headlights

just bought a 1991 vfr this past fall, repainted this winter and am now getting it ready for the season. i want to put in new piaa headlights and am wondering that number bulb fits it?

 

PIAA has a website. Hopefully you will find that PIAA or another manufacturer has lights with the same baseplates that fit your 91. There are reducer shims available to use if you can't find fitment. At the time this was another kind of BS deal that Honda pulled to jack up the prices for lights that should have been about ten bucks to forty bucks+ depending on the stealership. I have/had a source for the shims but it is buried somewhere. If you need it I wll look for it or maybe another memember has the info more at hand.

 

Yes - as I found out the industry standard H4 bulbs do not fit the '90-'97 headlight assembly without modification. You can either modify the bulb mounting points, or get some adapters on eBay.

 

This link will get you the shims for twelve bucks. This outfit is also a PIAA Dealer.

Best IMO if only the shims are to be purchased, to call these folks. They likely have a contract with Fedex or UPS and will ship the shims that weigh less than an ounce by thier carrier and charge you 5-7 bucks. Have them just put the damn things in an envelope or a bllister pack and mail them USPS.

I do not recommend trying to mod the receptacles in either the VFR's or ST's. Screw it up and you are out the price of the part even if the parts are available.

CBT Imports

 

Agreed about modifying the headlight reflectors - it is NOT a modification for the faint of heart or unsteady of hand.

 

....or the fleet of foot and the huddled masses.


Just Emailed the "dude" at PIAA in Portland. He shoots me back a question on the OEM P/N. This guy is not on top of his game IMO.

 

I have a pair of piaa's in mine! took all of about 5 min to modify and install. I used a pair of tin snips to cut and bend the two smaller tabs to fit. Nothing to it. WAY brighter than the old ones, plus i got the purple ish ones, GTX or something like that $49 a bulb. Look great!

 

so after hearing all the warnings about the bulb modification and that it was not a simple thing and not for the faint hearted..... yeah i went and did it anyways, with great success actual.
pictures are posted below with explanation i find they fit as tight and as well as the proper ones i pulled out.

the two bottom tabs are a different spacing so just cut them of with a pair of side cutters and then dress and smoothen with a fill if you have one, the bottom center tabs,(the small ones about 5/16" apart) need to be bent down flush again because on the stock bulb mount there is a 3/8" or so gap ind they wont fit. other than that it is plug and play. the spring holds everything in tight and the top centering tab stops rotation.

so there it is hope this help someone out there.

 

heard its a paint to actually get to the lights, how much of the bike did you have to disassemble?

 

nothing just stuck my hand up from under by the oil cooler removed the plug, then boot and poped the spring clip out from the tab. the hardest part is getting the spring clip back in, especially if you have larger hands like i do. but other than that is was a piece of cake.

 

SWEET!

I have been holding out because I heard it was a big pain to change them out, but your right! Took about 20 minutes with some pissing around as its a bit tuff to see what your doing.

In my case I'm assuming the previous owner put in regular H4's without modifying anything because the bulbs appeared to be identical...not sure how he got them in there but i cut off the tabs and bent the little ones.

Here are a few pics:






new bulbs on right, cleaner whiter light.

 

Just installed HID kit into my 1990, having a hell of a time adjusting the beams. Bulbs seemed to only fit one way, but the High beam is too high and the low beam is too low. I'm feeling that if I invert the bulbs, it'll solve my problem. any tips for adjusting? I've had the whole front end apart to get it done, not my favorite task.