Angel Eyes Mod

[Jim Nazium]

You can search ebay for... "04 05 06 LEXUS RX330 RX350 CCFL ANGEL EYES WHITE d3" as an example.

Has anybody had the initiative or have experience with such a mod?

I mod'ed the Fog/Driving Lights with 50W (and 35W) ballasts to have HID output, and was extremely disappointed with the Asian quality (tried 3 various kits / manufacturers). Bulb and Ballasts failure within less than 3 months, and that is without much actually "running" them ON.

One other point, is I would like to physically know how to rewire the Day time running lights... I would much prefer having the DRL run as part of either the "angel eyes" or if that "kit" is not possible, have the mini bulb found above the High Beam Bulb powered on in DRL mode.

I have already replaced the filament bulb found above the high beam bulb with a high intensity LED bulb. It does not output much light, the reason for safety sakes, would perfer to add Angel Eyes.

Cheers,

MadloR

[cduluk]

Aftermarket angel eyes are incredibly unreliable. I wouldn't go near them personally...

[maseace]

I "angel eyed" my fog lights (stuck on white LED rings on the chrome rings), but I don't think it's worth cracking open the headlights for angel eyes. Plus when they go bad you have to do it all over again.

[smooth1]

I did it on my IS 300. I have pics posted in my thread there someplace. It was awhile back. It's alot of work, and you have to be careful. They worked great for about 3 years. But then 1 burned out, so I just removed them this time. They have come out with alot better options since. I think I like the strip of 10 or 15 LED's along the edge in the air dam or along the skirt around the fog lights instead.

[cduluk]

Plus when they go bad you have to do it all over again.

Exactly! If you could easily replace them when (and i literally mean "when", not "if") they burned out, it wouldn't be a big deal. But opening and sealing the headlights is one of the biggest "pain in the @ss" projects you could possibly imagine. It's by far one of the most "annoying/painful/wish i hadn't started it" projects i've done to my car. I did several headlight retro's to my old Rx300 and one with my Rx400h. I've had to make repairs on a 90 degree day in August and during a 20 degree evening in December with snow blowing in the garage- and believe me, there's NOTHING more painful than playing with the headlights in the cold without gloves (because you need your sense of touch) having to rush so you can drive the car to work the next day. And odds are, it'll take you several tries to seal them up correctly having to control dust, fogging, position, and making a perfect fit, all at the same time.

If you install any type of "halo" or aftermarket LED in your headlights, guaranteed 100% it's going to go out on either the hottest day of the summer or the coldest day of winter. And believe me, you're gonna wish you simply left the headlights alone!

The two types of Halo's (also called angel eyes) out there are made of CCFL's (cold cathode tubes) or by LED's (one on each end with a clear plastic diffuser in the shape of a circle). Both of them are unreliable, with the latter being the better of the two. However the LED halo's aren't very bright, and the entire circle never illuminates uniformly.

I've also found that the power going to the little parking light bulbs in the RX headlights (the tiny bulb on the high beam reflector and the one illuminated behind the side orange reflector) is never set at 12V. It fluctuates considerably between 12V and 14V based on the alternator. When cars use factory bulbs this fluctuation is OK as bulbs can take varying voltages, however LED's cannot. Typically when LED's are used on cars from the factory, the cars computer has a voltage and current regulator so the LED's always get a consistent voltage so they don't burn out. So, if you replace any of the parking light bulbs with your average aftermarket LED bulb, most likely it's going to burn out. There are only several on the market that have built-in voltage and current regulators with heat-sinking to handle the fluctuation in voltage. If you wire the angel eyes to these parking lights, unless the angel eyes have built in voltage regulators, say Adios!

[RX400h]

....spoken by a guy with experience!

This is why I normally have factory service manuals. I can gauge how long something should take, whether special tools are needs, etc before I decide to do the task. The older I get, the shorter the task-time needs to be before I have someone else do it or just cancel/delay the project. Perhaps that will change when I retire and have more free time.