Additional finds that may be of interest including adjustment. I checked the factory halogen aiming specs and didn't find a shocker, but they weren't to spec. Basically, their aiming instructions don't have the typical 25-foot distance, they use 10 meter or 30' distance. You can test it from 10' away as the adjustment is linear - 2" drop per every 10'. You'll see most guides suggest 4" drop at 25'. Get it somewhere in there and you're good. Note: the 'hot spot' target you adjust to is not the cut-off line, it's a couple inches below.

Convert the mm spec and you find the projector lens center is 25 inches from the ground. The adjustment 'should be' 4" below the 25" center or 21-22" from the ground - 20' away. Mine had the cut-off at 25" where the hot spot was a couple inches below (23"). I left it there for a wee distance bump. Never been flashed and highly doubt I ever will with a 350 LUX increase.

Horizontal adjustment is not mentioned and unsure it is adjustable. They are straight on as expected. There's a thread talking about a 10mm horizontal adj. bolt, but I didn't see a need to change the angle. They are dead on straight with a sharp cutoff.

Afterthoughts - The liner plastic shoulder nuts were all found loose. They can hand tighten pretty snug so crank 'em down.

The housings have ample space to route wires and tuck in modules. I used a patch of 3M killer double stick tape to secure the driver module to the housing bottom. It's kind of heavy and would bounce around in there. The factory assembly is well made just unfortunately makes horrid output with halos. The 60W stockers could be bumped to 65W higher output halo bulbs for a tad more gain. At least the factory did use decent bulbs. Using projectors seems like better tech than reflectors but they actually cut down output. Sharp cutoff, but less output. These LEDs can hit crazy numbers with reflector housings. But we have projector light snuffers to deal with.

One holdup is the halos fuse themselves in the socket. Remove the wire connector and go gorilla twisting left to release 'em. Neither side would budge so a pair of needle nose pilers spanning the bulb center and a good crank popped them free. The O-ring must weld itself in from heat?

Did some night driving and would say there's a noticeable improvement. It's hard to get past the placebo affect where we 'think' we see things we didn't before. It's maybe a 20 percent increase but LEDs fade as they get hotter, these remained consistent, not seeing significant loss after 20 min. run time. Absolutely proves LED marketing and Luman/LUX claims are a fantasy where the numbers mean nothing until you stuff 'em in our projectors and look.

Disappointing? No, they're far better, just nowhere near published data claiming 2X brighter. Budget LED kits ($35) are junk and dangerous as their output is often way less than halos. Marketing data they print is absolute BS. Amazon is even cracking down on them now. Good to know there's no massive fix but if installing LEDs for color matching to DRLs, you should get the best kit you can afford. There is truth in marketing about alignment, heat mitigation, LED type and position. Emulating a filament is a trick. The projectors clearly are halo bulb designed and get efficient output with them loaded. An LED is an alien beast that it tries to focus. We see the emulated filament bouncing light rays around from a concave mirror and then stuffed through a lens meant for halogens. All precision optics. Tricky stuff there meaning - better kits make better emulation to focus. HID xenon bulbs produce a ball-like plasma burn that is closer to the halo filament 360-degree output. Light rays released are closer to halos to focus. Thus, why more efficient in output than a two-sided LED blade. If you want more light with penetration and saturation, it still may be HID but these are amazingly close.

 

So it seems that if you pull all the liner pins you can finagle that thing out from under the fender trim. I guess I'm not seeing enough excitement from you to even begin undertaking this but appreciate all you go through. I suppose if there was a brighter direct replacement halogen someone would have mentioned it. I'm assuming that's what I have a stock on a '23 SE

 

I suppose if there was a brighter direct replacement halogen someone would have mentioned it.

The stock halogen Sylvania bulb is 60W and are a good choice for bulb life. 65W versions are out there often with 'whiter' color advertised. These halogens will be slightly brighter. They will fail sooner with a shorter life than the 60W and why not factory installed. So, you can go up a notch with conventional halogen bulbs.

Not all the liner pins, just the front 11. The image shows how much space opens up. Most videos pull 6 or so pins and stop. That works as you can stick your hand through the gap and do a bulb swap by feel. The more space opened up was to see into the housing to align (clock) the LED position.

Yes, a '23 SE would be halogens.

Looks like a rock and a hard place thing going on. Go cheap LED for color, you lose output. Go spendy LED you get color and the same or slightly more output. Go HID you get more output but have a bunch of external boxes to deal with. The last and $$$ choice is to install factory LED housings. Not exactly a plug and play where anti-flicker modules must be spliced into the factory harness to run them. That option is still in there but hitting a $1000 budget if you source good used housings. Ouch!

 

They have only become adjustable with newer gens and not all do it. One could argue a couple degrees is no big thang and pretty sure many are installed not exactly dead on. Most buyers are all about getting rid of the color difference from DRLs. They put 'em in and dig the color match. They don't exactly elaborate on any gains or visibility.

The intent of this thread is maximizing light output where clocking is a big thang. But as important is external driver modules for output, run time before dimming, amount of dimming after 20 min., and heat mitigation which makes the other things happen. No module? No output. The all-in-one designs are great for tight housings like fog lamps, but they take a big hit for output. For headlights you need the external driver punch that removes heat (their enemy).

We can always find shortcuts, work arounds, and super-fast methods to make for whiter lamps but to gain max visibility and best focus, the extra time (20 min per side) is totally worthy in my opinion.

 

The increase over the garbage that came in them is plenty for most. The fahren i installed said 2024 version on the box and some crap about canbus ready and internal chip. Personally I read the paper and my first thought was "English is not their first or second or third language".

A good acetylene drip lamp from a model t would be an upgrade from factory.

They looked pretty well 90 degrees. And if your worried about "true" degree degreeing you need to use special tools. Lol.

I have said tools that we have to use for radar sensors. I see no use in it for a headlight bulb.

 

Addendum - Rainy night report.

Last night was a wet one. Tested the GTRs on quite a run. Thinking my prior review is off. The cutoff line is clearly seen bouncing off objects hundreds of feet away. Don't recall that line being so defined with the halos. The side fill seems wider and brighter.

The big thing is wet roads and light absorption. These things make a much better pattern in the 15-20 foot, 'front of car' view. I can see light on the road not disappearing when wet. No need to check the dash icons to see if the lights are even on, you see the light out there. Spotting reflective signs flaring and better lane stripe view makes me change the result to 20%+ improvement. Perhaps it's not the LUX, it's the pattern? The fact it's whiter does not change penetration or saturation it just paints a nifty color. 3-4K color has more range per watt. where 6K is less. 6K is easy to make with LED and why so prevalent.

Anyhoo, thought about swapping in HID for more output but now - not so much. I'm going with... the GTR improvement was noticeable, passed the rain test, and is acceptable for a 'more output' goal. Oh, and the brights are killer! Don't use brights that much but blipping morons driving with their lights off will be more fun with these babies. Zap!

 

Addendum - Rainy night report.

Last night was a wet one. Tested the GTRs on quite a run. Thinking my prior review is off. The cutoff line is clearly seen bouncing off objects hundreds of feet away. Don't recall that line being so defined with the halos. The side fill seems wider and brighter.

The big thing is wet roads and light absorption. These things make a much better pattern in the 15-20 foot, 'front of car' view. I can see light on the road not disappearing when wet. No need to check the dash icons to see if the lights are even on, you see the light out there. Spotting reflective signs flaring and better lane stripe view makes me change the result to 20%+ improvement. Perhaps it's not the LUX, it's the pattern? The fact it's whiter does not change penetration or saturation it just paints a nifty color.

Anyhoo, thought about swapping in HID for more output but now - not so much. I'm going with the GTR improvement was noticeable, passed the rain test, and is acceptable for the 'more output' goal. Oh, and the brights are killer! Don't use brights that much but blipping morons driving with their lights off will be more fun with these babies. Zap!

I have HID on two new cars and they are awesome but I don't think they are all that much better than good leds. I didn't think I'd ever see a "bad" headlight again after my 07 wrangler. Lol. Those are notoriously bad. Maybe as bad as the base Cruz. Lol amd the round reflector didn't do well with any other bulbs either.

Oh, and it's documented by the insurance institute. They indicate 'P' for poor in their halo testing. The 'G' (Good) are the LEDs. Thinking I'm now a P+ with the GTRs.

View attachment 25453

When we got our 21 F150s they got the same treatment. The base stx had a halogen that got a p. (They also had a column shifter and therefore were 6 passenger rather than 5 which we liked) Then they had the led on the xl standard then the hid as an option We got an xlt with the led reflectors. Then in 22 we got one with the hid headlights. Both are plenty good. I never actually drove a stx with the factory halogens but Ford dropped them for 22.

 

I guess I’m going to have to take a night drive sometime and see how bad the stock halogens really are. I’ve only had the thing a few months and now that I closed the biz and retired I really have no need to drive in the dark. Sadly winter will change that some .

 

take a night drive sometime

Understand the thread is highly biased from personal comments and observations. It's subjective to each owner and their night vision. At 60 something I need a night vision boost. Also, I'm a tech type by trade, love mods and toys so lean to be a harder to satisfy, lighting snob.

Why the snob? The 'lights came on' when I snagged an '04 BMW with factory (Bosch) HIDs. The whole 'seeing' movie changed then. Loved 'em! Of course, these HIDs retailed for some crazy price with just the bulbs at $100 each. But it lit her up like nothing I'd seen. Should that be a benchmark for seeing, the SC had a major go-backwards factor. The explode-O lamps Akfan mentions is likely correct.

But remember, if one burns out, you change 'em as a pair. Stick in the 65-watt babies and try those out. Not so good? Okay, in goes some LEDs. And with that, I'll say the GTRs appear very much like the BMW output with visible cutoff images and the white stuff going on. The same? Maybe, (no spare BMW test car) but again I'll support it is a very noticeable and acceptable upgrade.

* Don't think that you have to spend any bucks from reading a snob post. Just know there's options.

 

I tested two brands. There are others out there that are comparable, but all share a redeeming point. The better (meaning useful) LED kits are found at a higher price. Somewhere in the $80 and up range. There have been zero budget setups (under $80) that were close to factory halos.

Beware of the testing videos showing products. Headlight Revolution (HR) is a big vendor. They operate several websites with different names targeting trucks and other specialty markets. HR LED shootout videos seem legit, but they favor GTR. They show an HID setup with a 50W ballast pattern in a projector vs. GTR LED demonstrating how close they are. The GTR pattern I see is very close to their videos. It seems like they were not tweaking/editing the things. Problem is, HR owns GTR under a huge lighting (monopoly) the Driven Lighting Group who also own Morimoto, Xenon Depot, and others. One company owns all the big names. Meaning they own the technology where any competition is them. If they had the 'killer' LED, they'd clone it across the line. Made me wonder why the GTR Ultra2, now four years old, are still the 'king'. I talked to installers (not HR) that recommend the GTRs. They said their customers like them and don't come back screaming a few months. They also mentioned GTRs are canbus friendly they can sell and install in most anything.

My Auxito/GTR test may reveal it. At 20' distance the GTR beam looked like the video example below, wider and denser. The Auxitos were crankin' some juice but after centering didn't focus the beam as evenly. More LUX but they had less beam spread. It's likely the 50W HID is close or a tad brighter but nothing will gain 2X improvement. So, the old GTRs may still be the king. The LEDs they use are spendy and are legit automotive grade chips unlike others. The kits are all metal beasts with braided leads. Fans sound even and smooth. QC tags are stuck all over the things. Um yeah, maybe get what you pay for where the design hasn't been beat yet? They are the king of cost.

Not suggesting The Driven Lighting Group is up to something, just beware the market is fixed and controlled. With no DOT regulations the Chinese have gone nutty selling garbage with crazy claims. They know some will stuff 'em in, see the whiter goodness and stop. Most are too lazy to send back $30 bulbs. Some run them not knowing they are way under halo output. The whole thing here is to gain light and visibility, not lose it.

Here's a recent HR video specifically the 9005. Lotta pitching going on, but the pattern shown is accurate to what I duplicated.

 

Yeah. The lumen and such claims are laughable. Same for a lot on Amazon and eBay. 1200 watt amps with a 25 amp fuse and a pre-wired 20 guage power wire that fits in your hand.

Flashlights are pretty bad on there too. Remind me of elementary school. A millionbajillion lumens.

They may as well double dog dare them and call it infinity lumens and be done with it.

 

sorry for reviving this but did you happen to purchase a resistor to use with the LED bulbs? I purchased the Auxito a year ago and now it seems burnt out. Or did you replace the entire housing for the LED housing?

 

That's pretty typical. We put them in at the shop and some last. Some don't. So that's par

 

I am sure the LED's available have been upgraded since I did mine, but this was my experience with the LED Bulb Upgrade that I completed:
(A year or two ago)


"I installed the Auxito M3 version this afternoon. (2023 Santa Cruz Night) Pretty simple install, maybe 7 to 10 minutes per side, including buttoning up the inner fender shield.
I watched the video in this thread detailing the specs and output via projector and reflector. Chose the M3 version given its excellent test performance/relative low power consumption and heat output.

I was actually surprised by the relatively clean light output and improved visibility. To my eyes, visibility is significantly better within the light spread. This could be due to the whiter color temperature providing more contrast on the roadway. I won’t pretend to know exactly why the visibility seems more improved than expected…however, it obviously improved visibility and brightened the field of view…To my eyes.

The LED is obviously brighter. (Test showed more than 530 lux brighter than stock halogen bulb initially and 270 lux brighter after 27 minutes run time). This corresponds to my observation out on the road this evening

In my opinion, a worthy upgrade for our projector headlights. "

Ken