Headlight... HID or LED

Hid in projector housing is what's needed.
Hid in stock non Hid housing scatters the beam. So low is useless, and high is ok.
Switching from high to low quickly (dimming lights in traffic) can also cause the high beam not to fire for several seconds.
Leds look great, but don't have the distance of stock.
An Hid retrofit is the way to go.
Headlight is disassembled and modified with projecter housing.
You can do it yourself, or there are a couple places that will do it for you.
 
I have an LED kit in my low beam. At some point, I am definitely going to retrofit a projector into my housing.
 
Six is correct. Saying that, I only have an HID bulb setup in the stock housing. It is def brighter than oem hi beams, but could be much better. It makes the bike def more visible to others, which was my number one concern. I don't run fast at night and rarely outrun my beams.
If I was doing it all over, I would go with LEDs tho. This bike is not an issue, but I have HIDs on my M109 and it draws too much on startup. I have a ton of electrontics on her including about 1500 leds! I was having issues with current draw on initial startup. Had to make some changes for everything to play nice.
Depends on ur desired outcome and minies on hand really. If you want the best lighting get an HID with retrofit lens. If funds are tight, go with an LED or basic HID for now.
Troy
 
I paid $75 for my LED low beam. It will run a couple hundred maybe for a quality retrofit kit not including installation unless you do it yourself. It's a trade off between LED and HID. You want bright light scattered everywhere or an even light pattern with a little less usable light than OEM. The bright side to LED is the lines in the road show up very well but if the roads are wet, light brilliance is significantly reduced.
 
This is my LED low beam. This kit places the diodes up and down to create a pattern that is more closely related to OEM. HID would be significantly brighter but would also throw the light every direction which is what I don't want.

20180612_095832.jpg
 
Got mine from Cycle Gear. Their off the shelf kit was $75. This is my second set of them. The first set was on my Gen 1 and I gave it to a buddy of mine when I wrecked it
 
https://www.hayabusa.org/forum/threads/carbon-fiber-dual-morimoto-mini-h1-retrofit.190703/

Retrofit is only way to go, see my carbon fiber dual H1 retrofit above. While dual H1 projects sound better, I've also had a single 3" D2S projector retrofit on the bike. In all honesty, the D2S has a wider beam compared to the dual H1s. Also having dual H1s doesn't equal 2x as much light, just a little extra. Overall the 3" D2S is a better choice although more of a pain to fit it in the housing.

If I had to do my dual H1 retrofit over again, I'd get the $30/pair Chinese H1s. I can't tell much of a difference between Morimoto H1s and Chinese H1s. If you go with Chinese H1s, like off amazon, just make sure and test the solenoid a couple dozen times with a battery before you install them, I've read sometimes they get stuck on new projectors. Since doing the bike's dual H1s, I retrofitted the ACA headlights on my C5 after the dual H1s and went with the Chinese H1s with zero regrets.

No matter which you go with, look into Morimoto HID kits. They have a built in delay for motorcycles so when you turn they key they don't ignite for ~5 seconds to give you time to start the bike.
 
Back
Top