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· Dirt Nasty Low
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25,041 Posts
Discussion Starter · #1 ·
As TRS recently released the XB LED fog lights for Hondas, I thought I would take the time to review/DIY it on 8th since I'm one of the first people with an 8th gen to get my hands on a set.

First things first, if you want a set of your own, they can be purchased directly from TRS here


I received mine a little over a week ago. I had to wait a few months for mine as I was part of a group buy before they were put into production. However you can buy yours and have them shipped immediately from the link above. The fogs came beautifully packaged as everything from Morimoto/TRS is:



The fog housings themselves are powder coated cast aluminum. They are around the same weight as the OEM fogs, but feel much sturdier/beefier.



Taken directly from TRS, the LEDs themselves are "powered by three Philips Luxeon-T 5000K LED's that produce around 1200 raw lumens per side. The projector based optics inside concentrate a total of 2400 lumens of pure white light into a beam that's super wide and perfectly distributed for use as a fog light. They are SAE, DOT, and ECE approved."

The fog lenses are polycarbonate, which is a huge upgrade over the fragile OEM glass lenses. Many people have issues with the OEM fog lenses cracking over time due to road debris, however this will not happen with the polycarbon lenses.

My overall impression of the fogs themselves is fantastic. For $170 (considerably less than your average parts+labor for a fog retro) you get a pair of extremely sturdy, well built, high quality fog lights that are a direct plug-n-play to the OEM fog wiring/housings. That's right, the XB LED fogs require NO ballasts, or relays. They plug directly into OEM fog wiring and run off the normal 12v system as your OEM halogen bulbs would.

To keep the length of this review down, I've decided to simply write up a pros/cons list of the XB LED fogs over halogen/HID/retro fogs:

Pros
  • Much more aggressive looking over stock (see install guide below for additional pictures)
  • Fits directly into your OEM fog brackets/housings
  • Can have height/pitch adjusted just like your OEM fogs
  • No ballasts, fuses, relays, etc required. The fogs plug directly into your oem fog harness
  • 10 year warranty through TRS. Yes, 10 years, no that isn't a typo. These fogs will last you the life of your car. If not, TRS will replace them.

Cons
  • No color temperature options. Unlike HID's, you can't vary your color output. All XB LEDs match what would be considered 5k in the HID world. Perfect for me because my retros are 5k HID's and match them exactly. However others may not like this. You can order yellow lamin-x from TRS for an additional $20 if you want to give your fogs the JDM yellow/4300k look, but that's about all
  • Your car buddies will hate you because your flog lights are now far superior

I know that isn't much of a "cons" list, but I legitimately couldn't think of any other reason to steer away from these fogs. They are priced more than reasonably, and an upgrade over OEM/HID in every single way. If anyone who reads this has a good/bad experience and wants to add to the list just drop a comment!

Onto the install guide/pictures.

The box you get from TRS has everything you need to do the install. The two fogs, and two plastic clips for the OEM fog wiring which we will get to momentarily. First and most obviously, jack up the car and remove your front bumper:



Now at this point I would recommend pulling out your fog harness/relays if you had previously had a HID fog setup. You will not need this ever again so feel free to put it up for sale!

Once you've freed up your OEM fog wiring, it's time to do a little guess work. The LED fogs come with two clips which you need to feed the power wires through. It took me a little bit of guess work to figure out which way the wires need to be oriented inside the clips, however it's either one way or the other with 2 wires. Regardless I hope that if this is the same for all Type H LED fogs, I've saved everyone reading this some time on the install :)



In the picture above, you can see the red wire feeds into the left side of the clip, where as the black wire feeds to the right side. I turned the fogs on just to ensure that the lights were actually getting power with the wires oriented this way.




Once you have wire orientation figured out, you're good to go to feed the wiring into the wire clips. I would recommend re-testing the fogs at this point before mounting them in the bumper, just to ensure everything is getting power as it should.


Now that your LED fogs are ready to go, it's time to pull the OEM fogs out of the housing. Remove the 3 screws I've circled in the picture below:



This will free the fog light and bracket from the bumper. At this point there are 3 more screws which need to be removed to free the fog light from the bracket. Two silver washer/screws on each side of the bracket, as well as a small screw on the back of the fog light where the adjustment spring is.

I realized I never took a picture of these screws, so I did my best to highlight what needs to come off from the same picture below. Please keep in mind these screws should not be removed until the fog/bracket is freed from the bumper.



**WARNING: Be VERY careful with the 3 screws that connect the fog light to the bracket. Specifically the smaller screw in the back. I recommend applying a generous coating of liquid wrench on all 3 screws and letting them sit for a while before attempting to get them out. The screws are small and the metal is soft so you WILL strip the heads on these screws if you're not careful.

Take it from my experience, I stripped both screws on the back of the fog bracket where the height adjuster is. One I was able to save with a dremmel and turned it into a flat head screw to get out. The other had to be drilled out completely. If the screws look like they are at all rusted or corroded USE LIQUID WRENCH OR YOU WILL STRIP THE HEAD.

Good news is, once you deal with the pesky screws, it's a a cake walk from here. Pretty common sense, fit the new fog lights into the OEM brackets and replace the 3 screws you just worked so hard to get out. I was lucky enough to find a donor screw around my work bench that fit perfectly so I was able to continue.

Side by side comparison of the LED fog and OEM fog mounted in the OEM brackets:



And finally, both LED fogs mounted and ready to be put back in the bumper:



(You can see my cut up OEM screw on the right and my donor screw on the left :giggle:)

Now simply place these fogs back into the housings in the bumper and tighten everything down with the 3 screws you removed first. The fogs should fit in nice and snug. I did one more test with the fogs in the bumper and connected to make sure they powered on as they should. After the all-clear just re-mount your bumper and you're all set!

Now onto pictures of the fogs installed which I know everyone has been waiting for:






Powered on:


And finally, a close-up cutoff picture:

^Please note that although my amber corners are lit, I pulled the fuse for my retros so this is JUST the LED fogs powered on.


That about wraps it up! I'll be taking more/better pictures as I can. My Si isn't driven during the winter so I was working with what I could. Any questions, concerns, comments, etc. Feel free to drop a comment!

:corona:
 

· Dirt Nasty Low
Joined
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25,041 Posts
Discussion Starter · #3 ·
They will work with the 08 bumper if you have a fog kit I'm pretty certain. The brackets are the same, just the housings are different which don't matter for these!
 

· Dirt Nasty Low
Joined
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25,041 Posts
Discussion Starter · #7 ·
YASSSSS I've been waiting for these to come out. Next purchase for my car for sure.
Definitely worth it! Especially with the warranty on them you get. I'm pretty certain these will kill the retro fog market lol.

Wow this is very impressive, and definitely added these to my list of 'need to do for lighting'. How is the reach and width on them ( i know they're fogs ) just pointing out in the open?
I haven't had the chance to take the car out at night for proper pictures. It's currently on stands waiting out the cold/snowy winter here and hasn't been driven in months (note the amount of dust on the car in the pictures :rotfl:)
 

· Dirt Nasty Low
Joined
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25,041 Posts
Discussion Starter · #9 ·
Please read my post above. I haven't had the car on the road since I put the fogs in. We have a warm day coming up this weekend so I hope to get some better pictures then.
 
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