Headlight bulb alteratives and mods needed to get it done

This is where the old VFR.D came in handy. There used to be a lot of stuff about HID's LED's etc., but most people pretty much thought Sylvania H7 SilverStars were the best bang for the buck. They are abut $28 a pair at Walmart. Nowdays there are other H7 options like XtraVision and Silverstar Ultra, but I never got around to reading anything about them. Well, dang. H7's are for 6th gens, iirc. I want to think H4's are for 5th gens. They cost a little more, about $40 for a pair. The size is from my sometimes memory, but I did look at the prices on Amazon and Walmart.

 

Forgot to mention. I think on one or both gens you had to bend or cut a tang on the new bulb for them to work. Maybe I'm thinking of something different. I really need to do some memory exercises. Maybe if I think about lifting heavy weights...

 

I'm not sure about the US market bikes but our locals came with 45/45W H4 bulbs, with a different pattern of locating tangs compared to a standard 55/60W H4 bulb. To use a standard 55/60W bulb, you will need to bend or cut the two locating tangs at the 5 and 7 pm positions. That won't make the bike explode or the bulbs flop around uselessly as the are still clocked by the 12 o'clock tang so can't rotate, and the bases engage with the rim of the reflector so they can't aim at possums in the trees. Or you can upgrade and be like the cool kids with LED bulbs, which is what I have done (being a cool former kid myself).

 

Given the amount of variables with engineered assy(lens,reflector,wiring) it’s likely best to stay with OEM. Price is discouraging I know but cheaper can be problems even tho adapters are available, filaments don’t locate exactly where lens is designed to work best. They’re more complicated than you might think…

 

So long as the bulb has the CSA markings on it or it's packaging, they are legal to use here in BC, likely the rest of Canada too. That's where riders would get into difficulties with the authorities with the HID lights. They were not CSA approved, because the bulb was not made to work proper with our prisms or something like that. I switches all my lights back in the day from the expensive HID to Piaas, which were equally expensive but CSA approved. I had no difficulty after that with the traffic guys. But as mentioned here already, your best bet is OEM which are readily available at just about any auto parts store.

 

The Sylvania H4's (and H7's for 6th gen) have been hashed out, tested, and ridden hundreds of thousands of miles by many VFR.D guys over the years. From what I remember they project quite well and accurately with a whiter light while being less expensive than OEM. On the downside, I think their life rating is lower than OEM. I bet you don't put automotive oil or coolant in your bike either.

 

I might be wrong, but my expectation is that there is an H4 standard which prescribes the 3D exact location where the two filaments have to locate when the bulb is fitted. If the light starts at the same location, the beam pattern will be the same, so different manufacturer's bulbs should all project in the same way.

On the other hand...if you hit Aliexpress and looks for "H4 LED" you will see all sorts of bulbs which do have the right base to fit the reflector, but may not locate the emitters anywhere near where they should be, so the beam pattern could be complete rubbish and upsetting to other road users.

So if you go the LED route, look carefully for emitters in the same location as the wire filaments of your current bulbs i.e. one behind the other, a bit of a vertical step, and a shroud for the low beam to provide the cut-off. Done carefully, you will get a great beam pattern, much brighter lighting and reduced power and heat (LEDs convert 30-40% of energy into light vs halogen at 10-20%).

 

I've seen a ton of aftermarket LEDs put in cars and trucks over the years that had terrible beams because of that very issue. I've never noticed a bad beam thrown from an incandescent or halogen...at least not any worse than the OEM it replaced.

 

I dunno about the 6th gen's H7s, but the previous gens' OEM H4s were definitely not the same as the standard, over the counter H4s you can get everywhere. As mentioned above, they were only 45w/45w, rather then the standard H4 55w/60w, and to make sure nobody "inadvertently" fit the wrong bulb, Honda used a different reflector for the US/Canadian (and apparently NZ) markets.

Of course, fitting "the wrong bulb" is exactly what any self-respecting bike modder does on a daily basis, so dating from the earliest days of the Big List, the first H4 headlight bodge was popularized as "the nail trick". To account for the different positions of the lower tabs on the OEM H4 (aka PX43t 65-Degree) and the standard H4 (aka P43t), someone discovered that bending the lower tabs of a standard H4 up to secure a finishing nail or length of piano wire had the dual benefit of taking the mal-positioned tabs out of play and giving the bulb somewhere definitive on the reflector to locate its lower region (apart from the non-reference, i.e., non-standardized, parts of the bulb).





That said, H4 halogens in a reflector lens set-up isn't self-landing rocket science, so while the H4 standard actually specifies values down to a tenth of a millimetre, in my experience little of this matters on a road in the real world. It only really starts to be noticeable when you convert to HID or LED light sources.

Ciao,

JZH

 

That just makes the R/R's job easier, not having to dissipate as much excess energy. lol
I'm glad you remember the specifics on the bulbs considering my source of VFR.D and the main VFR forum in the UK are gone (like my memory). What was that one called? Seems like it was the Honda VFR Club.

 

This has become one of my standard practices with old(er) bikes, pull all the fuses and all the connectors, clean any tarnish off and then spray some Deoxit or similar into the terminals. My old ST1100 (resurrected after a 10 year outdoor rest) would not rev out, and after about 6 carb cleaning sessions I discovered I was getting low voltage to the coils and a weak spark, eventually traced to one of the harness connectors that was a bit grotty.

 

US market Honda bulbs are the 45/45W with the wider spaced bottom two tabs, only difference against European market bikes, we didn't get that small parking light thing dead center but the plastic changeout door is still present.

Pretty simple for 5th gens. If you want halogen, stop in any O'reillys, Auto zone, Advance , wally world. Grab a standard H4 and bend the 5/7 o'clock tabs inwards towards the electrical plug side with some needle nose pliers.

If you want a LED conversion, I'd suggest a good set that tries to replicat the halogen filament placement as close as possible, including the shields. See my thread here. series rectifier would be a great mod when reducing electrical load too.

https://www.vfrworld.com/threads/installed-sylvania-led-headlight-bulbs.60530/

 

From the "no good deed goes un-punished" file, which fuses did you replace them with?

I once watched a very revealing YouTube video of a guy testing various fuses, and based on that (and the inability to test them myself) I now only buy and use name-brand fuses from Buss, Littelfuse or MTA. Apparently, cheap fuse manufacturers tend to use the same metal fuse material for all or most of the dozen or so fuse sizes they sell, and not even that is sized accurately enough to blow when it's supposed to. There's no point in specifying different fuse ratings for different loads and wire sizes if they're all going to blow at 22A anyway...

Caveat emptor!

Ciao,

JZH

 

I think that Cycle Terminal sells good stuff, and that the proprietor, Joe, knows his stuff! The fuses he sells are clearly specified to be either Cooper Bussmann or Littelfuse, which are two of the manufacturers I mentioned above. So, sorry for the false alarm--you're good to go!

Ciao,

JZH

 

I've been on this fence for a long time and wanting to change out my bulbs for something different from stock. I've looked at doing the LED conversion for it and supposedly (from their literature) Morimoto has put the bulb where it's supposed to be to match halogen light projection and be a drop in replacement.

Where I get hung up is space on the backside of the light housing for the cooling fin assembly of the bulb. I haven't measured, nor really taken a look to see just how much room is back there.

I'll most likely make the swap once my bulbs burn out.