First off I want to thank Rhythm for hooking me up with the killer price. Thanks man... On to the review:
Installation:
(Sorry didnt have my camera with me so no pics right now, might take some when I do the dampner mod tho)
Pulled the fairings and the nose(yea probably could have just pulled the nose but since this was the first time taking the fronts off I wanted to see what the deal was). Unplugged the connector for the lighting in the nose then replaced the high beam with an 80W yellow bulb I picke up off a ricer(car) store on the internet.
Onto the HID, removed the screw holding the stock bulb and biiiiiing off flies the metal holder (probably unscrewed the wrong screw, oh well). Got lucky and found it no problem, pulled the stock off and put in the new (yes you need the foam gasket in there) lining up the tab so that the bulb is properly aligned. After 5 mins of playing with the holder thingy got it back on properly.
Now I wanted to hook all the connectors up to make sure the thing worked before I mounted everything. pluged the 2 waterproof connectors in and then noticed that the supplied plug from the lighting harness to the ballast wouldnt fit. Not sure what happened here but no big deal...I removed the spade plugs from the plug on the HID kit but cutting them out of their connector and then heat shrinked some tubing to leave only the necessary part of the connector exposed. Pluged white into white and black to black/White. Turn on the key and viola light. I left it on for ~10mins at this point since the instructions say to burn them in the first time you use them.
Now to find places to mount the ballast and ignitor. Ignitor was easy, I used the top turn signal lens mounting screw on the right side and an couple of small washers to mount the ignitor (with the bulk of the ignitor facing towards the fairing). This essentially took up zero useable space behind the fairing.
Now to mount the ballast. I used the metal bracket that the gages are connected to. Drilled a 1/4 hole(Carefull not to go into the gage cluster) below the existing oblong hole and mounted the ballast with the tab BEHIND the bracket using a small 1/4-20 grade 8 bolt and nut with red loctite. This gave me plenty of space for the bulb housing to sit and easy access to the ballast plugs in case I needed to get at them for some reason. Also it lets full air circulation around the ballast to keep it reasonably cool.
I then made sure that everything was zip tied properly so there wouldn't be any problems with loose cables getting anywhere near any steering components and buttoned her up.
HID impressions:
After turning on the light intitially it was hard to tell how bright it was since it was ~5pm and sunny. But looking into the light housing for a second and having those sun spots in my eyes for about 5 mins let me know they were pretty damn bright.
So I loaded the wife and took off for a ride. I started noticing how ridiculously bright it was when I saw the reflection from the HID on street signs and the sun was still fully out. fast forward to sunset. WOW...yea, everyone needs these, my one headlight on LOW was equivaltent to at least 2 low beams from a good car lighting system and the 5K light is so brilliant white it made seeing things on the road very easy. You can tell it hurts the cagers eyes a bit as I got brighted once with only my lows on (bastid was too quick for me to demonstrate what bright really was (HID plus upgraded 80W High beams)) so I tried to ride a little further back when following cages. Although its probably not as bad as riding with both beams on all the time like i used to since the HID is aimed downward more than the High beam, I still took a little pity on them and rode further back.
Fantastic mod, Its like wielding the light from the SUN as your own personal flashlight. I will never be without HID on a bike again.
Installation:
(Sorry didnt have my camera with me so no pics right now, might take some when I do the dampner mod tho)
Pulled the fairings and the nose(yea probably could have just pulled the nose but since this was the first time taking the fronts off I wanted to see what the deal was). Unplugged the connector for the lighting in the nose then replaced the high beam with an 80W yellow bulb I picke up off a ricer(car) store on the internet.
Onto the HID, removed the screw holding the stock bulb and biiiiiing off flies the metal holder (probably unscrewed the wrong screw, oh well). Got lucky and found it no problem, pulled the stock off and put in the new (yes you need the foam gasket in there) lining up the tab so that the bulb is properly aligned. After 5 mins of playing with the holder thingy got it back on properly.
Now I wanted to hook all the connectors up to make sure the thing worked before I mounted everything. pluged the 2 waterproof connectors in and then noticed that the supplied plug from the lighting harness to the ballast wouldnt fit. Not sure what happened here but no big deal...I removed the spade plugs from the plug on the HID kit but cutting them out of their connector and then heat shrinked some tubing to leave only the necessary part of the connector exposed. Pluged white into white and black to black/White. Turn on the key and viola light. I left it on for ~10mins at this point since the instructions say to burn them in the first time you use them.
Now to find places to mount the ballast and ignitor. Ignitor was easy, I used the top turn signal lens mounting screw on the right side and an couple of small washers to mount the ignitor (with the bulk of the ignitor facing towards the fairing). This essentially took up zero useable space behind the fairing.
Now to mount the ballast. I used the metal bracket that the gages are connected to. Drilled a 1/4 hole(Carefull not to go into the gage cluster) below the existing oblong hole and mounted the ballast with the tab BEHIND the bracket using a small 1/4-20 grade 8 bolt and nut with red loctite. This gave me plenty of space for the bulb housing to sit and easy access to the ballast plugs in case I needed to get at them for some reason. Also it lets full air circulation around the ballast to keep it reasonably cool.
I then made sure that everything was zip tied properly so there wouldn't be any problems with loose cables getting anywhere near any steering components and buttoned her up.
HID impressions:
After turning on the light intitially it was hard to tell how bright it was since it was ~5pm and sunny. But looking into the light housing for a second and having those sun spots in my eyes for about 5 mins let me know they were pretty damn bright.
So I loaded the wife and took off for a ride. I started noticing how ridiculously bright it was when I saw the reflection from the HID on street signs and the sun was still fully out. fast forward to sunset. WOW...yea, everyone needs these, my one headlight on LOW was equivaltent to at least 2 low beams from a good car lighting system and the 5K light is so brilliant white it made seeing things on the road very easy. You can tell it hurts the cagers eyes a bit as I got brighted once with only my lows on (bastid was too quick for me to demonstrate what bright really was (HID plus upgraded 80W High beams)) so I tried to ride a little further back when following cages. Although its probably not as bad as riding with both beams on all the time like i used to since the HID is aimed downward more than the High beam, I still took a little pity on them and rode further back.
Fantastic mod, Its like wielding the light from the SUN as your own personal flashlight. I will never be without HID on a bike again.
