Hid Xenons

Having these type of lights are good if you're riding on your own at night, but if you in a group they are fooking annoying. If you're in front of someone with these, or a couple of people, you cannot see anything in your mirrors at all.

[yorkie_chris]

If they're adjusted badly.

Yeah, I'm aware they need to be properly aligned and hopefully won't glare too much once setup properly. I was going for the 35W initially but like the Mythbusters saying ... if something is worth doing, then is worth overdoing ... LOL.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

If they're adjusted badly.

You know my argument against them, chiefly that no matter where you adjust them the light scatter with a standard reflector means they dazzle anyone in the vicinity.

Best off fitting better bulbs than HIDs

Yeah well... Mine were not nice to look at from the other drivers perspective so for that reason ended up with a pair of 35W 4300K bi projectors to get the correct beam pattern and eliminate the glare then added a pair of Hella FF50 driving lights for late night skippy dodging.

Originally Posted by MattCollins

a pair of 35W 4300K bi projectors

Was this on a SV? What projectors did you use, how difficult were to fit? Thanks!

Slight thread detour, has anyone put an HID bulb in the projector side of a euro style headlight and adjusted it properly? Been toying with the idea for a while (leaving a standard bulb in the high beam reflector), it's that or get a new UK twin H4 headlight cluster as the single H1 bulb is just complete sh*te on the dark and twisties...

Originally Posted by maxinc

Was this on a SV? What projectors did you use, how difficult were to fit? Thanks!

They're 3" Hella OEM LHD from a US Audi circa 00-04 fitted to an SV-S. AFAIK these projectors were never made in RHD. A small part of the shield was removed and a piece of sheet steel cut for the correct beam pattern was soldered in place. The headlight housing was formed in carbon using a modified version of the original to make the mould. It was mainly time and patience.

There are easier ways to do this. There are projectors that are compact enough to squeeze into the original housing or work with a lightly modified housing.
An example can be found here:
http://forums.sv650.org/archive/index.php/t-121863.html

Thanks for the info Matt. That sounds like a lot of work and a bit discouraging to be honest given my skills with such things. Very interesting results on the link you posted but unfortunately the link to the projectors on eBay no longer works. Do you happen to know what make / model were they?

Ok, I got them today and they're they are probably the best quality made in china HIDs so far. Ballasts look solid and well built and general quality is above average. Still quite far from OEM but given the price and 2 year warranty I would say the are good.


Left Philips Blue Vision 55w halogen --- Right HIDS4U 55w 5000k HID

Light output is nice but beam pattern is, as expected, a bit all over the place. While the halogen bulb manages to keep a nice sharp contour, the HID bulb has a concentrated hot spot + some random scatters. Not too bad I would say but comparing them to the HID projectors on the car, I would say they're nowhere close.

Now, I don't do a lot of riding at night, it only happened a couple of times to be away in the dark and I could have used some extra light. For these situations I think they'll do fine. Since they're are a lot brighter, you can actually see them shine during the day which is a big safety bonus if you ask me. I don't think they'll bother anyone during the day TBH.

For those interested in doing it right, here's a nice company from the states that sells proper retrofitting HID kits with a nice variety of projectors and bulbs for a very sensible price. http://www.theretrofitsource.com If my next bike doesn't come with projectors already, I will definitely consider these guys.