amber or warm white side firing LED strip into the lamp just ahead of the bowl at the top of the housing. You'd only need a small hole to fish the wires through and just wire both to the parking lights.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2X-Amber-30cm-12-3...xQAAOSweBFcjGrG
You can cut that to fit the area you're working with, cut between the pairs of copper pads. That would put amber glow into the high beams whenever the parking lights or head lights are on. White LED's never match whatever color the headlights are so I suggest amber.

Seems doable. Are you saying to put the light here? How would it reflect out like a normal beam light?

[Bitter]

The side firing LED's would shine into the bowl and give it some glow, you would probably need to try different positions to see which gives the best results.

[trdproven]

Theres some 9005 led bulbs that are pretty weak they're useless. That might be an option.

[Bitter]

But then he has no high beams, that's not ideal.