Hid's

[canadianvfr]

Can I pick someone's brain for a minute?

I plan on installing some Hid's and it looks like the VFR1200 has 1 high beam and 2 low beams? Would you just change out the high beam or do the low beam (beams') as well?

Is there much work involved in swapping these out?

I was looking at replacing the seat with a Sargent seat but it looks like I have to send in the seat for a foam replacement!

Thanks for answering my posts!

[EhViffer]

Can't say on the HID's but on the Sargent seat you need to send your exisiting seat in. Best money I ever spent but I did it in the their "slow period" during late fall and it only took two weeks total. There are many people on this site who have put in Corbin seats with good results and that will not require sending your exisiting seat out.

[luvtoleanit]

HID's, I would skip.

Get yourself a good set of aftermarket bulbs such as Phillips Xtreme Vision H7's.

http://www.powerbulbs.com/us/product/philips-xtreme-vision-h7-car-headlight-bulbs

[Volfy]

VFR1200 has a single H7 for low beam. I just did an HID conversion on mine, and the results are not too bad. The horizontal cutoff remains reasonable sharp and there are very little bleedover above that cutoff line. Beam pattern remains broad and even. Because it is a single bulb, the improvement over Halogen is not as pronounced as bikes with twin bulbs for low beam (my C14 and SV1000S, for example). Most HID conversion are a simple bulb swap, this VFR1200 is NOT one. The stock low-beam reflector comes to a sharp point near the tip of the bulb and it interferes with the HID bulb. You'll have to fashion an custom gasket to "wedge" the bulb base so that it sits a little tilted downward to clear that reflector tip. It took me quite a while to work this conversion right. I had to remove the entire fairing set to take the headlamp assemble off the bike. Even then, I still managed to break one HID bulb before getting the gasket set at the right thickness to seat just right. The conversion process is well documented here and on other VFR1200 forums. Do a search and you'll find lots of pics and descriptions.

To me, the conversion is worth while. I prefer the 4300k HID cool-white color and less amp draw with the 35w ballast. I've tried those super white replacement halogen bulbs, and they don't do much for me. They give a "whiter" color light, but not necessarily more intensity. In fact, most of the ones with a blue tint to the glass bulb actually emit less light, since they block out a portion of visible spectrum emitted by the filament in order to shift the color toward the blue side, in order to make it appear "whiter".

As for high beam, I've never done a simple HID bulb conversion, since the way I normally use the high beam, the warm up time is too long to do any good. If I ever feel the need to upgrade, I would do a retrofit job using an HID conversion module that uses a movable shield to switch between Lo and Hi beam, while the bulb stays on. This will brighten low beam considerably, sine there will be two bulbs ON, and HID high beam will be instantly available via solenoid actuated shield.