By Baja Designs Fog Pocket Kit for the 2021+ Ford Bronco
In this article, we’re going to take a close-up look at the brand new Baja Designs fog pocket LED light kit for the brand new 2021+ Ford Bronco with the modular steel bumper so you can turn night into day in your off-road adventures.
About Baja Designs
LED lighting is one of the most popular and important modifications for any off-road application and the folks over at Baja Designs were one of the original leaders in this industry because they were born out of the elite level of desert racing like the Baja 1000. They make incredible applications, they are extremely durable and put out tons of light from motorcycles to trophy trucks and everything in between including the brand new Ford Bronco, for which they have created a ton of different lighting options for roof bar mounting, A-pillar mounts, reverse kits and this fog pocket kit.
There are eight different variations of this fog pocket kit and it includes all the mounting brackets hardware and wiring that you need for the installation, and we’re going to take you through all of that in this article. We are also going to be doing many of the other Baja Designs kits on our Bronco so subscribe to our YouTube channel to see those videos as they come out.
VIDEO: FOG POCKET LED KIT FOR THE NEW BRONCO FROM BAJA DESIGNS
Common Kit Components
Each of the different eight configurations comes with two of their 3×3-inch Squadron pods as well as four of their 3×1.7-inch S2 pods. Each of which comes in different levels of lighting, lenses, lens colors, as well as we mentioned all the brackets you need to mount everything up on that steel modular bumper. They do make kits for the plastic bumper but we are not covering those in this article. Even though there are a lot of options to choose from, we will take you through each of them now. We hope that that’s helpful and helps you choose what you’re looking to buy we will put links to everything in the description and if you have further questions you can call us toll-free at 833.MOTOROSO or you can hit us up on LiveChat at Motoroso.com.
The Switch Options
So there are eight kits but there are really only four major kits they just each come in two different types and that has to do with whether you get an upfitter harness or the switched harness. The only difference here is that the switched harness has the relays and switches on it so you can run that up through the firewall and mount separate custom switches inside the vehicle. You are only going to do that if you don’t have the OEM auxiliary switches on your Bronco. If you do have the OEM auxiliary switches, which hopefully most of you do, then you want to get the upfitter kits which is a shorter harness that does not include the switches, is designed to wire into the OEM switches, is a much cleaner installation, and even costs less so that’s really nice.
Now while we’re on the topic of the wiring harnesses it is important to note that all these are designed to be wired to two different switches. The four S2 pods will be on one switch and the two Squadrons will be on another switch which is handy when you’re deciding between going with the SAE kits or the non-SAE kits.
SAE vs Non-SAE
Besides the harness then you really only have four options and I’m going to split that into two separate options: you are either going to go with an SAE approved kit or the non-SAE approved kits.
The SAE Kits
The SAE-approved kits feature lights that are approved by the SAE which is the Society of Automotive Engineers which means that the lights are legal for use on the street and you’re not going to get a ticket for having them switched on. If that matters to you and you really want to make sure this light kit is fully legal, then you’re going to want to look at these SAE options. For most, this is not something we worry about at all since the wiring harness allows you to have these on two separate switches and you can simply not turn on your illegal lights, not blind other drivers, and not get a ticket.
The Squadrons that come in the SAE approved kit put out 2,480 lumens each and then each of the S2s are putting out 1,130 lumens bringing the total output of this entire kit to 9,480 lumens. The only decision you need to make in the SAE-approved kits is between whether or not you want clear lenses on the Squadrons or amber lenses on the Squadrons and all of the SAE kits come with clear lenses on the S2s.
SHOP SAE KIT WITH CLEAR LENSES AND UPFITTER HARNESS HERE!
SHOP SAE KIT WITH AMBER LENSES AND UPFITTER HARNESS HERE!
SHOP SAE KIT WITH CLEAR LENSES AND SWITCHED HARNESS HERE!
SHOP SAE KIT WITH AMBER LENSES AND SWITCHED HARNESS HERE!
Beam Patterns
While we’re on the topic of lenses, the scientists of lighting over Baja Designs classify their lenses into several different types. They offer spot lenses that allow the light to go far in a more focused beam, driving combo lenses which have a combination of spot and flood to help provide a mixture and that’s a really popular lens, and then they offer a wide cornering lens which is more of a floodlight that evenly distributes and gives you corner lighting as well. They also offer some work lenses or scene lighting that allow you to just it’s more for use when you’re stopped or parked to light up a campground or a work site.
Coming back to the SAE kits, the lenses that come on the Squadrons are going to be wide cornering lenses. Part of what makes them SAE certified is that they send that light everywhere and not just super focused and far out in front of you. Then on the S2s in that SAE kit, two of the S2 pods are going to have spot beams and the other two are gonna have that driving combo lens.
The Non-SAE Kits
The two remaining kits and we think probably the kits most people are gonna be looking at are the non-SAE kits. These are going to be the Sportsmen and the Pro — the pro is gonna be their big bad boy which puts off the most amount of light.
THE SPORTSMEN KIT
We’ve chosen the Sportsmen kit and this upgrades your SAE Squadrons up to the Squadron Sports which put out 3,150 lumens each and it still includes the S2 Sports which again are 1,130 lumens each and that puts the total light output on this Sportsmen kit to 10,820 lumens. The lenses that are going to come on these bigger more powerful Squadrons in the Sportsmen kit are going to be spot lenses so that’s going to throw the majority of your light way up further down the road. They’re going to put wide cornering and driving combo lenses in the S2 Sports to leave the cornering light to your S2 Sports.
THE PRO KIT
For those of you looking for the maximum amount of lighting performance, you’re going to want to opt for the Pro kit. That’s going to upgrade your Squadron Sports to Squadron Pros throwing out 4,600 lumens of light through a spot lens and then you’re going to have two of your S2s upgraded to S2 Pros which are putting out 2,450 lumens through a driving combo lens and then your two S2 Sports are going to still be 1,130 lumens through wide cornering lenses, which brings the total light output of this kit up to 16,360 lumens — that is a ton of light coming off your bumper.
The Quality of Manufacturing
Beyond just the light output of this kit, what really separates a brand like Baja Designs from the rest of the pack is the extreme durability and the quality of manufacturing of these lights. These things were developed in the harshest of imaginable conditions in Baja trophy truck racing — it doesn’t get harsher than that so these things are really going to stand the test of time, handle anything that you throw at them, and probably outlive your Bronco.
The housings on these lights are made from cast aluminum and have integrated heat sinks to help control the heat that can come off this amount of light. The lenses are made from a hard-coated polycarbonate material that can withstand significant impacts and they’re sealed with a gasket that can withstand rain and water and are actually submergible up to nine feet. Even the bezels on the lights are CNC machined aluminum. They’re even impact tested to military specifications so if you go running into things banging into things you’re going to if you’re really hitting it hard in the desert these things are going to stand the test of time. Right down to every last detail these things are top of the food chain.
Amber Lenses for the Non-SAE Kits
We’ve got the black diamond package with the modular steel bumper and we opted for the Sportsmen kit with the upfitter harness. Amber lenses aren’t available in the Sportsmen or the Pro kit, but they are available separately, and because it’s such a high-quality product you have the ability to configure and change lenses if you like. We went ahead and bought two extra amber lenses for our Squadrons and we got them in the driving combo so it’s not just a spot and we’re going to be swapping those out.
SHOP S2 PODS DRIVING COMBO AMBER LENS HERE!
SHOP SQUADRON PRO/SPORT PODS DRIVING COMBO AMBER LENS HERE!
SHOP SQUADRON PRO/SPORT PODS WIDE CORNERING AMBER LENS HERE!
We realize there’s a lot that we just covered in this article, and there are a lot of decisions to make. We hope it helped you find which kit might work best for you and we do have links for everything in this article as well as the accessories like the lenses. If you have questions beyond any of this call us toll-free at 833.MOTOROSO or hit us on LiveChat at Motoroso.com. Next up, we’ll be looking at the Baja Designs Reverse Light kit and you can find the video for that below. Thanks for reading!
