Joe Foe from Buffalo Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I'm considering on getting a HID Xenon H4 kit. Does anyone have non bias testing on them? Or what and why you have the one you have or would like to get? Can a HID Xenon H4 kit be used with a head light modulator? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 i would say no to the modulator. cant wait to do the HID upgrade myself your gonna want 4300k its closest to the OEM bulbs, and i recommend staying away from generic ballast. try and get a phillips ballast. anything below 4300k say like 3000k is gonna be yellow and anything above 6500k is gonna be blue / purple Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StalinTC Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I have a 6000k kit in my 6th gen (h4) and I love it. I chose 6000k because it is just a little dimmer than 4300 and is a little easier on oncoming eyes imo. It has a scatter shield on the bottom 1/3rd of the bulb to help with glare. No on the modulators, it will kill the ballasts. The best thing you can do for your kit is to get one that gets its power through a relay direct to your battery. I don't have a "dual xenon" kit because I have dedicated bulbs for brights. Make sure also that the ballast/ignitor box is securely mounted away from water as best as possible. I like to use a large piece of double sided 3m foam adhesive tape as it holds for ever and adds a little cushion. I have done a few swaps on bikes and many on cars. either ask here or pm me with questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I have a 6000k kit in my 6th gen (h4) and I love it. I chose 6000k because it is just a little dimmer than 4300 and is a little easier on oncoming eyes imo. It has a scatter shield on the bottom 1/3rd of the bulb to help with glare. No on the modulators, it will kill the ballasts. The best thing you can do for your kit is to get one that gets its power through a relay direct to your battery. I don't have a "dual xenon" kit because I have dedicated bulbs for brights. Make sure also that the ballast/ignitor box is securely mounted away from water as best as possible. I like to use a large piece of double sided 3m foam adhesive tape as it holds for ever and adds a little cushion. I have done a few swaps on bikes and many on cars. either ask here or pm me with questions. Did you mount your ballasts to the inner fairing? I've done the swap on my car, but not the scooter (yet). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickenofsea Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I upgraded the lighting in my 85 with a 6000K HID kit and absolutely love it. Two weeks ago, it quit working, but I still wanted to go riding, so I threw the old bulb back in. I felt like I was riding by candle light. Turns out I had a bad ground for the ballast controller (my fault), and after repairing that, I was good to go. This is a modification that is well worth the money. I'm considering on getting a HID Xenon H4 kit. Does anyone have non bias testing on them? Or what and why you have the one you have or would like to get? Can a HID Xenon H4 kit be used with a head light modulator? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Peto Posted July 3, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted July 3, 2008 hey Joe. I dont post much, but I'm slow at work today so....here is my experience with HIDs. I had a dual 4300K hi/lo kit with phillips ballasts. I paid 280 for it. I ride in dark places a lot and at first I loved them. They were unbelievably bright - beacon bright. I started noticing that the light pattern was very scattered, with bright and dark places throughout the light. In addition, I noticed on bumpy roads that the pattern would dance due to the bulb moving slightly. I had made my own clip for the bulb to hold them tighter against the lens than the stock clip - still they danced. I ended up replacing the high/low bulbs with just standard h4 HID bulbs. The dancing stopped. So, now I had HIDs, but no high beams. No big deal, the light was so bright anyway I hardly noticed the difference. As time passed, I started having more problems with the setup. Sometimes, one or both bulbs wouldn't ignite. Sometimes, they would ignite at first then after I would actually start the bike, one, or both wouldn't RE-ignite. This situation is caused by the ballasts not operating correctly on a motorcycle due to the starter switch interupting the headlight circuit during cranking. I ended up rewiring my HID setup so that when I switched my highbeams on it actually shut off the headlight. the low beam worked normally. This allowed me to keep the headlight off until the bike was runnin, then I could fire them up. This worked well for awhile. Then one of my ballasts failed. I decided not to replace the bad ballast. I chose to do something else. I ended up buying 55W silverstar bulbs. I then wired them up to use both the low & high filaments when the highbeam was switched on (HS's superbright w/o the extra switch). I took the bike out on a dark farm road. WOW. Immediately, I said to myself "this is the best setup." Obviously I am not throwing as much light as the HID setup, but the light is doing what I want it to do MUCH better. Just my two cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V4 Rosso Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I also have a 6000K H4 and love it. Stock 3rd gen lighting is not the best so at first I rewired it so it used both headlights instead of just the left H4. This was allready a noticeable improvement but now I am even happier with my single Bi Xenon H4. The right lens of the 3rd gen (and likely also 4th gen) headlight is designed for high beams only and produce some scatter when used with low beams. Because the HID bulb is so bright I thought the scatter might blind oncoming traffic. I don't think you'll have this problem with 5th and 6th gen viffers. I have a set from pilot xenon. It has a slimline ballast and you can get special wiring for motorcycles that do not have a seperate light switch. If the battery is not fully charged there is a possibilty that the HIDs do not ignite due to low voltage while starting the engine. The MC wiring harness has switches so you can restart the HIDs without having to shut down the engine. Fortunately Euro spec bikes allready come with a headlight switch. It comes with a relais and slimline ballast and two years warranty. Below is a pic I took to compare the light output of HID against the stock and rewired two bulb halogen setup. (camera setting in all three pics was f28mm. F2.8 15s.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StalinTC Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 I mounted the ballasts inside of the front faring behind the headlight (where the abs controller is normally on the 6th gens) mot sure how yours is. Also the problems with the shutting off and such... HID setups run at lower current draw, however they spike very high during ignition. If you have even a slightly bad ground, or not enough current, one light will light, or partially light.... It is all in the install. I have done probably 30-40 swaps in cars and about 4 in bikes. Almost always without fail the problem is solved with those two fixes. Great upgrade but I am too dumb to get my camera to do a good pic of it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Foe from Buffalo Posted July 4, 2008 Author Share Posted July 4, 2008 Hmmm? since the headlight modulators seem not like a god idea to use with a HID kit...hmmmm I wonder if we can or I can make my GSXR mirror lights http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.p...c=43247&hl= with out getting tickets? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickenofsea Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 The kit that I use has the high beam/low beam option. You could always get something to switch the light. That sure would get other motorists attention. I find that I'm much more "visible" now that I'm using HID. Hmmm? since the headlight modulators seem not like a god idea to use with a HID kit...hmmmm I wonder if we can or I can make my GSXR mirror lights http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.p...c=43247&hl= with out getting tickets? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Foe from Buffalo Posted July 4, 2008 Author Share Posted July 4, 2008 I have a good idea/no problem on how to make the mirrors pulse to make it possible I'm more concerned if it would allow a LEO to give a ticket. I need to find some good info on which HID kit would be the best for my needs first. :unsure: What info or why did the ones that replied so far or the ones that may post a reply make you beside to get the one and color you have or may get? I for one lacking outrageous price for a kit the one with more or most light possible and one that will past the test of time I have no problem spending the money to get it. Anyone have two cents to say about this kit? http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/20572863...rcycle_HID.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Foe from Buffalo Posted July 4, 2008 Author Share Posted July 4, 2008 Interesting. Do you have any data to help me learn more about this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickenofsea Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 In the interest of full disclosure, I am not running a stock headlamp in my bike. Seb and I bought a set of Chinese clear headlamps off of fleabay that seem fairly well suited to this task. While I haven't been getting flashed by oncoming traffic unless I run my high beam at night, I can't honestly attest to how it is on traffic-but I love having the extra light at a distance (while I get, maybe, eh... 80% of the light at the 5-10 foot out mark, it is good enough for me to trade off the extra distance I get out of it). I did the 6000K kit. Here is a blurry photo I took of a rail crossing one night. DSC02418.JPG Notice the slight "hole" in the light right in front of the bike. It doesn't bother me much (if I'm going 55 mph, anything that close to me is beyond my control). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickenofsea Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 Just to be clear: I'm not arguing against anything that anyone else has said here, but simply sharing my experience. I know my setup isn't legal, but neither are my turn signals (old Lockhart-Phillips stick on), my exhaust, etc. If I get too many complaints on my light being too bright, I'll change it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StalinTC Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 Battleax is correct for the most part. Some vehicles work better than others however. I fount that the VFR is one of the better headlights for the conversion. The best place to get info is from different manufacturers sites, forums, and guess and check... I found that glare while close to the bike is bad from above, but from about 10 feet I can look into the light without much problem. MobileHID is a good company to go through, and more info can be found by google-ing HID Light Output, and other terms. I found a paper (SAE) which I cant find now (sorry) that was magnificent discussing the difference between halogen and HID construction and output shape. Otherwise guess and check. I used my garage, marked a spot on the floor for my center stand, and checked the difference between "hot spots" before and after. If it is any consolation I have yet to be flashed by oncoming traffic with the kit in. To answer what to look for: a relay harness included in the kit, color temp from 4300-6000k, appx 35 watt output, and some form of a 1 year or 2 year warranty. I have a kit from MobileHID in my scion and a kit from ASIC for my bike. I am happy with both. The scions have been in for over a year with out a single problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer jeremy556 Posted July 4, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted July 4, 2008 A modulator will not work with HID. HIDs have to ignite and warm up to work properly which takes a few seconds. Why not go with HID aux lights? They would have a projector instead of an incorrectly designed reflector, work a lot better, and be more reliable. I think you mentioned power consumption in an earlier post; if you are that worried about it, why don't you just have your stator rewound to provide a higher amp rating? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V4 Rosso Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 Lot of FUD on that page, but there are indeed some conversions that are not so good. Look at the difference between these two H4 bulbs. The cheaper version with a halogen high beam next to the HID low beam (left pic) will likely produce a lot of scatter due to the halogen acting like a badly positioned reflector. Now the Bi-Xenon like I have (right pic) produces a very nice cutoff and not more scatter than halogen. If the headlight is of poor quality and produces a lot of glare or has a scattered lighting pattern, then yes, HID will make that even worse in that the intsity of the scattered light increases not the amount of scatter. There was lot of controversy over here on these bulbs as well with a lot of people claming they blinded oncoming traffic. The real reason why people were blinded by them was that because of the light color being different, they would look straight into them, out of curiosity you could say. Same thing happened when halogen was introduced. Cars have to pass a yearly MOT and if the lightpattern is not OK (like in the youtube clip in the link above) it will fail. 8000K is max color temp that is allowed over here. Me, I would not go more than 6000K, but if you never ride at night, then maybe 8000K (stands out a bit more). Having quality bulbs is also important for halogens as the pic below demonstrates. I took the left one out of my headlamp when I got my bike as you could not get a proper light pattern with it. I need to find some good info on which HID kit would be the best for my needs first. Well, what are your needs? Daytime driving lights or light up the road on you nightly trips? About that Chinese link: I don't know if they sell single kits but am more worried about their preferred payment methods. I bought the Pilots because it comes with a two year warranty and every single part, being it a bulb, wireing harnas or ballast, can be ordered for replacement, and although not the cheapest out there, it was not very expensive (I paid little over €100 for the set) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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