HID anyone??

I have had HIDs on mine for a few years now. Highs and lows. They sure are bright. But I don't think it is all that imperative that you have instant high beams when you turn them on. Your lows stay on while the highs are warming up and they are great as they are. One thing to remember though, on the 06 anyways, make sure when you turn the bike on from cold, you just have the lows on. If you have highs and lows turned on, guaranteed to blow a fuse, and all four lights are on one fuse. If you let the lows warm up first, then it is safe to turn on the highs. I use my highs pretty much just during the daytime.

BUT! If I had to do it over again, I would not. I would get Pias instead. I have replaced about 4 ballasts on the HIDs now in three or so years. Its all fine and dandy that they have a lifetime warranty, but I have to ride 60 miles to the distributor to do the exchange.

ANother down fall, I bought five pair in total. Two for the VFR and three for my GMC Sierra. highs lows and fogs. Here is the problem with the truck. Other trucks might be the same I do not know. The truck is a four light system. But when you hit the high beams, the low beams extinguish. Talk about ass pucker power the first time I did that on a dark highway and had to wait the 14 or so second for the high beams to warm up. The of course, you are driving merrily on your way with your highs on and due to an on coming vehicle, you dim your lights and all goes dark until they warm up again. You can get a relay that would allow you to run all four lights at the same time. But that ends up costing a couple hundred for parts and labour to have them installed.

So, if and when I get new vehicles, car truck or bike, the change will be to Pias rather than the HID. MOFWIW.

 

All POV's have their merits but the fact remains that out of the box, the VFR1200 is the most visible bike I've ever owned. The reason is as simple as it is ingenious IMHO: the LED's in the mirrors. Combined with the fact that the headlight seems to have 4 bulbs in it instead of one, that's what defines visibility.
Surprised me as well at first so I started to ask around.

I asked guys at work what makes them recognize me so fast: you may look in the mirror but you look twice because of the combo that's quite unique. "A bike. No wait, it's wider. What is that?" That's the LEDs doing that.
I've seen it myself when switching bikes on a ride and it's uncanny.

Oncoming traffic isn't often a factor as most of my commute is highway so what people see in the mirrors is more a factor for me. Blinding people is just bad for your own safety. I notice myself whenever a biker comes up behind me with poorly adjusted lights or high beams on: it's virtually impossible to judge the distance and if he stays behind me it's just bloody annoying.
I had to ride with high beam on once after a halogen bulb blew and I didn't feel safe at all and was embarrassed for blinding every car I came across.

Think about how many people are blissfully unaware in their cage when a cop car or ambulance is behind them with screaming sirens and flashing lights: they still don't see it nor do they hear. Unbelievable? Yes but very true.

The Triumph Tiger was the least visible bike of all. Noticed that the first week and changed to HID as soon as possible as Triumph used little more than candles before I got the Honda. Rode with my brother-in-law a lot (Street Triple) and the view in my mirrors was pathetic to say the least.

I think with the Honda 1200 it might be a combination of the awesome projector and the Xenon bulb design. Either way, it's real easy to test: just pull up behind a car and if you see the car's central mirror light up, your light is way too high.
You take a long corner at high speed with no matter which lights - except the Triumph's - and the beam goes from near horizontal to more vertical and you're going to blind cars anyway. Nothing you can do about that than either slow down or speed up.

And no matter how well-lit you are, people still won't see you if they don't LOOK. No amount of light or high-vis gear will ever change that. Don't think for a second that I haven't been pushed off the road because the Merc driver ahead of me just wasn't interested in what happened behind him/her. Some people think that 100 mph is fast and nothing is going to catch up. My theory is that they can afford to get a fine or lose their license a lot better than I can. There's no jail time here for going too fast.
The faster I'm going on the highway, the more I check my mirrors. That's why I've noticed cops on time and get out of the way if a faster rider still catches up and passes.

All of this kind of brings me to the real reason I installed the Xenon HID on the Honda: it looks classy.
That I won't ever have to change the bulb again - I hope - is just a big bonus.

 

Just picked this up locally for my high beam as per RustyBit's suggestion.
Apparently they're illegal now here. No idea why.

Not for use in what? Europe? Cars?

 

as for what soloii-74 said may be true however when you pull up behind a truck or a van if your HID's don't have a distinctive line cutting off the beam at the top "they are illegal". Legal HID's the top portion of the light is cut off to protect the vehicle in front of you or oncoming traffic from being blinded. If you don't believe me go to your local police station and have them check your headlight beam for correct alignment.

 

No one would argue the legality of HID conversions. Of course they are illegal. So are most of the aftermarket exhaust systems when used on the streets. People do them anyway. Just as there are those who put on loud pipes just to make noise and annoy other people for their own amusement, there are those who put on blue- even purple - HIDs in headlight buckets that are ill-suited for HID conversion. I 've even seen some POS old jalopies with HID bulbs behind faded and yellowed lenses. The stupidity of a few should not condemn all HID conversions.

I have done more than a dozen conversion by now, both cars and bikes. A few are a bit questionable in their effectiveness, but a good majority result in horizontal cutoffs that rival their original halogen beam pattern. It is up to the individual to decide whether to stay with the conversion. I always do the conversion with the headlamp off the vehicle and test fire before re-installation, just to QC the beam pattern.

 

+1 on that!
Gee I hope my posting of a pic of a 100w halogen bulb hasn't triggered this legality issue.

I don't know if HID's are illegal or not. I do know that most aftermarket kits on cars just can't be legal, pointing everywhere and blinding everyone.
My wife's Prius has Xenon low beams and when you hit the lights, you see them come on and immediately after, lower themselves. Pilot has this feature on offer. Whether everyone does the sensible thing and gets it for their car is a different matter.

I wonder if BMW bikes have the Automatic Height Adjustment when you go for the HID as an option. Anyone know?

Whether something is illegal or not is not so important to me. Whether it's safe for me and other road users is. And of course how the cops feel about it.

 

I have a quick question regarding installation. How did you feed the wires through the plastic dust cover. I can't figure out how to fit all that wiring through. I've been at this for at least two days. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Only the plus and minus needed to go into the new rubber seal that came with the kit. The rest of the wiring didn't. I used the 22mm rubber seal that came with the kit, made the OE hole 22mm, cut off the bulb connector and soldered the new wires to the OE ones. All the other wiring has waterproof connectors and sits behind the right inside dash panel.
Above are a few pics I just took from the manual. They might rotate, I don't know why that happens.

 

I appreciate the quick response. I have one more question concerning the installation process. The HID kit that I have came with a 35w hid light w/digital ballast. I tried to do a test to ensure the lights work so I connected everything like it should, but when the lights turn on, the HID light flickers and then shuts off. I turned the key a couple of times to reset it and after resetting it three times, the lights finally remained on. Why are the lights flickering and shutting off initially. I checked the fuse for the headlight and that's good. The wattage for the lights is only 35w so I am not sure what I'm doing wrong. I would appreciate any help with this.

 

I see. Firstly I'm crap at electronics compared to some but I seek advice from people who know if I get stuck.

So one question only: did you start the bike? I've turned the ignition on without starting once and when I did start the bike, the light wouldn't come on. I had to get to work and it was daylight so I just took off. When I started the bike again that evening, the light came on no problem.

Never had it since, also never just left the ignition on again so I think it's just a safety built in.

Pretty sure those in the know will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Are you referring the HID bulb that needs to be cut or the black box where the negative and positive wires go. I need more details before I start cutting please. if you can tell exactly where you cut that would be great.

 

Could be the HID bulb, yes. In my kit there's a plus and a minus wire, see diagram. They connect to the OE wires going to the OE bulb. I cut the H7 connector of the original bulb, then determined which was plus and which minus. Then soldered them to where the spades on the kit wires were. Red is plus, black is minus here.
The rest of the kit wiring is just 3 looms & connectors that you can't connect any other way than correct.

 

I have another set here from Xenon HID Headlight Upgrade Kits from HIDS 4U - H7, H4, H1. The setup is exactly the same: a black and red wire with a male spade each is connected to the HID bulb. Those are the ones you connect to either of the 2 wires coming from the ignition key going to the bulb. The rest is also the same though the ballast is 3 times as thick. It's a few years old and the ballast would never - never say never - fit the Honda.
See if you can't download a manual from their site maybe.
My manual is made in Holland and so it's in Dutch and not some incomprehensible translated English.

 

If you want to do something cool why not go all the way and get yourself 4 HID projectors?
Like this: Headlights - My VFR - Gallery - VFR Discussion
4 running lights in case of need just rocks! - imagine all running on HI beam....

 

I agree with the HIDs as low beams, however it might be a waste to use em as high beams. I looked at the pictures and they look nice though, very particular look with the split.

 

Using all 4 on rain during mountain forest was great. The guy behind me was relying on my lights than his.
The projectors are all bi-xenon which means all have Low & Hi beams.

 

And when that happens, you just stand on your seat, hike your butt up in the air and let go. Just like in your avatar.

 

What you said is true with regular HID bulbs replacing the stock ones. Projectors are a bit different - a much better light cut off and much less glow - see new build cars that came with projectors instead of mirror headlights. That's why I replaced the HID bulbs with present projectors ... plus they're more cool.

 

ciprinakos, very nice! I like your setup a lot. Can you say DAYLIGHT?

I've got 4 Morimoto Mini bi-xenon projectors from TRS ready for install, if I can get my lazy butt out of the AC'ed house. Too damn hot in the garage right now. Gen7 can only take 2 projectors maximum. At first I though the low beam reflector might be too cramped for the pod, but a gen7 owner has already done a projector retrofit there so it looks to be possible. FWIW, the gen7 lowbeam refletor is well suited for plain HID (other than needing to add a little offset spacer on the bulb base to tilt it slight downward to clear the reflector front tip). Mine maintained a very crisp cutoff line and even beam pattern. So I may leave it like that and just put the projector on the High beam.

BLACKCRyUS, regarding your problem. I sounds like it is power related. Even though your HID is rated at only 35w so theoretically it should draw no more than 3A or so at 12V. However, that's after the ballast and bulb have warmed up and reached steady state. On cold start up, the initial current draw can be quite a bit higher than that for a short duration. Because of this, I always run my HID conversion with a relay that draws directly from the battery and use the OEM headlight wiring ONLY to drive the relay coil. The same goes for the ground return lead as well. I don't know what wiring harness came with your kit. Some come with ready-prepped all-in-one relay assembly. If yours do not, get one off ebay and install it.

If the power connection is not the problem, the next most likely problem is the ballast. I have exactly one failure (out of more than 20+ individual HIDs installed). It died after working well on a C14 for more than 1yr.

Bulb failure is not out of question, but not in the manner you described. It either flat out won't fire, or I had a set that worked perfectly for 3yrs then started to go BLUE on me... as in starting out as 4300K (which I prefer) most of its service life and then ended up looking like 8000k ghetto blasters. That's actually a fairly common failure mode for HID bulbs, if you do some online research. Good luck. I call that "died of natural causes" and easily fixed with a new set of bulbs.