This is, unfortunately, not an unusual situation for those who participate on a group buy of a new item.
HEY! This was a
Self-Buy, dammit! :blink:
Kidding aside, I obviously feel bad that I didn't further test the Hi/Lo kit the brief time I had it. As soon as it was apparent that I could not "split up" the wiring harness from this kit and wire them independantly, I ceased testing them. I could already tell the low-beam was phenominal, but my high beam testing was little more than pointing the nose of the (still disasembled) FJR across the street at night, where I saw that they indeed lit up places I had never seen with the stock lights.
Obviously, this isn't very thorough testing...
And it obviously doesn't compare to taking them out in the dark desert to test them out like I should have.
Yet, I needed to sell the kit to have the bucks necessary to get the Low-Beam Only kit. So I carefully repackaged it, sold the kit via PayPal (at a $40 loss, after shipping), which allowed me to order the Low-Beam Kit right away. 3 days later the Low-Beam kit arrived, and in it went. So the bike was laid up only a total of 5-6 days.
Which brings up a couple points made by Radman.... first of all, this kind of experimenting can be expensive, and none of us are made of money. (Ok, the
majority of us aren't made of money).
Secondly... most would agree that there is
always risk in being the pioneer of new technology, or new technique, or new modifications, etc, etc. I'm usually willing to take risks if the return has substanial potential. Most of the time, it does.... the PHIDs, the Spiegler lines, the Superbrace, the Wilbers.... all were more or less hugely sucessful (despite the speedbumps along the way for the latter two).
This HID kit was only half successful.... the low beams are beyond awesome, but not so the high-beams.
Toward that end, I have already formulated a plan of attack to deal with the high beam issue. You guys that went with the Hi/Lo kit, don't be off-loading your kits quite yet. Stay tuned. B)
