Last night I decided to test out the light system and bumper for the first time. I have never really wheeled during darkness before so that was something new to me. And knowing that you are all by yourself, your alone in the car, no other trucks on the trails and barley any one else in the entire national forest except yourself and a few hunters made the trip a little more thrilling. Knowing that if somethings goes wrong you only have yourself to fall back on.
I tried to not doing anything to crazy so I never really got to smash my bumper on anything. But I did notice that I did get a lot better clearance going over boulders when there was no longer a front bumper to hit the rock before my front wheels started climbing the rocks. So the bumper did great on the clearance side. Durability test will have to come at another time when I have someone else with me or have a winch installed.
The lightning system overall worked great. I must say that I am extremely impressed with my 2x 9" HIDs mounted in the front. They are the flood light version and not the spots. The reach of the lights is similar to my HID converted high beams (they reach pretty far) but the beam pattern on does 9" HIDs is great. Not only is the reach great. Its a broad beam that will light up the forest on the side of the road so you can easily spot any wild life wanting to cross the road several hundred yards away. In speeds over 15mph these lights where in a different league compared to my LEDs. The HIDs worked great on the trail as well. But did not throw a beam wide enough to give you a great overview of your surroundings. The best set up for a trail truck would probably be to combine these 2 HIDs with 2 smaller (i.e 6") HID light bars to give you a wider beam pattern. But on a gravel road or any back country road these 2 lights is everything you will ever need. I am extremely happy with the performance.
The 42,5" LED light bar on the roof produce a scary amount of light. To much light actually. It has a very wide beam pattern and gives you a great overview of the trail in front of you. But it produce so much light that anything with in 30 yards (bushes, signs, your hood or whatever) will almost hurt your eyes because they are so bright. I would recommend you to get one or two small LED light bars instead of a beast like this. It is overkill for pretty much any application but it will work pretty good on the trails. But in any speeds over 15mph it is just pure dangerous driving with this thing turned on. That is my personal view of it. Other people might think these big light bars are perfect.
My LEDs on the side on the other hand was perfect to have for trail riding. They gave me a decent amount of light to see what I had on the side of my truck. The 2 10W LEDs mounted further back on the rack is a lot stronger and has a more concentrated beam pattern then the 2 19W LEDs mounted in the front. Mixing the 2 together actually gave a very good light set up.
All lights mounted on the truck including the HID converted lights are 6000K lights.
Here are some shaky shoots on the side lightning:
Here you have my different lights turned on (Not pitch black outside yet so it wont give you a accurate view of how bright they actually are.
Low beam (HID converted)
Low beam (HID converted) + High Beam (HID Converted)
Low beam (HID converted) + High Beam (HID Converted) + 2x 9" 55W HIDs
Low beam (HID converted) + High Beam (HID Converted) + 2x 9" 55W HIDs + 42,5" 230W LED light Bar
Here you can see that the set up is a little to much when you get close to a bank or a bush. Its just WHITE and you can barley see shadows or lines of anything:
Here are some random picture from the ride:
About to start a decent down a steeep hill
A belly shoot!
Some of the trails in Uwharrie can feel a little claustrophobic when you have high walls of mud surrounding you.
Airing up getting ready to head back home:
She is slow but she gets the job done:
When you are alone in the dark forest it makes you behave in the most strange ways.
It was a beautiful night:
Overall I am very happy with the light set up. I do wish that I would have gotten 2 smaller LED light bars instead of this monster. Its just to much light all over the place for actually being useful. At least it looks cool.
