Follow Up: Off Road Lighting

Since we covered the off road lighting options in January there have been plenty of changes to our setup. First though, let me tell you how our LightForce Striker lights are holding up.

After about 8,000 miles on the truck, Cruise Moab 2009, and several other off road trips I’m happy to say that the lights work perfectly. All the wiring has held up just fine, the Colorado Winter and very wet Spring have not gotten past the water tight hole in the roof, and all 4 fire right up at the push of a button. These lights are rock solid and we couldn’t be more impressed. Now, on to the upgrades.

When we ordered the Aluminess front bumper (see page ??), we also opted for the Eagle Eye lights that they sell for it. While the bumper supports nearly any driving or fog light, we decided to go with what the manufacturer uses. The lights were installed at the same time as the bumper, and while you could possibly install them later, we recommend doing it at the same time to keep things simple. Since these are essentially fog lights (although they’re very useful on the trail), we chose to use a Tacoma fog light switch mounted on the left side of the steering wheel. This allows easy access when the lights are needed, and leaves extra space on the switch panel for future mods. When it comes to lighting up the road or trail, the 100W 5” Eagle Eye Halogen lights work great. They’re very secure on the bumper, and we expect them to last a long time.

The last lighting upgrade we just completed is a new product being sold by Toytec Lifts. It’s called the Brite Box, and it nearly doubles the output from your OEM headlights. The 5 minute install (including photos) couldn’t be easier. In fact, the hardest part of the install was finding a suitable place for the box itself. This is a straight plug & play solution that really works as advertised. As you can see in our quick comparison pics, before you install the Brite Box switching your high beams on results in your low beams being deactivated. The special circuitry in Brite Box allows your low beams to stay on when you switch to your brights, so you get long range light from your brights as well as short range light from your low beams. Originally we planned on upgrading our lamps to high output versions, but Brite Box recommends keeping the OEM bulbs so you don’t overload the wiring. That’s probably a safe bet, and with the Brite Box, you shouldn’t need expensive bulbs.

The only issue with our setup at this point is the draw on our battery when all the lights are on. We have 4x 100W LightForce plus another 200W from the Eagle Eye lights. While this theoretically only draws 50amps at 12 volts, it definitely is a drain on the charging system. When turning all the lights on, the engine idle’s noticeably slower. Due to this, one of our very near future upgrades will be a dual battery system.  Look for that article in an upcoming issue of FJC Magazine.

These two upgrades in addition to our previous LightForce setup really meets our needs for nighttime visibility. We have no issues at all now during night runs, and the chances of not seeing an animal or other obstacle on the trail are very low. If you plan on running trails at night, you’ll definitely want to look in to some type of lighting upgrade.