Winter Project Kickoff

So, I've taken the bike off the road for a month or so because I have a laundry list of things I want to do. I just got the bike in September and the mod bug has been biting repeatedly and I've finally given in.

I just started over Thanksgiving weekend. I was going to wait until I was further along to post pics, but I can't wait. It's slow-going because I want to make sure I do everything correctly. I'll post detailed steps and pics later down the road. For the interim, here's a snipit of what's going on in the garage right now. I have my tv, table, chair, space heater, minifridge, and rolling tool chests... everything I need to keep me parked in the garage for Sunday football.

- Mike

 

Hey Mike that looks like a fun project that may have a very bright future... he he, I know it was lame.

Keep us up to date and if it works out nicely throw some part numbers our way.

 

Ohhhhhh......and its a red one too! any chance your moving to the other end of the bike too? say around the mufflers? ...maybe???

 

Oh, you just never know... :wink:

 

Wait, is this an actual bike related thread? With like wrenching and stuff?
Wow.

 

Nice in a similar boat myself. I finally last month started to install the HUGE pile of crap I had as well, some of the stuff was well over a year and a half old that I bought. See most of the list at http://vfrworld.com/forums/modifications/8421-mucho-modifications.html

good luck
maybe I should post some pics as well, front forks are off, rear tire is off, rear subframe is off, muffler and headers were off, part of (ceramic coated Motad) headers is on, and the new rear shock (Ohlins) is on, most of the braided lines are on...
All the disasembly is done, now starting to reassemble...

 

Mike- Hope all is well and can't wait to see the project in person! Good luck!!

Matt

 

Some recent pics, these are actually after the furthest the bike was taken apart, you can see the Ohlins shock is in, the Galfer braided lines are already mostly in, the sliders are in (but fairing holes not yet drilled).

 

Alllll righty dighty.... it's been a while since I posted an update. I'm just waiting on a Centech aux fuse panel to get here this week so I can wire these bad boys up permanently. Anyway, here are some updated pics. Breaking the bike down is obvioulsy the first step. Remove the front fairing, remove the headlights from the fairing, then remove the bulbs.

Next, fire up the oven to 325 F. We're going to heat the headlights up so the glue becomes pliable. This will enable you to separate the clear headlight lense from the body of the headlight. Next, remove the chrome reflector from the rear housing. At this point I was still able to change my mind if I wanted to. Did I? Heck no! Why not... it was december and I wasn't going to ride for a while anyway... so break out the dremel tool and cutting wheel and I cut the low beam chrome reflector dish out of the reflector housing, leaving the circular frame for the low beam dish as a frame to position the HID projector in to I know it is in the smae place as the oem light.

There are 3 adjusting screws on the stock low beam. I left 1 attached to the reflector frame as an intial reference point, the other two I cut off and would eventually attach onto the new HID projector with epoxy. Lights are not good if you can't adjust them, right? I'm being kinda brief here with the work involved. It's not difficult per se, but it is time-consuming. This was my first time doing this and I didn't want to muff anything up, ya know? But this pretty much preps the oem housings and gets them ready for the new HID projectors I bought off ebay.

 

I found some HID projectors in excellent shape on ebay. They came off a Lexus IS 330 and included the chrome shrouds to give them a clean look form the front. The first step in prepping these bad boys is to take them apart, separating the shroud from the body of the projector. Next, I took a blue marker and marked all the little knobs and odd edges that were sticking out and then broke out the dremel with cutting wheel to cut off all those little odd edges to clean the projector housings up. There isn't much room in the oem reflector frame, so anything that was sticking out of the HID housing that wasn't needed was getting cut off. Once everything is cleaned up and the HID housing was as small as I could get it, I wrapped it in reflective heat tape to close all the gaps... good air in, bad air out. Seriously though, if you get any dust or anything on the inside of HID lenses, it sticks out like a sore thumb and looks like crap. So once you have them all cleaned up, seal those suckers off to keep the look clean more than anything.

 

Now that the oem frame is ready and the new HID projector is ready, it's time to bring the two together. I firmly believe that epoxy puddy is one of the best things a chemist in a back room ever invented. Get the sets in 5 min kind... otherwise, you either don't have enough time to work with it before it sets up or it takes too long to setup and you're trying to hold something in place so long it inevitably moves on you. we're going to use the expoxy to fill in the gap between the oem reflector frame and the new HID projector.

But first, we have to make sure the high beam and low beam lights are aligned together. Since we didn't mess with the high beam at all and it's still stock, this is easy. Temporarily wire up the high beam bulb (in the reflector) and fire up the HID light. I used little wads of epoxy pressed into the gaps at 3 points to hold the light in the frame. You have about 4 minutes or so to adjust its position until it hardens up on you. With both lights on, shoot the beams of light on the wall. The high beam will leave a straight line of light across the wall. Move the HID projector around in the frame until its beam of light is aligned with the high beam. Leave it along for about 15 minutes while the little wads of epoxy cures. Then come back with more epoxy puddy and fill in the remaining gaps between the frame and HID projector for a nice, tight fit.

Next, we have to attach the two light adjusters we cut off the low beam reflector dish. Screw them back into the black light housing the chrome reflector dish mounts to. Then remount the entire reflector dish to the housing. You can easily see where the light adjusters touch the back sides of the new HID projectors. Use 1-minute liquid epoxy in a surenge to temporarily attach the adjusters to the HID projector. Then unscrew all the adjusters from the housing. They're all now attached to the HID housing. Use more epoxy puddy to permanently fix the adjusters to the HID projector. Now the adjusters are back in their stock positions and attached to the new HID projector.

I stuck one light back on the front of the bike just to roughly see what the difference is going to be. Now, we're only finished mounting the new HID projector to the stock housing. We're only about halfway done though. We need to cover up all that epoxy and structural work, giving them a nice finished look and then wire them up with heavier gauge wire than the stock wire. I opted to use a Centech aux fuse panel to power these lights for a few reasons: (1) I was getting the fuse panel anyway to run heated grips, GPS, heated boot inserts and two aux plugs, (2) I rather use a slightly heavier gauge wire since these lights draw more power initially during startup/warmup than the stick halogen lights do, and (3) I'd rahter have them on their own fused circuit that's easy to access under my seat (where I'm putting the aux fuse panel). I've read a lot of differing opinions on running them on their own fused circuit with heavier gauge wire versus using the stick wiring setup. It probably doesn't matter, but since I have it all apart and it's easy for me to do, I err on the side of caution and do it up right.

I need to take some more pics later this week or over the weekend once i make some more progress, but that's kinda been the process thus far...

- Mike

 

Crazy project.............

 

I cheat it...........

I went for HID take 1 hour............:biggrin:
I have to give it to you bro.:thumbsup::hail::hail:

 

So, while I'm waiting on some bulbs to get here for the new projectors, I decided to wrap my pipes to help with the heat. I started it as a spearate thread, then I thought I'd just keep it all together so if anyone is following my first wrenching experience on the bike they can see what else I'm working on along with the HID's.

Link here: http://vfrworld.com/forums/modifications/21165-wrapped-pipes.html

 

So, here's the finished product. I don't feel like the pics really do it justice. They look so much better in person. But, it'll give you an idea how it turned out. The light is very clean, sharp cutoff lines in the road, no one flashes me, easy to focus, etc. Makes a workd of difference when compared to the stock halogen low beams. Glad I did it... gave me something to tinker with while it was cold out and I couldn't ride anyway. We're back on the raod now though!

 

That is F@#$ing ill!!!
what did you wind up using for the actual bulbs?
HID's or regular filament? what color temp 4300k or 6000k etc?

 

It's all a true HID setup. HID projectors I picked up on ebay that came off a Lexus IS330, and 6000K HID bulbs and ballasts I purchased online from DDMtuning.com. I'm getting ready to take the headlights apart again and repaint the black around the projector the factory red to colormatch the bike. Not sure how it'll look, but I can always change it back if I prefer the black. No biggy...

 

Very nice!!! I've got Acura TL's in both my Mazdas currently.

I'll be lookin to retro in either E55's or FX35's into a 5th gen when i manage to get my paws on one.

Props for doin HID's the correct way!! Any output shots?

 

No output shots. I'll try to get a couple.

Output-wise, it's what you'd expect. Bright as hell, pure white (6000K), and focused nicely with a crisp horizon line so it's not shining up in the face of oncoming traffic.

I have a friend who has an R6 with HID's (2 H7 HID bulbs when hi/lo both on). Mine look twice as bright as his, which I'm assuming is due to focusing the light through a projector vs. using a halogen projector with unfocused light.

Been using them since Jan with no problems at all. Project came out great.

 

Nice nice! Yeah, i love my setup in the cars. I've seen a few other bikes around the web with retro's, mostly F4I's though.

And it's just always sick to see a bike with better light output than 90% of the cages next to you