6th Gen low beam mod, i've thinking about this...

[Audigier]

Hello, I dont know if it has been already been done or talked about but my bike us running regular automotive h4 bulbs with the bottom tabs bend backwards to fit the slots, its been like this since the PO. i just changed both low beam bulbs to sylvana ultra bulbs and i was thinking, im wasting the high beam on those...

Why cant i wire the light beam side of the h4 bulb to light up when i turn on the high beams?

i was thinking of wiring a relay to each bulb to be triggered by the high beams, to route the power from the low beam side to the high beam side of the H4 bulb? turning off the low beam side of course to prevent an overload.

has anyone done this?? ill try to find some H4 male and female connectors to make this plug and play.

[Lee 2002]

It was originally called "Fixer's Headlight Mod". Slammer banned "Fixer" years and years ago and probably hundreds of sixth gen riders have done the modification.

http://www.vfrdiscus...stock-h4-bulbs/

http://www.vfrdiscus...adlight-rewire/

There have been many posts about this... in fact there was one just a couple of months ago.

[Audigier]

thanks, i knew i was not the only one that will thought about this...

i read the post and some involved modifying the stock wiring, i dont like to modify the electrical system of any vehicle if there is a way to avoid it, plus i dont want to remove any plastics. and also those diagrams involved overloading the high beam circuit with two more bulbs,

[DownAndOutNYC]

You're not going to get far at all if you don't want to remove the plastics or modify any wires.

That being said, the "fix" isn't that difficult. Just adding on a relay(s), extra wire and prongs and you should be set.

[JZH]

The H4 halogen bulb design is a tragic compromise. They've actually crammed two separate filaments into a single bulb, at different locations, and expect a solidly mounted, multi-faceted reflector and a tiny 180-degree filament shield to deal with the obvious physical limitations of this arrangement and produce useful high and low beams. Amazingly, it sort of works, and probably because it solved all kinds of engineering and packaging problems, it was embraced by the automobile/motorcycle manufacturers across the board. The H4 bulb is now so ubiquitous that manufacturers are even using it in non-dual beam headlamp units like the VTEC's. (No idea why non-US VTECs use H7s, though...)

And now (I do realise I'm about 10 years late on this...) you guys have decided that LUMENS ARE BEING LEFT ON THE TABLE, so you want to find a way to get all of the H4's filaments in on the action. You do realise that the reflector in the VTEC's headlamp housing was probably not designed to reflect both filaments, don't you? I remind you that the filaments in an H4 bulb are located in different places. A reflector is not an intelligent actor--it just reflects what is put in front of it. So, if you illuminate a filament in an H4 bulb that was not supposed to be illuminated in a reflector-type headlamp unit, the focal point of the headlamp unit when that filament is illuminated isn't even going to be in the ballpark. Not even close--you may as well Scotch-tape an extra bulb to the front of the lens, for all the good it's going to do for your beam pattern.

Unless I've got one of the critical details wrong, this isn't just a bad idea, it's a dumb idea--and I don't care how long VFR owners have been doing it. I don't remember why Fixer was banned, but advocating this would have been sufficient in my book!

(Sorry for the obvious grumpiness--I'm now back in lovely HK... )

Ciao,

[Lee 2002]

^^^ Has apparently never ridden behind the modified headlight system.

It's odd that in all the threads over the years about this modification that I don't remember a single post by anyone who did the mod saying....."Wow, that really sucks. I'm putting it back the way it was." But I am getting to that age when I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

[DDO-VFR]

I don't think the intended meaning was that it would 'suck', but rather that the oncoming traffic might be blinded or that the improvement isn't all that good. The same can be said for the HID conversions. When I ride with my brother (HID) I/we get flashed Regularly by oncoming vehicles, but never when I'm solo.

The headlight angle is easily adjusted, and the light intensity is already even greater than most cars. Adding another filament does make things brighter but you don't see better. This is because your pupils start to reduce because of the intensity, resulting in the unlit areas looking even darker. I'm not making this up, this has proven through testing.

Brian

[Lee 2002]

that the oncoming traffic might be blinded or that the improvement isn't all that good.

When modified correctly, the motorcycyle headlights function exactly as they left the factory on the low-beam setting. In America the law does not permit you to drive into oncoming traffic or follow same-direction traffic with your headlights on the high-beam setting.

Again..... I don't remember a single post by anyone who did the mod saying....."Wow, that really sucks. I'm putting it back the way it was." But I am getting to that age when I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

Early on when Fixer posted the original mod there were a few posts showing photos of the beam pattern before and after.... it IS that good, in my opinion.

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[JZH]

Well, you do seem to have trouble remembering what you've already written!

I wonder how well the human brain is really able to accurately determine whether such a headlight bodge is "better", or simply "brighter". Obviously, it will be brighter. But better? That would suggest to me that someone has carefully compared not only before-and-after absolute brightness, but also the resulting distribution of light. There are two reasons why I doubt this evidence has been provided. First, it could only be a matter of sheer luck that the reflector (if designed for use with a single filament, as caveated previously) would accurately and appropriately reflect the light produced by a filament located ~5mm away from the designed location. That difference may not sound like much in isolation, but considering the H4 specification goes down to hundreths (if not thousandths--I forget) of a millimeter, 5mm in this context is a huge difference. Second, few people understand, much less take into account, the point Brian is making above regarding the impairment of the rider's night vision. Brighter is not always better--if it blinds you.

I recall the satisfaction I felt after doing my first headlight bulb mod (and quite a few after that!), made all the more satisfying knowing that I'd outsmarted Honda and their silly 45/45w bulbs (this was ca. 1990, on my VFR750FL). So I've no doubt that the percentage of happy modders would have been close to 100% for this mod, but knowing what I know now about how reflector headlamps actually work, I also have little doubt that this modification is not actually better. (And this on a bike with an already quite good reputation for headlights!)

Ciao,

[Tightwad]

I used to sell this mod and unfortunately for many the extra filaments actually draw quite a bit more than expected. I stopped selling the conversion kit.

I like my HID kit but it isn't 100% perfect...but then I like it and I don't ride all that much at night especially not in strange country...I am not concerned about the few artifacts there are. I didn't have any artifacts etc with the 6 beam mod or the 4 high beam on high mod I also did.