Following a night drive with the new headlights, I quickly realized the Morimotos were not as good as I’d hoped. The output was not well focused, and while part of that could have been down to adjustment, I primarily blamed the reflector technology, which, at least in this guise, was just not as well focused as a modern headlight could be – certainly not one I spent over a thousand dollars for.

The other option I had considered was the Alpharex Nova series in Jet Black, which features 4 ice-cube style projectors for the low beams and a chrome black housing. It still uses a reflector-style portion for the high beam, and the stock incandescent bulb for the turn signal. It also features a similar style DRL light tube that is lit white during normal driving, and sequential orange when using the turn signals or hazard lights. In comparison, the Morimoto let you choose between sequential and regular flashing for the turn signals, and used an LED for the turn signal as well. However, these matter much, much less to me than the output of the low beams. I believe that for the best output from an LED, a projector is needed (rather than a reflector). Our Prius has 2 ice-cube style projectors for its LEDs, which are unbelievably bright, and the Evo also uses projectors for its HIDs in low beam. The overall quality of the plastic housing is definitely not on par with Morimoto’s, which feel like OEM level plastic, but I don’t have any concerns about the integrity of the housing. Overall, very, very happy with the switch.

The installation guide is online, but I felt there was a lot missing from them, so I’ve updated mine here. Much of the install was the same, with the same tools needed, but there were a handful of minor differences which I’ll highlight here:

1. The uninstall of the old or stock headlights is obviously the same.
2. The only real difference with the alpharex is that it uses a harness that connects to the battery’s positive terminal & negative/ground, which at the least tells me that these headlights have higher/more power draw. The fuse tap system is actually the same.
3. You have to reuse the halogen turn signal bulbs from the stock headlights. The most annoying part of this is that the location these go in on the new headlights are covered in a sticker covering, which completely comes apart as you try to remove it, requiring me to use my fingernails to scrape it all off.
4. Once you insert the bulb, it actually makes sense to go ahead and immediately connect it to the connector to avoid confusion when trying to connect the rest of the connectors from the car.
5. The rest of the connectors are fairly straightforward, except there was one connector I didn’t use (covered with electrical tape) and one port on the headlight as well that was not used. I assume these are for different features on the Tundra.
6. The rest of the connectors go on as normal. They do not fit as well as the Morimotos did, but still work.
7. The headlight washer also bolts on in a similar fashion
8. Put everything into place and test run the lights before wrapping up the install.
9. Finally – it takes some adjustment to make sure these are leveled out properly. I raised the driver’s side quite a bit, but had some difficulty adjusting the horizontal settings. Not sure why, but as much as I tried I didn’t get much change out of them