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Hi all, as a DIY enthusiast, I was always after better lighting systems for the bike or car whatever I drive. Because, better visibility gives you more confidence as well as more saftey while night driving. As all of you guys know how pathetic are our current bike lighting solutions in our desi bikes, admitting that there are very few exceptions for this. Its Night drives are always been risky drives especially on highways with lot of trucks, buses loaded with lots of extra lights. Most of these morons don’t know when and where to uses these judiciously and some are least bothered about the other side people’e life. Simply enjoying the floodlight system or what so ever they have at the risk of others life or even a secret smile on their face too? Ok, its all about the people’s behavior and attitude issues that may be discussed somewhere else.
So atleast for our safety, we need to have a better lighting system for the night drive. I have to drive at night for atleast 1 hour to my home everyday after work, and so much worried about the lighting system in my bike a Pulsar 150 DTSi, cursing for the poor performance of the lights, always thinking about some improvement in that. Like most of us, I also done the coil rewinding and made the alternator to 130W, switched my bulb to a 55/60 and later on to a 90/100W. Even most of the truckies used to give some respect once I flash the high beam to them and I feel this is the best I can ever achieve.
But once I happened to hear about the Xenons, and saw the performance on high end cars, things were started changing, You know there is nothing is satisfactory if something is better in front of you. I too bought a HID, the most brightest, latest lighting system in the automotive world, so obliviously I thought this is the last light mod for me. But things are not going to my satisfactory range. Just being an HID bulb into a stock reflector won’t give you the desired result. It produces lot of glares to the oncoming traffics and the beam spread was hopless as the HID light wont give you a foucssed beam spread and it wont give distant lighting even in High beam.
To avoid the glares, need to point the dome to downwards but will be sacrificed the beam spread. So my investment in HID proves to be vain due to these issues, so I started searching to overcome the glare issues. The only solution was to go for projectors and that’s why all the high end cars equipped with HID is in projectors. So this is the turning point, started searching for the projectors, but not the one some of our friends procured from the junks, I need a real one, a direct fit to the existing stock setup, without hampering the looks and can be back to the original state when you want to sell the bike.
Now I came to know about the retrofit projectors which are HID ready and it’s a permanent solution for the glares as you know its got a glare cut of shield to take care of this. You can even look directly to a properly aligned projector from your sitting position on low beam, no one will curse you and the best part is no cops will stop you for holding such a 1000W halogen power light. I like its controlled low beam effect, its got a pretty wide spread as I got a bigger lens kit.
More over, its got an Angel Eye with the projector adding more spice to the road show, as no one is having such a unique piece in my town except some SBks. So I just love to have it as one of my signatures stuff. I don’t want to show off, but I want a better lighting without hurting others, that’s what finally I fell in to this little but meaty stuff.
Installation was supposed to be quite simple, just remove the front dome glass and fix the lens kit to the reflector, tighten the bolt provided and seal back the glass which I removed with the supplied RTV sealant, seems cool. But in my case, it was a mess, firstly you need to have a hot air gun to make the sealant softer to pull out the glass from the dome, which I was not having, so I put the whole assy into an oven for a few minutes and pulled it out. The overall size of the kit was not complying with the existing setup. I’ve got a 3” Dia lens with Angel Eyes and shrouds which results 4” totally. So I have to cut the reflector to make it fit in the dome. Once its fixed, 50% of the job is finished and rest as smooth as expected. Levelling and aligning job was not at all a pain since I fixed the whole unit to the reflector so the leveling screw can do the rest of positioning the height.
Here are some of the dismantled snaps
Here's the solenoid operates the sheild which makes it H4
A Close shot of the shield
Here comes the reflector
And this is our champion HID bulb
This is how the bulb comes with the cover
Here's the backseat driver for the bulb, ballast
Here's the wiring harness, just connect it to the stock bulb socket done.
And this one is the CCFL Angel Eye decorder box
The performance was very impressive except the high beam as it restricts almost 40% of the beam by the shield which I feel is not sufficient as its not giving much distance lighting. High beams we really expects a good distance view by providing a good lightup condition but I have to agree with that all projectors are offering the same level of visibility in high beams. Its like a search light of 1000W focused to a narrow beam so it will definitely harm the oncommers visibility if its not restricting to certain level. But personally I feel there is still a 10% can be utilized by adjusting the shield height, so that I may get a good distant visibility without hurting others.
Am not finished as lot more to do I think, so will update soon once I get through.
I welcome all of you for creative suggestions which can be useful in this mod.
So atleast for our safety, we need to have a better lighting system for the night drive. I have to drive at night for atleast 1 hour to my home everyday after work, and so much worried about the lighting system in my bike a Pulsar 150 DTSi, cursing for the poor performance of the lights, always thinking about some improvement in that. Like most of us, I also done the coil rewinding and made the alternator to 130W, switched my bulb to a 55/60 and later on to a 90/100W. Even most of the truckies used to give some respect once I flash the high beam to them and I feel this is the best I can ever achieve.
But once I happened to hear about the Xenons, and saw the performance on high end cars, things were started changing, You know there is nothing is satisfactory if something is better in front of you. I too bought a HID, the most brightest, latest lighting system in the automotive world, so obliviously I thought this is the last light mod for me. But things are not going to my satisfactory range. Just being an HID bulb into a stock reflector won’t give you the desired result. It produces lot of glares to the oncoming traffics and the beam spread was hopless as the HID light wont give you a foucssed beam spread and it wont give distant lighting even in High beam.
To avoid the glares, need to point the dome to downwards but will be sacrificed the beam spread. So my investment in HID proves to be vain due to these issues, so I started searching to overcome the glare issues. The only solution was to go for projectors and that’s why all the high end cars equipped with HID is in projectors. So this is the turning point, started searching for the projectors, but not the one some of our friends procured from the junks, I need a real one, a direct fit to the existing stock setup, without hampering the looks and can be back to the original state when you want to sell the bike.
Now I came to know about the retrofit projectors which are HID ready and it’s a permanent solution for the glares as you know its got a glare cut of shield to take care of this. You can even look directly to a properly aligned projector from your sitting position on low beam, no one will curse you and the best part is no cops will stop you for holding such a 1000W halogen power light. I like its controlled low beam effect, its got a pretty wide spread as I got a bigger lens kit.
More over, its got an Angel Eye with the projector adding more spice to the road show, as no one is having such a unique piece in my town except some SBks. So I just love to have it as one of my signatures stuff. I don’t want to show off, but I want a better lighting without hurting others, that’s what finally I fell in to this little but meaty stuff.
Installation was supposed to be quite simple, just remove the front dome glass and fix the lens kit to the reflector, tighten the bolt provided and seal back the glass which I removed with the supplied RTV sealant, seems cool. But in my case, it was a mess, firstly you need to have a hot air gun to make the sealant softer to pull out the glass from the dome, which I was not having, so I put the whole assy into an oven for a few minutes and pulled it out. The overall size of the kit was not complying with the existing setup. I’ve got a 3” Dia lens with Angel Eyes and shrouds which results 4” totally. So I have to cut the reflector to make it fit in the dome. Once its fixed, 50% of the job is finished and rest as smooth as expected. Levelling and aligning job was not at all a pain since I fixed the whole unit to the reflector so the leveling screw can do the rest of positioning the height.
Here are some of the dismantled snaps
Here's the solenoid operates the sheild which makes it H4
A Close shot of the shield
Here comes the reflector
And this is our champion HID bulb
This is how the bulb comes with the cover
Here's the backseat driver for the bulb, ballast
Here's the wiring harness, just connect it to the stock bulb socket done.
And this one is the CCFL Angel Eye decorder box
The performance was very impressive except the high beam as it restricts almost 40% of the beam by the shield which I feel is not sufficient as its not giving much distance lighting. High beams we really expects a good distance view by providing a good lightup condition but I have to agree with that all projectors are offering the same level of visibility in high beams. Its like a search light of 1000W focused to a narrow beam so it will definitely harm the oncommers visibility if its not restricting to certain level. But personally I feel there is still a 10% can be utilized by adjusting the shield height, so that I may get a good distant visibility without hurting others.
Am not finished as lot more to do I think, so will update soon once I get through.
I welcome all of you for creative suggestions which can be useful in this mod.
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