H.I.D xenon on my naked fz6

I've given it a good tought,

tomorrow i'm going to the garage to install a H.I.D. xenon kit.
I think it will look really cool, and also safer to drive at night.
The guy said he will put the transformator under the tank.

I'll upload some pictures and more details of the kit when it's installed.

stay tuned...

It'll certainly be bright!
Is it a complete conversion kit,ie the full light?Because the thing to bear in mind,is that with the standard headlight bowl,you'll blind oncoming drivers,so while you can see perfectly,be prepared to get some stick off people coming towards you (hopefully still on their side of the road)

Ridgeback said:

It'll certainly be bright!
Is it a complete conversion kit,ie the full light?Because the thing to bear in mind,is that with the standard headlight bowl,you'll blind oncoming drivers,so while you can see perfectly,be prepared to get some stick off people coming towards you (hopefully still on their side of the road)

Click to expand...

It's just the xenon transformator and lightbulb that is going to be installed,
with still the standard headlight bowl.

There are so many bad drivers around, driving in there car with their big lights on, one man on a motorcycle won't make the difference

At least, the 80year old drivers will see me coming :rockon:

Today I dropped my bike off at the garage,

they are going to install the Pilot HID conversion kit (single beam)
link : http://www.zhyichina.com/carpics/pilot/PACKjk.jpg

The color is 6000K (crystal white)

It will be ready by tomorrow, can't wait to see the result.

Pics taken tonight.
The xenon is just amazing. The beam is nicely focussed on the road in front of me.

I hate to rain on the HID parade, but I feel it's my duty.

Please read...
Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply

Tests:
9004 HID kit vs. 9004
http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB1_HID_Retro.pdf

http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB1_HID_Retro_a.pdf

9006 HID kit vs. 9006
http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB4_HID_Retro.pdf

There is one ONE way to use HID properly, and that's with a retrofitted housing designed to handle the bulb.
I'm glad you like it, just be aware that you might get some really angry drivers/riders that you have just blinded.

abacall said:

I hate to rain on the HID parade, but I feel it's my duty.

Please read...
Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply

Tests:
9004 HID kit vs. 9004
http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB1_HID_Retro.pdf

http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB1_HID_Retro_a.pdf

9006 HID kit vs. 9006
http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB4_HID_Retro.pdf

There is one ONE way to use HID properly, and that's with a retrofitted housing designed to handle the bulb.
I'm glad you like it, just be aware that you might get some really angry drivers/riders that you have just blinded.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the links.

Yesterday I drove about 50km in the dark, I didn't get any frustration-signs from oncoming drivers. *Keeping the fingers crossed that it stays that way*
however, on the road in front of me it's a nicely focussed beam on the road.

if it stays this way, i'm not going to install the retrofitted housing.
But thanks for reminding me this :thumbup:

Abacall is right on this one. I did the HID conversion using the stock FZ reflectors, and while I got some decent light output, it was a scattered light output. I eventually did a custom projector retrofit to rectify this.

Do us a favor... Point your bike at a flat wall about 10-15 feet away with the headlight on, take a picture of the light pattern and post it up here.

I've got a friend who put xenon bulbs in his Tacoma (stock housings) and loves them. They're extremely bright viewing them from outside the truck but the light that is usable on the road is brighter than stock but not exceptional. :spank:

I did a full bi-xenon (mechanical shade for hi/lo) projector retrofit on my Honda Ridgeline ($400 and 30 hours labor). The main difference is the amount of light I put on the road compared to his Tacoma. When I pass him on a 2 lane highway, I can't notice his beams on the ground. Mine overpower his :rockon: (I'm at 4300K, he's at 6000K). At the same time, you can look at my headlights from outside without straining your eyes :thumbupabove 3'-4", which is actually a little too high).

It costs a good bit more for the projector (and installation if you don't do it yourself) but it's well worth it! The difference you've seen from halogen to xenon will be doubled when you add the projector. Not to mention the sweet cut-off with a sliver of blue light at the top.

Trust us, get the projector. At least go see one in person...

Edit: I wanted to mention that you shouldn't expect to spend 30 hours on your bike. I had to do a lot of cutting and custom mounting hardware to my housings. There are options out there for the FZ6 that are essentially, plug and play.

Coopdman said:

I've got a friend who put xenon bulbs in his Tacoma (stock housings) and loves them. They're extremely bright viewing them from outside the truck but the light that is usable on the road is brighter than stock but not exceptional. :spank:

I did a full bi-xenon (mechanical shade for hi/lo) projector retrofit on my Honda Ridgeline ($400 and 30 hours labor). The main difference is the amount of light I put on the road compared to his Tacoma. When I pass him on a 2 lane highway, I can't notice his beams on the ground. Mine overpower his :rockon: (I'm at 4300K, he's at 6000K). At the same time, you can look at my headlights from outside without straining your eyes :thumbupabove 3'-4", which is actually a little too high).

It costs a good bit more for the projector (and installation if you don't do it yourself) but it's well worth it! The difference you've seen from halogen to xenon will be doubled when you add the projector. Not to mention the sweet cut-off with a sliver of blue light at the top.

Trust us, get the projector. At least go see one in person...

Edit: I wanted to mention that you shouldn't expect to spend 30 hours on your bike. I had to do a lot of cutting and custom mounting hardware to my housings. There are options out there for the FZ6 that are essentially, plug and play.

Click to expand...

hmm, I will look into this. if the difference is that great, it will be money well spent.
thanks guys.

Bram said:

hmm, I will look into this. if the difference is that great, it will be money well spent.
thanks guys.

Click to expand...

I just ran into this too... Wolfman knows what he's talkin' about.

http://www.600riders.com/forum/fz6-mods/28153-hid-conversion-fz6n.html

Looks like i tmay not be as easy as plug and play, but could work.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoQtdftaRkc]YouTube - Yamaha FZ6 naked 2004[/ame]

for xenon fast forward to 0:55

Ok Bram, I'll make a little breakdown of that light pattern and some advice if you are willing to take some advice...

First thing is that it is not good practice to turn on and off HID's rapidly, as when switching from low beam to the high beams back and forth to "flash" someone. The reason for this is that it can burn out the ballasts prematurely. The ballasts function to ignite the HID bulbs during initial fire up which requires a tremendous amount of power. HID's only require LESS wattage than halogens once turned on and warmed up. They require significantly MORE wattage to ignite the bulb.

Secondly, if you look at the light pattern on the wall, you can see light scattering all over the wall above the normal cutoff of light that you would see with your halogen bulb or a projector unit. This light scattering will be blinding to anyone in front of you. My recommendation is to either find a reflector that is designed for HIDs or to convert to a projector unit.

where you put the ballast?

Could you show some pics where the ballast is mounted.

The space below the tank is pretty small, so I was wondering if the ballast even fits in there.

Was an extension of the wires necessary?

Yeh I took a look at the links but I never like taking the advice of a party who clearly has a conflict of interest.
I do agree with most of his arguments but in all fairness I have heard of so many punters who have obtained a decent quality proper kit and installed it without any worries.
Sure the reflector was designed for a halogen filament bulb but its not like we are navigating space shuttle re-entry angles. If it throws out as a bit more and cleaner light in roughly the same area as the stock lights, whats wrong with that?

heath_AU said:

Sure the reflector was designed for a halogen filament bulb but its not like we are navigating space shuttle re-entry angles. If it throws out as a bit more and cleaner light in roughly the same area as the stock lights, whats wrong with that?

Click to expand...

That's the point though. They do not put out cleaner light, they put out scattered light. So while the headlight will certainly brighter, the amount of usable light hitting the road is likely the same or even less than a stock halogen bulb. This is because a good poportion of light is now being scattered sideways and above the usable area of light. Where is this light going? Into the windows and mirrors of the cars/bikes around you, blinding them.

Having said that, there ARE reflectors designed for HID bulbs. Put a halogen bulb into this housing and the results are the same... poorly distributed light output. The reason for this is that the focal point in the bulb that produces the light is different between these two technologies.

Quote from a bike tester -

The shape, orientation and precise placement of the arc from an HID kit very rarely meets up with OEM recommendations for bulb placement, and often come with no 'caps' to stop direct light from passing out at all angles.

As a result they often throw light all over the map and can often take what was a reasonable set of headlights and produce a dramatic and horrible light spread. Often times putting far less light on the road, far more up into drivers eyes hurting both your ability to ride while alone, and endangering yourself and others while sharing the road. It'll look 'very bright' and often produces dramatic glare that might look from the drivers seat as an improvement, but is actually not placing light where you need it most. 'Brighter' isn't always 'Better'.

A fairly well known link passed around for automotive application still passes muster and applies to motorcycles today as well. It's worth the time to read the three linked PDF's in the link as well. While not directly using a motorcycle as an example, it certainly demonstrates the issue of throwing HID lighting into a standard reflector housing.

While there are a very few examples of cars which use reflective HID setups (and D2R masked bulbs, full caps, and very carefully engineered housings) the bulk of all HID systems use a carefully designed projector assembly to keep the light properly focused and legal. However it's worth mentioning that even on the vehicles and motorcycles that use standard projector housings with halogen bulbs, throwing in an HID kit can still produce bizarre and unreasonable light spreads.

I wish I'd saved photos of the most recent motorcycle I had in the shop here with one of these 'kits' installed. It was a newer CBR600, which took what was a pretty reasonable set of headlights, and after installation of an HID kit threw light upward at an angle of around 20 degrees lighting nothing below the beltline of the motorcycle (and thus, nothing on the road what-so-ever) and putting all that new found ultra bright light right into the windshields of drivers.

In the dark it lit the roof of the shop up at around the 8' mark and I could have probably read a book by the light it threw up at the second floor. Upon removing the 'kit' (which was marketed directly as a motorcycle kit, and a direct replacement') it was obvious the tube was sitting a solid inch further into the assembly than needed and as a result you could get a direct look at the arc which threw light nearly directly up at 90 degrees.

Hopefully (the author has) taken the time to carefully re-aim (the) headlights and confirmed the beam spread is acceptable and not throwing glare up. I'd hazard a guess however that if it is indeed working, it's probably the minority of reflector housings that will actually produce a good light spread with an HID assembly installed.

Here's a picture of the light cutoff on my HID retrofitted from a FX35 projector.



This picture is taken pointed directly at the light at the same height as the headlight. There is no glare.



A picture of the projector during the day.




I've experiment with many HID setups from replacing the bulb with a HID bulb and ballast to using the HID projector kits you see on ebay. OEM hardware works best but requires some more work.

I've decided NOT to install a retrofitted housing for 3 reasons.

First, I have driven for about 1500km with the H.I.D. kit, at daytime and at night. I did not get one reaction from other drivers that i'm blinding them. It seems not to bother them at all. at one time I was behind a cop bike, he gave me a friendly wave as I passed by him. No pullover, no bad reaction.

second, it is a fact that the standard housing scatters the light a little bit, but I feel more safe at night, knowing that other drivers sertenly spot me when I'm coming up from behind them. this was not allways the case with my standard lightbulb.

third, the scatterd light reflects like hell on the roadsigns 50m in front of me, making them a lot more readable at night.

I appreciate the effort for convincing me to do the retrofit, but as I see it, it has more advantages than disadvantages so I'm keeping the standard housing.

cheerio