Ford Raptor Fog Lights: A Comprehensive Guide
I have been a part of the Raptor community for a very long time. As most are aware, we invented and manufacture the Triple and Dual fog light bezel light kit for both the 2010-2014/Gen 1 and the 2017-2020/Gen 2, a universal ‘Baja’ style light bracket, as well as numerous other products. I get the same questions all the time and thought I would make this guide to help anyone who has questions about bumper light kits. Along with the bezel kit, most of the kits that are manufactured by other vendors are available on our site, we have installed and tested them all. My intent is to supply all the facts about the kits and I will explain the kits differences. Please note I am not going to explain the differences in the lights themselves. All of these kits have the capability to work with all of the major brand light manufacturers. This document is only to discuss the brackets and assemblies.
There is a lot of misinformation in the lighting arena. Below is a rundown with facts and fitment of each bracket system.
KITS AVAILABLE
There are several kits available today for the OEM front bumper cutouts. I will separate them into two groups: With bezel and without bezel (“open style, universal bracket, ‘Baja’ style” are some names that you will see out there).
WITH BEZEL: There are three kits available with a bezel system; two of which we manufacture, the third is made by M and R (I admittedly don’t know anything about this kit—I have never physically seen it). There are two versions of the one we manufacture, Triple and Dual. As the name would suggest, the triple bezel system has three lights per side and the dual has two lights per side. The triple kit uses 4 cube lights (a cube light being a standard 3" x 3" light) and 2 KC HiLites Flex lights or 2 Baja Designs S1 Lights. The Dual kit will use 4 cube lights. Any major brand 3” cube light will work in either bezel system (including Baja Designs Squadron Pro and Sport, Rigid Industries D-Series Pro, KC HiLites and Vison X). You have your choice of beam pattern and LED color on any of the kits. The KC HiLites Flex Light comes in spread beam pattern. The Baja Designs S1 is available in spot, scene or wide and can be amber or clear. The bracket and forward-facing bezel are one-piece and made in the USA from powder coated stainless steel, a gasket system is used to protect the bezel, and the backside of the bumper (the bezel will squeeze the gasket). Stainless steel hardware is provided for mounting the lights. There are fairings that snap fit into the bezel system. Included with either full light kit is a custom wire harness that is pre-measured, pre-spliced, and pre-wired in pairs. The wire harness will come equipped with the plug-and-play ends to match your light configuration. There is no need to change anything about the harness in order to make it work with the kit you select. Physical light adjustability is simple and you will have the ability to point the lights in any direction. The entire lens of the light is unobstructed. A small movement at the light is a big movement down the road. You will need to connect the aux wires under the hood to the wire harness (simple butt connection) and ground the harness to a frame bolt or the negative side of the battery. The harness is ready to work with your overhead AUX switches. You can expect installation to take 2-3 hours if you take your time and are handy. You may choose to add the KC HiLites Flex or Baja Designs S1 amber cover that we produce. These covers are color-matched to the amber grill, marker and parking lights of the truck.
OffroadAllliance.com Bezel kits and Universal Brackets are made in the USA and have a limited lifetime warranty.
WITHOUT BEZEL: There are several kits available without a bezel system. Three that are made by Baja Designs then others by Rigid Industries and a bunch of kits that use a Universal Bracket (Ours- OffroadAlliance.com/FordRaptorLights.com, N-Fab, SPP, Diode Dynamics, Rough Country, Rigid Industries)
Universal bracket kits can use any combination of lights; including 3 cubes per side, 2 cubes with one Baja S2 (mimicking the Baja Designs Kit), 2 cubes and a Baja Designs S1 Light, 2 Cubes with one KC HiLites Flex light (mimicking the bezel kit) etc. You can install any three lights with any three beam patterns you want. Below is a rundown of the brackets. Pictured below are the brackets and what they look like when installed.
OffroadAlliance.com
The OffroadAlliance.com/FordRaptorLights.com universal bracket is made in the USA, stainless steel and powder coated. This bracket kit can come with any lights you’d like (mix and match at will). What makes the OffroadAlliance.com/FordRaptorLights.com different then the rest is the adjustability and optimization. With this bracket you can move the lights up and down, left to right and front to back. The lights sit in a channel that lets you slide them left/right/forward/back. Once all of your lights are mounted you can also move the entire bracket assembly up and down in your opening. This will ensure perfectionists get them perfectly centered. This bracket is also optimized for a Baja Designs S1 in the corner (to work with two 3” cubes/Squadrons) the ability to slide the lights from left to right allows you to maximize exposure of the lens on the light. You can also include the same custom harness (described above) which will allow you to operate the lights via the AUX switches in pairs.
Baja Designs
The Baja Design kits come in 3 different models (which all use the same brackets, hardware and wire harness but the lights are different) Sportsman, Pro and Unlimited. Each of these kits come with 6 lights (3 per side) 2 cube lights and 1 s2 light per side. You’ll find that the difference between the three kits is which lights are included – either s2 Pro or Sport and either Squadron Pro or Sport. Beam patterns are pre-determined by the kit but can easily be changed by swapping lenses (a 5 minute job and a low cost). The kit comes with everything you need to install, including a powder coated steel bracket and stainless hardware. Please note that the bracket itself is not stainless steel. The wire harness will allow you to connect all the three sets of light to TWO switches, however you can buy a ‘y’ for the harness that will allow you to put each pair on a separate switch.
NFab – Not Stainless
Rigid Industries - Stainless
SPP - Stainless
Rough Country- Not stainless
The kits usually have a stainless steel bracket and will allow you to use the hardware that comes with the lights to hang them. You should make sure that a wire harness is included and whatever other wiring you might need to complete the job. Our brackets can come with the same custom wire harness that is included with the bezel kit. Other vendors have a different harness that will also allow you to control each pair on a different switch.
Every Universal bracket I have installed, including- SPP, Baja, OffroadAliance.com / FordraptorLIghts.com, NFAB, Rigid etc all install in a similar way. They all install through the same hole or holes in the same support location. All are the same steel thickness - some are a .25 pound heavier.
These no drill kits install quickly and can be installed in 1.5-3 hours depending on your skill level. With any of these kits adjustability is easy since they are hanging free and you can adjust them at extreme angles should you desire. If you position the lights facing forward and straight you will have some of the light blocked because of how the lights hang in the pocket. With any of the open style kits you will be hanging the lights upside down. This means you will need to take the front of the light off and flip it over. It is not hard to do.
Here are the compelling reasons to buy one bracket over another:
- You like the finished OEM factory look of the bezel kit
- You want a bracket that has left to right adjustability for the lights themselves, and is optimized for a 3rd cube light or Baja Designs S1 or S2
- You want stainless steel hardware and a stainless steel powder coated bracket
- Bracket warranty terms
- You want the custom amber S1 or KC Flex lights color to match the Raptor grill, parking and marker lights
It is for these reasons that we created both the optimized universal bracket and the bezel kits.
Pictured here, our triple bezel fog light kit:
Pictured here, our optimized universal bracket:
Pictured here, the Baja Designs brackets (blue Raptor) next to our universal bracket (white Raptor):
Here's a link to the video illustrating how our optimized universal bracket works:
Here's a link to our video showing the bezel kit installation process:
