HID Headlight Kit

I recently installed my first HID headlight kit that I bought off the forum and wanted to post my observations. First off let me say that I still have much more testing to do, so right now, these are just my preliminary conclusions, but so far, I am disappointed.

First off, the color.

Despite my good buddy vectervp1's recommendations to go only with 4300k, I bought the 5000k kit. Bad move. Should have listened to Art who's been there/done that with several HID kits. The violet hue that I see on the road, that is reflected on the white lines and reflectors is annoying the hell out of me. I thought I might get used to it, but so far I am not. Now this may be a personal preference thing, but I sure don't like it. As a comparison, my aux PHID lamps put out a much whiter, maybe even slightly yellow light. I much prefer it. I believe they were rated 4200K. The vendor's description of the 5000k was that they were really 'white'. Is it possible there is a good amount of variance in identical color bulbs?

First, here are a couple of photos of the HID lights. I don't know how obvious it is in the photos, but you can kind of see the violet hue.





Below is another night photo, this time with the aux PHID lights on. You can see that they are much more a 'white' light.



Second, I have not been 'WOW'ed by the amount of light vs. stock bulbs which I was expecting. I still have to do some direct comparison testing, so no definite conclusions here yet. I do know that I need to adjust the aim of the lights, as right now they are too low. I just hope that bringing the low beam up, does not raise the high beam light pattern too high. Will provide a more detailed report on this soon I hope.

I am no expert in HIDS. What I do know is that the PHIDS put out a HUGE amount of light. Big 'WOW' factor. And that that light is a very pleasing 'white' to me. But then they are pencil beam aux lights with a specific purpose (that they do well). I also know that when Vectervp1 installed one of the first HID low beam only kits several years ago, that kit had a big 'WOW' factor too, putting out a lot more light than stock in the low beam. Problem was, there was no high beam. Right now, I am underwhelmed with the kit I have. Not much of a 'WOW' factor. And annoying violet hue. I wish I could be reporting more positive results, but right now I am disappointed. I may try to change the color of the bulbs to 4300k, but that will be a huge PITA requiring removal of the whole front end of the FJR. If I am going to do that again, I might just pull the kit out and go back to stock.

More to come.

Bummer. I was looking forward to hearing good results.

My results haven't been quite so pessimistic, but I haven't finished my comparo yet. Hopefully this weekend including calibrated pictures of the various outputs.

SkooterG said:

I recently installed my first HID headlight kit that I bought off the forum and wanted to post my observations. First off let me say that I still have much more testing to do, so right now, these are just my preliminary conclusions, but so far, I am disappointed.
First off, the color.

Despite my good buddy vectervp1's recommendations to go only with 4300k, I bought the 5000k kit. Bad move. Should have listened to Art who's been there/done that with several HID kits. The violet hue that I see on the road, that is reflected on the white lines and reflectors is annoying the hell out of me. I thought I might get used to it, but so far I am not. Now this may be a personal preference thing, but I sure don't like it. As a comparison, my aux PHID lamps put out a much whiter, maybe even slightly yellow light. I much prefer it. I believe they were rated 4200K. The vendor's description of the 5000k was that they were really 'white'. Is it possible there is a good amount of variance in identical color bulbs?

First, here are a couple of photos of the HID lights. I don't know how obvious it is in the photos, but you can kind of see the violet hue.

Below is another night photo, this time with the aux PHID lights on. You can see that they are much more a 'white' light.

Second, I have not been 'WOW'ed by the amount of light vs. stock bulbs which I was expecting. I still have to do some direct comparison testing, so no definite conclusions here yet. I do know that I need to adjust the aim of the lights, as right now they are too low. I just hope that bringing the low beam up, does not raise the high beam light pattern too high. Will provide a more detailed report on this soon I hope.

I am no expert in HIDS. What I do know is that the PHIDS put out a HUGE amount of light. Big 'WOW' factor. And that that light is a very pleasing 'white' to me. But then they are pencil beam aux lights with a specific purpose (that they do well). I also know that when Vectervp1 installed one of the first HID low beam only kits several years ago, that kit had a big 'WOW' factor too, putting out a lot more light than stock in the low beam. Problem was, there was no high beam. Right now, I am underwhelmed with the kit I have. Not much of a 'WOW' factor. And annoying violet hue. I wish I could be reporting more positive results, but right now I am disappointed. I may try to change the color of the bulbs to 4300k, but that will be a huge PITA requiring removal of the whole front end of the FJR. If I am going to do that again, I might just pull the kit out and go back to stock.

More to come.

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that Greg. I'm really surprised by it too as my experience has been so different. I certainly stand by my offer to take 'em back.

HIDs are a real subjective item. For me, these particular 5K bulbs are whiter than any of the 4.3Ks I own and put out more light in the FJR headlight than the other 2 brands I've tried. In fact, I decided to restock in 5K rather than 4.3K for these reasons since you have to order a ton of them at one time.

Why not drop me a PM and we'll see what we can do?

Ignacio said:

My results haven't been quite so pessimistic, but I haven't finished my comparo yet. Hopefully this weekend including calibrated pictures of the various outputs.

Click to expand...

I have not even begun the install so I'm waiting on your results and comparo. Kit looks great, as others have posted.

I'd be curious to run mine and your side by side Skoot... I have the cheap ebay kit with 4300k. Art helped install mine, And thanks again buddy!

Mine are 4300k and (when I still had them installed) were the shizzy.

bmwhd, can your guy source 4300k bulbs? The kit looks to be very solid, but if I were going to buy one (I'm not likely) I'd want it to be 4300k.

As an aside, it makes me wonder how much variation there is in color sensitivity from one guy's eye ball to another. I mean sure, everything is subjective, but don't you suppose that the amount of blue that Skootie sees may be more than what someone else sees for the same light source? Considering color blindness, etc. it makes some sense to me.

Fred W said:

Mine are 4300k and (when I still had them installed) were the shizzy.
bmwhd, can your guy source 4300k bulbs? The kit looks to be very solid, but if I were going to buy one (I'm not likely) I'd want it to be 4300k.

As an aside, it makes me wonder how much variation there is in color sensitivity from one guy's eye ball to another. I mean sure, everything is subjective, but don't you suppose that the amount of blue that Skootie sees may be more than what someone else sees for the same light source? Considering color blindness, etc. it makes some sense to me.

Click to expand...

Well, I've fielded this question with a few times in PMs so I should add it to the main discussion. We chose not to source 4.3K based on our research with this particular supplier. We got samples of dozens of bulbs in colors from 4.3K to 12K. We've had experience in our personal bikes and cars with many more. In the lab and on the street, these 5K bulbs looked the best to us. Since we have to order at least a 100 at a time, it made sense to us to settle on the 5K which is the closest to natural daylight.

For me personally, I was originally disappointed in these 5K for the opposite reason as Greg. I wanted some blue to help me stand out in the daytime like I had with my old cheap a$$ 6Ks but to my eyes, these have none.

Clearly, to Greg's eyes they do. I can't explain it and that's why I offered to take 'em back. You just never know with these darn HIDs.

FWIW, in side-by-side comparisons with a number of guys in my BMW club running a variety of HIDs, these are the whitest but then again, I've not compared them to PHIDs

Fred W said:

, but don't you suppose that the amount of blue that Skootie sees may be more than what someone else sees for the same light source? Considering color blindness, etc. it makes some sense to me.

Click to expand...

Naw, I rode with him they are too blue. Not good at all.

Do they possibly have a burn in time to get full brilliance and color?

Well, I'm not sure what to expect from these HID's since I've never driving with any type of HID lights. My Aux (PIAA's) are H3 bulbs and they "kick the ****" out of my stock low beam lights. I actually have this sense of not being able to see when I have to turn of my Aux lights and roll with my stock low beam lights. I've only seen Matt's lights in his garage and yes, they seem blue but less then what I've seen some cars coming down the road at me. I'm personally hoping that these HID's will take away that feeling I get when my PIAA's turn night into day (I know you HID aux. light guys have the "****") and then into darkness when required to turn them off for traffic.

I also have an instrument panel light out, so I need to take the entire front end off. I figured this would be the time to add HID's. Of course having some help near by... makes me brave.

I'll do a write up as well, when I have my project finished.

Dave

Skoot - upon further review of your photos, I begin to doubt my own sanity for yours don't look like what I'm seeing with the rest of these bulbs. I'm wondering if I may have somehow shipped you the wrong kit. Your photos look like what we found in the 'lab' with the 8K and 10K bulbs. PM on the way.

I installed mine last week and the color is nothing like SkooterG posted.

Skooter - Can you give us an update, did the bulbs turn out to be 5k? Did Mr UPS bring you new bulbs?

Ignacio - You mentioned you were doing a detailed evaluation. Can you give us some hints on what you have seen so far.

I currently have a stock setup and I am considering purchasing the HID kit, any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Stacey

Well I'm back to stock H4's

I had the unnerving experience on my headlights cutting out on me requiring a ignition off on to refire them.

Probably the ballasts were going, they were ~ 2years old, but boy it was a pain in the butt coming back from Alaska.

After changing back I'm going to have say that the stock lights are still pretty good.

If you need more light go with aux lights and leave the mains as stock for reliability.

Chris

I've had HIDs in my FJR since I bought it in Dec 07. My wife about **** a brick when she came out to the garage and found me ripping apart the faring when I only had 20 miles on it. I have had two sets so far and I wouldn't have anything else. I have seen the posts where people are saying that they cant see much difference between the HIDs and the stock H4. There is a HUGE difference in my set up, so I don't know if they have a cheap set or what.

The one thing that did cause me some grief is the same issue that BugR refers to above (and why I put a different set on during troubleshooting). After a whole lot of trial and error last winter, I finally found that there is just too much power draw at engine start (most of the time) to get a consistent start on the HIDs. I have solve the problem by installing a time delay relay in the power line to the HIDs so that they delay about 15 seconds after the engine is started. Since that revelation, I have only had a few times where one of the bulbs failed to start...I ride most days to work (it always seems to be when the bike sits in the garage at work when it is cold outside). When that happens, I will start my ride home and pull off the road after a few min and stop/restart and they fire up fine. I assume that after riding for a few minutes the battery gets charged back up enough to fire both bulbs up.

All of the gory details are here, including the link to the relay that I bought off Amazon for $14 or so.

Just my $0.02 here, but people seem to see the HIDs better than stock. I realize there is no real good way to judge that, but I noticed a dramtic decrease in people pulling out in front of me when I went from stock to HID on my old VTX (the main reason I was so fast in getting them installed on my FJR).

EDIT: Here is the link to the time delay relay I used...

Problem I had was not that they would fire but that they would quit after about 15mins.

Might have been the bulbs or the ballasts, It seemed to be vibration related as they would flicker sometimes even when on while riding.

If I stopped, turned off the ignition and then immediately restarted the bike they would fire

Don't forget we had been out on some really rough roads (Broke the subframe and blew the seals during this trip) but having the lights cut out was very unnerving on some of those northern roads.

For the mains I'm back on H4's and looking at some of the new LED's for Aux lights.

Chris

BugR said:

Well I'm back to stock H4'sI had the unnerving experience on my headlights cutting out on me requiring a ignition off on to refire them.

Probably the ballasts were going, they were ~ 2years old, but boy it was a pain in the butt coming back from Alaska.

After changing back I'm going to have say that the stock lights are still pretty good.

If you need more light go with aux lights and leave the mains as stock for reliability.

Chris

Click to expand...

Chris,

When did this occur? Was it while riding along that they cut-out or upon start-up (a common HID problem on FJRs).

If the latter, there was some discussion of the cause of the situation, and I came up with a fix, in the linked thread.

[edit] - Ooops. Should have read ahead. It seems Knucklehead already responded with the same info, and that this wasn't your problem. I have no idea what would cause them to cut-out after 15 minutes of use other than a bad connection somewhere or faulty unit.

I've got a kit from ddmtuning.com, I got the 6k because I put 5k in my car and they are whitish but no hint of blue, and I wanted a little blue sparkle on the bike so I got the 6k. I'm very happy with them and they are brighter than stock on the road no doubt.

No need to rip anything apart to install these .... I could swap out new bulbs in minutes, same process as changing stock bulbs, just different connections??

It's true though, the 5k in my car do put out a better white-yellowish natural sunlight hue than the 6k on the bike, but damn they look sexy on the cerulean bike.