LED or HIDS
JK Freak
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 510
Likes: 0
From: West Chester Pennsylvania
never had a problem hooking up HIDs and ballasts from DDM tuning. They are plug and play. No splicing or anything. No problems with them but have had problems with various eBay HID kits, ur right about that. I've got the ddm tuning hid's and paid less than 100 for fogs and headlights and no problems.
I agree the projectors look like nipples but I don't like the way the jw speakers or truck lites look either. To each their own though. The HIDs out out more than enough light and are night and day from stock.
I guess it depends what the OP wants to spend. Personally, I'd rather buy the HIDs and a new bumper, roof rack, stereo stuff or winch with the left over $$ tho
I agree the projectors look like nipples but I don't like the way the jw speakers or truck lites look either. To each their own though. The HIDs out out more than enough light and are night and day from stock.
I guess it depends what the OP wants to spend. Personally, I'd rather buy the HIDs and a new bumper, roof rack, stereo stuff or winch with the left over $$ tho
JK Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 321
Likes: 1
From: Lafayette, LA
HIDs will get you more light than LEDs, both of which kick the ass of stock.
While there are several cheap HID kits that fit in the stock housing with no modifications, most of them will get you in trouble with the police because they scatter super-bright light all over the place and blind others on the road. There are one or two kits that actually put the light source in the right location for the stock reflectors, but that doesn't make them any more legal.
If you buy a proper HID projector kit, expect to spend at least 90% of what the Truck Lites cost. While some of those are not DOT certified, you'll be less likely to have trouble with the police as you're using an optical setup that was designed to handle HIDs in the first place.
I just installed a set of Truck Lites last week, using a SMS relay harness to both kill the flicker and provide full voltage to the housing instead of the 10.4v of PWM signal that the JK feeds the bulbs. (Speaking of PWM, the signal is only hot 80% of the time... between that and the low voltage, no wonder the stock lights are so dim!!!) It turns out that I did a bunch of extra work putting that harness in that I could have skipped: LED headlights are happy with as low as 9v. So the capacitor/diode flicker-eliminator pigtails would work just fine, and they're half the cost and far less hassle to install than a full relay harness. Oh well, I'm not gonna rip out that harness now that I've got it installed how I like it. Anyway, I've been very happy with this setup. It doesn't pump out as much light as a well-designed HID setup, but it beats the crap out of any halogen bulb out there.
I considered a set of JW Speaker 8700s, but ended up ruling them out after seeing some comparison shots between them and the Truck Lites. While I really like the idea of a proper projector lens setup, they weren't enough better to justify spending 75% more on them. In fact, in several ways, I like the Truck Lites better: the beam pattern is much wider, and they actually appear slightly brighter. The JW Speakers do have a much smoother beam pattern with hardly any artifacting in them though, which a lot of people like. I don't find that "X" hotspot the Truck Lites throw to be annoying, so I'm perfectly ok with what I bought.
While there are several cheap HID kits that fit in the stock housing with no modifications, most of them will get you in trouble with the police because they scatter super-bright light all over the place and blind others on the road. There are one or two kits that actually put the light source in the right location for the stock reflectors, but that doesn't make them any more legal.
If you buy a proper HID projector kit, expect to spend at least 90% of what the Truck Lites cost. While some of those are not DOT certified, you'll be less likely to have trouble with the police as you're using an optical setup that was designed to handle HIDs in the first place.
I just installed a set of Truck Lites last week, using a SMS relay harness to both kill the flicker and provide full voltage to the housing instead of the 10.4v of PWM signal that the JK feeds the bulbs. (Speaking of PWM, the signal is only hot 80% of the time... between that and the low voltage, no wonder the stock lights are so dim!!!) It turns out that I did a bunch of extra work putting that harness in that I could have skipped: LED headlights are happy with as low as 9v. So the capacitor/diode flicker-eliminator pigtails would work just fine, and they're half the cost and far less hassle to install than a full relay harness. Oh well, I'm not gonna rip out that harness now that I've got it installed how I like it. Anyway, I've been very happy with this setup. It doesn't pump out as much light as a well-designed HID setup, but it beats the crap out of any halogen bulb out there.
I considered a set of JW Speaker 8700s, but ended up ruling them out after seeing some comparison shots between them and the Truck Lites. While I really like the idea of a proper projector lens setup, they weren't enough better to justify spending 75% more on them. In fact, in several ways, I like the Truck Lites better: the beam pattern is much wider, and they actually appear slightly brighter. The JW Speakers do have a much smoother beam pattern with hardly any artifacting in them though, which a lot of people like. I don't find that "X" hotspot the Truck Lites throw to be annoying, so I'm perfectly ok with what I bought.