6th Gen HID low beam upgrade

About this time last year, I upgraded the low beams on my 6th gen to HID's. Since then I've had a bunch of people ask me where I managed to mount things at for the upgrade kit and other various questions. I recently was an experiencing intermittent failure with one of my bulbs not igniting and was able to track down the issue to a fault ballast. Since I had everything apart and was putting the replacement back together, I thought I'd try and share my experiences for those in the future. While I don't have a picture of this, I also bought the additional wiring harness for my HID's that make them draw power from directly from the battery (through a fused unit) over much heavier gauge wire than the stock Honda wiring. I routed this along the right side of the engine with other wiring and eventually up to the front between the forks. It is simple enough that I didn't think a picture was needed. Any extra wire for this harness was stuffed under the seat, zip tied and secured. As far as the ballasts are concerned, this is where most people have asked me questions. There isn't a ton of room on the 6th gen up front but I found some.



Directly below the ignition switch is the support for the dash and upper fairing. There is a lot of room here between the forks and I made sure that I purchased the slim ballasts when planning this. I mounted one one each side of this support. This is the left one.



Here is the one on the other side. Note that both of these are held in place by double sided foam tape. After they were where I wanted them, they also got zip tied so that they weren't going anywhere.



As for all the extra wires, they got stuffed behind the bank angle sensor. Zip tied and secured as well.



One of the things about slim ballasts seems to be that it moves the igniter outside of the ballast so that it can be placed elsewhere. I used double sided foam tape again to mount these to the uprights... and of course they got zip tied as well. Other than that, there really isn't much to it. Everything was plug and play providing that you bought the right bulbs. It takes longer to take everything apart and put it all back together than it does to do the upgrade. Once everything is done, make sure that you've got lights aligned properly. The HID's will have a different spread and pattern than your halogens.



When it is all said and done, you'll easily have double the light you had before. It certainly isn't something that you can look at directly but surprisingly I get flashed less than once a week and at least a third of my riding is after dark. It helps that I've got the right beam pointed way off to the right. The HIDs seem to have a much wider beam and this lets me light up the side of the road for deer while not sacrificing any visibility directly in front of me. In the rare event that I do get flashed, I turn my brights on and can feel them cower in fear at the amount of light I've got.

As far as tools go, there is a very simply list:
Phillips screwdriver
10mm socket
5mm allen

I also used some electrical tape, double sided foam tape, zip ties, and something to cut them with.

Total cost: About $70 after shipping, two slim ballasts, two H4 bulbs, and the optional wiring harness. I ordered mine from www.ddmtuning.com upon reading good reviews of them elsewhere.
Edit: I purchased the 35W kit which is the stock replacement for low beams.

Total time: 2-3 hrs depending on how fast you want to move. Today it took me a good 3-4 hours but we had a heat index of 117F outside and I wasn't moving too fast plus took several breaks.

I can say that after riding with these for the past year, it is the most beneficial upgrade that I've done hands down. I've spotted so many things at night that I never would have seen before and I know that they have saved me on at least three different occasions. I have been riding the last week and a half without them and I've come to realize even more how important they are.

 

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. I'll try and update the thread accordingly and hopefully can make this a one-stop shop for all HID questions relating to the 6th gen with the exception of retrofitting HID lenses to the bike.

While it is certainly possible to go with 55W ballasts, it has drawbacks as well. You start pulling more load on the charging system and you generate a lot more heat as well. I have had friends who have had their headlights crack over time from the increased heat, extra heating and cooling, etc.

I also went with the 5000k bulbs for my color. I had personally seen 6000k and knew that they were way too blue for my taste and was really looking for pure white. The lights looks sligtly blue when looking at them but as far as I can tell I have a pure white light on the roads. I really would like to get my hands on a set of 4500k bulbs to compare and see how much closer I could get to pure white.

 

I did my high beams last year. Though that the lows would be too bright for day to day (or night to night) driving as it were.. I loved the high beams whenever I used them which at night time is seldom. But use them during the day time 100% of the time. I have since gone out and purchased the two lows but just haven't gotten around to doing the install.

I mounted my ballasts screwed against the black plastic inner cowl near the top of the forks. They work well there. Actually it was Jasonsmith who did the work. He used similar tools except he had another big 5'10" 210 pound tool watching.

 

I decided against doing the high beams for the simple fact that there are times where I've only got my highs on for 5-10 seconds. That isn't even enough time for the HIDs to warm up and produce any more light than halogens, so it wasn't worth it at all. I would have chosen a similar location to mount them except that I find myself taking the plastics off quite frequently for this and that here and there.

It is well worth the time to do the install for the low beams. They aren't too bright for day to day use when aimed properly. Like I said, I get flashed less than once a week and I often pass others on the road whos low beams are just as bad as mine. Not a big deal at all. The only time that I find they are too bright is when I am in town and at a stop light. If a car is low enough, I end up blinding someone because my lights will end up hitting their rear view mirror as well as their side mirrors. I did have one guy that I pulled up beside and aplogized to because there simply wasn't anything I could to stop blinding him till the light turned green and I could pass him.

 

And I can see that. Ever thought of pulling up behind people at lights, a bit off to the side and stopping a bit at an angle. That would reduce the full on glare quite a bit. Same thing happens when some of those little penis big assed make smoke fuggen trucks pulls up behind too

 

It happened when I first put them on and hadn't had to deal with em yet. Now if I am doing that to someone I do like you say or hold the front brake and let the clutch out a little then pull it back in to dive the nose some. The stick-tion usually keeps the front end down enough to stop bothering them.

 

Do you have to take the top fairing off to install the hid kit.

 

If you want to do it right - and I can't imagine doing it without, yes, you have to take the front fairing off to do the install.
I just installed highs with H7 and lows with H4's. It is a bit of a challenge to fit all of the ballasts in there but as Randy said, there is room up front if you can get creative. I ordered mine from Sportbikelites.com and got a lifetime warranty on the parts and ballasts. Good kits overall but do need to know what you are doing in order to install them correctly.
You can also order a delay relay from wiremybike.com and the HID's as well (sells the VFRNess) if you want to delay your light to give your bike time to regulate the voltage.

NOTE - I had one wire from the ballast with a short in it so I'm waiting on the replacement to show up (which is why only 1 high beam is on in photos)

Another note - I love the amount of light, my high beams fill in the somewhat lack of light right in front of the bike for when I'm on completely dark roads, other than that I can see great in all scenarios and I wear a tinted visor as well!

 

I just purchased an '06 VFR and I had a problem with the low beam headlight connectors. I found that one stopped working and when I pulled it off noticed that the plastic was melted around one of the spade connectors. I bought new pigtails, designed for high output bulbs, but I did not redo the wiring. I just cut off the existing connectors and spliced in the new ones. I found that the low beam bulbs are H4, but I'm really not sure what that means. They seem to be correct as far as the wattage goes. Will these H4 bulbs pull too much current? I really do not want to re-wire my bike to accommodate these bulbs, so I will go pick up stock bulbs if needed. I was surprised by the wiring to the headlights. I guess I expected a heavier gauge wire and a better connector. The stock connector does not offer much protection from the elements.

 

I think I just found an answer to my question. I found the replacement bulbs on Napa Auto Parts' website Most of the models have "H4" in the part number. I suspect that the previous owner may have run some higher output bulbs and then pulled them, but who really knows. I just know that both of the plastic pigtails were melting. The replacements pigtails seem to be of higher quality and there is a heavy rubber 'boot' around the connection that should help keep moisture out.

Pic of the left-side, low beam stock pigtail:


The replacement part I bought is the Dorman 84790:
http://www.amazon.com/Dorman-84790-Headlight-Socket/dp/B001SGBZSQ

 

While you have the plastics off have you looked at your harnesses that run along side the gas tank by the radiators?
I'm curious if you were having any voltage spikes or anything. Could just be the wrong replacement bulb. H4 from what I know (and that's not much) is the type of bulb for the housing. H4 is a dual filament bulb - the inner light kicks on when you hit the high beams.
Glad to see you found the problem though - and let us know how you like those connectors - if I had thought about it - I would have replaced all four of mine when I did the refit.

 

I did not take off all of the fairing, just the small section that allowed me to get to the right side high-beam bulb to check it. You bring up a good point, and I know that I really need to go ahead and take the time to check this. If, as you say, the problem lies elsewhere, it could cause much more damage to the bike. I think it is probably worth the time to rewire some of this (at least the wiring to the headlights), but right now, I do not know how much effort that is.

 

Piaa also makes HID upgrade kits that appear to be very high quality, I saw them recently at a local motorcycle event. They aren't cheap, but quality usually isn't. Retail is over $300, show price was like $130-160. Oddly they don't list them on their motorcycle lighting pages, but under ATV and snowmobile. When I asked why, the Piaa guy said it is because they aren't DOT approved, so legally they couldn't offer them for street vehicles.

 

FYI, last year I had a ballast with intermittent firing issues and it sometimes would fail to ignite my bulb. I called DDM and they issued me an RMA. I sent it back and had a replacement ballast in less than 2 weeks. The new ballast is about 25% smaller too, making it easier to place.