CBRent Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 I installed the 55W HIDs from DDM Tuning recently. They work great! It was a bit of a pain to install the low beam HID bulb due to interference with the shroud inside the bezel. A spacer needed to be added to that bulb and the original base ground down. (See before/after pic) The ignitor boxes were hidden in the upper right fairing above the ABS equipment. Auxillary power cables were used to power these babies. I ran 12ga wire to relays attached to the stock light bulb plugs. The HIDs pull less juice now. (I'm a nut for effciency!) This is a great upgrade. I feel better traveling in traffic now. Drivers notice me. The difference at night is amazing too. If you do long distances at night HIDs are a must. Good luck! ß! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessman Posted August 5, 2012 Share Posted August 5, 2012 Nice job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 12, 2012 Share Posted August 12, 2012 Where did you get the spacer? Is that what you ground-down? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownAndOutNYC Posted August 12, 2012 Share Posted August 12, 2012 35W HID in a halogen reflector light housing is bad enough, but 55W? I truly feel sorry for the oncoming traffic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBRent Posted August 13, 2012 Author Share Posted August 13, 2012 Where did you get the spacer? Is that what you ground-down? I made the spacer from the stock H7 headlight bulb. I had to grind the stock bulb down. Then I had to remove material from the HID bulb's base. Otherwise the retension spring wouldn't fit. So far I haven't had any complaints; nobody flashing their brights at me etc. I think the shroud on the low beam does a great job of keeping the light on the road and out of oncoming traffic's eyes. ß! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Where did you get yor HIDs? In the photo they look to be very blue. Is this just a choice you made or is this the only color? I have a thread started about putting a 100w H7 bulb in mine and it does not seem to be a good idea. How much farther and wider is your setup compared to stock? Thanks for posting this. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBRent Posted August 16, 2012 Author Share Posted August 16, 2012 Howdy Dave, The HIDs came from DDM Tuning. http://www.ddmtuning.com/ I don't have numerical data. All I can say is that 35W HIDs allowed me to be comfortable at highway speeds at night for the first time. The 35W allowed me to see where I was going to be in a few seconds instead of staring off into the dark. The 55W HIDs are even better. The light scatter is better due to the VFR1200's headlight design. The blue is a function of my camera. Plus if you look there is a blue lightpipe in the light housing. Honda wants the light to appear blue. I ordered the 8000K color per DDM's suggestion that 8000K at 55W behaves like 5000K at 35W. It doesn't look blue. It looks very white. 100W bulbs are the wrong answer. Your wiring wasn't designed for that overload. Plus, I don't know how much room you have in your electrical system to be pulling that many watts. Bright lights won't do you any good if they suck the battery dry as you are riding. The HIDs pull less juice once they are lit too. You can make them even more efficient if you use a set of relays and power them from the battery using a heavier (lower #) gauge wire. DDM offers a harness for $15. It is money well spent. They can supply it cheaper than you can fab it if you pay yourself $10/hour. Another thing about the HIDs that is important to remember is the lightwave travels thru rain and fog better than the stock light. So, you get better penetration if you get caught in the weather. It also helps cages see you. I can't suggest these enough. I run them in my CBR1100XX as well. I will be adding them to the Dodge Ram and the Sube too. :-) Good luck! Brent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted August 16, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted August 16, 2012 Unfortunately, we've seen this attitude before: Blinding lights save lives! Fitting HID capsules in a headlamp designed for halogen bulbs is a bad idea mainly because the size and shape of the light source is so different. The light distribution cannot get better, only worse AND, of course, much brighter. Good luck repealing the laws of physics... Ciao, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBRent Posted August 16, 2012 Author Share Posted August 16, 2012 The light distribution cannot get better, only worse AND, of course, much brighter. Good luck repealing the laws of physics... I'm only reporting what I experience. The 5000 HID lumens vs 1300 halogen lumens trumps designed for light distribution. I see better and farther (further?). Therefore I use them. Folks that have borrowed my bikes wind up purchasing HIDs too. We'll see what Dave says once his are installed. Your mileage may vary. ß! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Unfortunately, we've seen this attitude before: Blinding lights save lives! Fitting HID capsules in a headlamp designed for halogen bulbs is a bad idea mainly because the size and shape of the light source is so different. The light distribution cannot get better, only worse AND, of course, much brighter. Good luck repealing the laws of physics... Ciao, I would only replace the high beam, not into blinding people, it can cause more problems then good. I've been blinded and it is hard to keep from hitting the oncoming vehicle. High beam during the day is a different story. The other question is how long does it take until they are fully lit and can they handle the on off of being a highbeam? Thanks for the info. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBRent Posted August 17, 2012 Author Share Posted August 17, 2012 Dave, It only takes a few seconds for the HID to achive 100% illumination. My HID systems have lasted five years, or more, of normail use. I don't see the on/off being an issue. The high beam only is a good compromise. Easy to install and you don't have to worry about being obnoxious to oncoming traffic or the car in front of you in the fast last. Good luck! Brent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volfy Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 I've installed HID conversion in probably 8 different vehicles by now, cars and bikes. Some beam patterns turned out marginal at best, but not all of them are terrible. A few of them maintained very sharp horizontal cutoff line, with just a slight bleed over on top. One of the worst is probably the Concours 14's dual H4 conversions.Beam pattern completely changed to a point of having next to no horizontal cutoff line, just a flat ovoid "hotspot". That said, I very rarely ride at night, so the prodigious amount of white light scattering off two bigass reflectors make that bike very conspicuous from the front in daytime. Compared to 35w HID, 55w doesn't appear that much brighter. I have them on my Veracruz and, before that, Sedona minivan. Not sure I would bother buying 55w HID any more. They use the same bulb and just different ballast. I would go no higher than 5000K color temp. Most of mine are 4300K. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer vanion2 Posted August 17, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted August 17, 2012 Unfortunately, we've seen this attitude before: Blinding lights save lives! Fitting HID capsules in a headlamp designed for halogen bulbs is a bad idea mainly because the size and shape of the light source is so different. The light distribution cannot get better, only worse AND, of course, much brighter. Good luck repealing the laws of physics... Ciao, Yep. Fact versus opinion. If you ever look at a proper HID projector cut off and compare it to a halogen housing you will see there is a very obvious difference regardless of the halogen housing design. As in there is almost no light being projected above the cut off but the beam is spread wider so significantly more of the road is well lit. Thus the whole purpose if HID lighting being significantly more effective. Yes, you can see further with putting HID bulbs in halogen housing but it's like shining a spot light down the road. I don't expect to convince you that this is not the way to do it since you are happy with this set up but it's still wasted light. If you want true efficiency (as you claim) then do the research and see how much more effective the retro fit could be compared to your current set up. I think you will find the difference surprising and worth the extra effort. I will be installing an HID retro fit on my MR2 in the near future and I will compare the stock halogen set up with a properly designed HID set up to help illustrate my point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBRent Posted August 24, 2012 Author Share Posted August 24, 2012 You are right. There is wasted light getting thrown down the Interstate. I am unaware of any ways to improve the HID setup. Are you suggesting fabbing a projector headlamp into the headlight assembly? That does raise the difficulty level by an exponent! I'm very interested in how your retrofit goes. Take photos! Brent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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