Morimoto 2-stroke DRL LED
 

Anyone had any experience, positive or negative, with the Morimoto 2Stroke 9005 LED replacement in an FR-S? Supposedly it retains DRL and Hi-beam function in an FR-S standard housing without giving up reach at night.

Experienced opinions welcome.

I'm currently running the H11 2Strokes in my low beams, and so far they've been amazing. @continuecrushing has tried them in his high beams/DRL, but I believe it's a tight squeeze trying to get the bulb in.

I'll let him chime in on that.

Yup, I've got them in the high beams currently, but I had to "lube" the oring a bit to get it in (yeeeeaaaah...).

Haven't tested them yet (other than, yup they turn on) because no driveshaft in car lol.

I have hid's in my low beam, and you could definitely see the nasty "yellow" light from the halogens when my high beams were on. The 2 strokes should provide more light and a nice white color too.

so quick question, to the people running these... hows the light output when its raining/snowing (if you get snow) bc i dont want to get these if the output is bad in the rain/snow

the OEM FRS head lights also have a "squirrel finder" tab in them, so you might be also blinding oncoming cars if you change to HID's or LED's. just keep that in mind, unless you bend that tab out of the way

@Manic can chime in, but the 2stroke led's shouldn't need the squirrel finders bent down. Because the led bulb is designed to have the "filament" (the spot where light actually emits from the bulb" as the halogens, it should be reflecting light in the proper spots inside the projector.

HID's normally need the finders bent down since they just spew light everywhere and hope for the best lol. Jk, kind of.

But I don't think we'e see any issues with the 2strokes causing glare on the frs.

Just to be clear and avoid confusion, the thread refers to mounting the lights in the DRL/High beam location.

@continuecrushing, any modifications needed to get fitment besides "lubing the o-ring"?

Nope! I'll have install shots/review when I get a driveshaft on the car though.

Next week we can try and do a comparison of stock lows vs 2stroke lows and stock high vs 2stroke high.

That was one of my first concerns when going with the 2Strokes since I absolutely can't stand people who do shoddy HID swaps and end up blinding everyone on the road. However, in testing and in practice, I haven't seen any issues with excessive glare or people getting upset at me.

Here are some photos for comparison

This user has a stock halogen on the left and an LED bulb with a bent squirrel finder on the right:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8237/8...1af604ed_c.jpg

Here's how HIDs would look without bending the squirrel finders:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y60...607_022200.jpg

And here's my headlights with the 2Strokes and unbent squirrel finders:
https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-...10285690_o.jpg

Granted, all the photos couldn't possibly be taken with the same camera settings/lighting/distances, but from what you can see, the 2Strokes do a very good job of keeping the pattern lean with the squirrel finders. They even have a smaller and darker pattern than stock halogens!

As I said, I've yet to have anyone get mad at me for my 2Strokes, or at the very least no one has flashed their high beams at me in anger.

Thanks for chiming in - interested in the review, but I was wondering if you could just quickly check to confirm that they do allow the DRL to retain the high-beam function (or at least somewhat of one? I love my LED DRLs, but I have always been disappointed to lose the high beam functionality - I literally never use it living in a city, but I definitely don't like "upgrading" something if it means losing functionality - would be nice to have some sort of compromise for the DRL.)

I'll check-they should though, when we were doing voltage/amp testing they worked as low as 6 or 7 volts.

I'll find out for sure though!

OK, not so good news on these.

On the FR-S, they do run at practically full high beam power in the DRL setting. So they are arguably too bright for daytime use, especially toward the time of day in the 15 minutes before the auto-headlight kicks in.

They are only middling as high beams- you are giving up reach at night- because rather than a central hotspot, they actually create a pronounced donut shaped beam in the FR-S high beam application. There is literally a dead spot in the middle of the pattern.

So, the bottom line is- unacceptable in the DRL/high beam application.

Is that with just the normal DRLs on, or the pseudo-highbeams? and yeah - way too bright for normal DRLs, so thank you for clarifying that.

every led i dealt with for the drls was always in full power mode and looked exactly the same brightness when i switched to high beams

There was no visible difference between the high beam lever on (flash to pass) and DRL level. The threshold is presumably too high to allow the advertised function.

It's too bad, the product seems to be of high quality, shipping snd service were excellent. Just not a good fit for this specific application.

There's the issue. From our testing, the 2Strokes come on at full brightness at anything above 9V which is right around where the FR-S DRLs would be running at (according to our lighting guy, the FR-S seems to run DRLs at a higher voltage than most other makes). Granted it's extra work, but wiring in a resistor could help you there. Anything below 9V and you get the appropriate dimming action.

Seems reasonable, but I imagine doing this right (no consequences to the high beam function) might be a little more complicated than simply wiring in a resistor.

Then again, it's been quite a while since I found myself falling asleep in EE101, and I couldn't diagram a Norton/Thevenin equivalent diagram anymore if you put a gun to my head.

And even if solved, it doesn't make up for the donut hole in the pattern.

no update on my original post?

Unfortunately, we haven't seen rain in Southern California in many moons. We're almost to the point of making live sacrifices.

also, I will have review of high beams with 2strokes at night soon...just got the driveshaft installed in the car lol, so I'll be able to test soon.

any update on that review?

not yet-I did drive the car at night, and the high beams are epic-but I also have a retrofit so I get a "high beam" from my low beams.

One thing for certain-the instant on from the high beams is absolutely noticeable. I had the stock halogens in there before, and although they turn on quickly, the leds now are RIGHT NOW on haha.

gotcha! well your also running them in your low beams correct?

no, right now I have HID in the low beam with a retrofit kit...bulb size is H1, and the 2strokes don't come in H1 size yet.

When I get the chance, i'll probably just pull the low beam wire, and do a comparison of stock halogen vs led (but high beams only)