headlight opinion

was working on a headlight bezel for the streetfighter project, but after seeing some of the customs here and a few buddies suggesting things to me I now have two options...I need opinions to make up my mind 3

bezel with lights, sorry about the painters tape :lol: :


or just the round ones:

 

i like the 2 round ones

 

i say go with the round. where did you get them?

 

The round lights look great. Gives the bike kind of a Triumph Speed Triple look.

 

that's what my buddies are saying, they are just some cheap generic driving lights I got at an auto parts store, paid like $12 fr the set :lol: ... bolted to the stock headlight bracket very well :wink:

 

I like both I didn't the oval ones have the blinkers built into them tho?? so with the rounds you would need to put blinkers on as well. I would probably like the round better if you had a cowl like you do for the ovals to hide the wires and such behind the lights.

 

that's what I'm thinking... going to need signals with the round lights , but that's minor

 

Calculate the Amps that the two Round ones draw. You can't go over specs or you'll burn-out the Alternator Rotor or fry the Voltage Regulator or both!

 

keep it the way it is looks sick

 

I love the look of the 2 rounds , want to do that conversion myself.
What about hi/lo beams? How are you gonna approach that?
Looked at some driving lights here too, wondering about safety inspection with such beasts.

 

does anybody know the amperage rating on these bikes?

 

Stock is 19 amps at 4000 rpm (maximum output).
At idle, they barely have enough power to keep up with static running draw.

 

The two round headlights remind me of a Triumph Speed Triple. I like my huge single round headlight too much to change it. Part of the reason I like my Seca so much.

 

The only reason I would switch to two is that drivers have a harder time judging speed/course/distance at night with only the one large...I like the look of the one large, but have thought of switching over to two b/c of the safety factor.

 

Actually - two bulbs that close together won't gain you much by way of a safety factor. At any distance further than about 100 feet away, it will just appear to be one big headlight anyway - especially at night.

A better way to get that benefit would be to get two smaller lights and mount them widely spaced - the wider the better.

I personally have a pair of 20W fog lights mounted to my engine guards -- gives the 'triangle of light' look -- sure seems to catch drivers eyes.

 

don't need high beam, bike won't be seeing much highway, that's what I got my GSXR for :wink: ... as for safety inspections, we don't have them here for bikes... code just says there has to be some sort of headlamp!

amp draw on the bulbs isn't that much but I'm going to check it all out a second time to make sure... starting sway toward the round ones, just got to do something about the mess of wires...

 

Wow.... need inspections here .... gonna check on the code for the light thing, got a copy on pdf here somewhere .. hehe

To get around the current draw.... dual 35 watters should keep you below spec...

 

I know, I've got family up there... I'd say it won't be long before it happens here... great if you can find the specs... I'm going with 100w low amp bulbs... all running lights have been taken off the bike and the tail lights are led now... power drain has been taken down to a min :wink:

 

Well - stock was 55w low, 60w high. So even with losing the running lights etc, running dual 100w lamps is going to kill your alternator/battery. That's a draw of 14 amps even when the bikes at max output.
You might be able to get away with dual 55w bulbs, but not much more.

 

Something else to consider - 100 watt bulbs put out a heck of a lot more heat than 55 watt bulbs. Will the light fixtures you are considering handle that kind of heat?

 

What kind of improved lighting have people been running on thier XJ/Maxim's that you folks do know of?

I'd love to spec at least a white spectrum bulb of some kind on my bike. HI- Beams are out for now switch is broken, but would love to learn about what others have tried and liked..

 

I run the Stock Headlight with a Sylvania SilverStar Motorcycle Bulb.

Same wattage ... more light!

Have one on the 900 too. The stock light in the 900 was so dim you couldn't see the end of the front fender at night. Switched to a SilverStar and now I see the Road Signs reflecting in the distance.

 

I have that very problem rick... got caught riding home at night last night from a friends house, had to stick to side roads so I could use my bright. I'm buying that tomorrow!

 

THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED.

 

they come with 100w bulbs in them, but may be changing them out with with some silverstar hyper whites, had these bulbs in a set of driving lights years ago down on the crash bars when I used this bike for a lot of highway driving, never had any issues with the battery or charging... guess I'll just have to see, worse case I'll have to use one light on the low beam and one on the high beam just in case... this is just a Project bike for show and a little bit of go, I'm not to concerned with lighting working that much, just as long as something works and the bikes looks Good :roll: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

Looking good should go hand in hand with performance. That's why I get all bent out of shape when somebody abandons their airbox for Pod Filters that look good.

They may look great, but the price for looking good is sometimes a big sacrifice in the way the bike runs.

I'd rather work to get a nice running bike looking good than a nice looking bike tuned-up working around things like Pods and overdone lighting.
The design parameters should dictate what you can do to the bike.

Trying to make the bike do something it wasn't designed to do it the hard part of getting good performance out of the machine.

 

Are you going to make a new bezel for the two rounds? If you do would you make a post on the construction of it. Awesome project

 

RickCoMatic, thanks for the tip on the SilverStar - my high beam on the maxim is atrocious, the low beam is next to useless. I'll need to try that out...

Altus - how did you install the running lights? You're right about two close together not making a difference...I was forgetting my physics there. The running light idea is appealing (the "triangle of light" is what consistently gets the thumbs up on the *urp* goldwing). So - I'd be interested in knowing what you used, where you installed them, how they were wired....

 

not sure yet, if I do I'll post, but it won't be so much construction into it as the last one... I got a small windscreen for the top of the lights right now... going to get at it sometime next week...

 

One word of warning about the Sylvania SilverStar bulbs - the North American version of this bulb is known to be.... unreliable. Most people using them in cars are lucky to get a full year out of them. Sylvania has even admitted they're not the same bulb that Europe and the rest of the world get - the one sold here is just an over-driven, blue coated, regular H4 bulb. Not rated to last more than 12 months, BTW.

The European/rest of world version of the bulb is fantastic - it's actually a technology improvement -- you can tell them apart as it's got clear glass - no blue filtering.

For your money and performance you're better off with the GE Nighthawk bulbs - everything I've read about those says you get the same performance as the SS's, but far more reliable. The downside is that GE seems to have lost the marketing war for bulbs, and these are getting hard to find.

 

low-1-5-0 , What type of bulbs are in those lights?
Wondering if they can be adapted to hold a H4 (or other dual filament) and do the hi/lo thing properly

 

I believe they come with H1, but with a little cutting and a holder I do believe you could fit an H4, and as you know I'm all about cutting things :lol: :lol:

 

I like the dual headlight setup myself. I may do the mod this next winter on mine, by using two round driving lights. For high and low beam, I plan to point one a bit higher than the other. When on low beam, I will only have the left light on (pointed down lower than the other light) and high beam will be both lights on for maximum visiibility. That should work.
I can't seam to find dual-filement lights that will work for this mod so far.

 

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Harley-Dyna-Fatbob-D ... dZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.ca/HEADLIGHT-DOMINATOR- ... dZViewItem

 

The dual headlamp looks terrible. You should just cut your losses and mail those to me. LOL

 

Check these out:

http://www.flyncycle.com/acatalog/Domin ... ights.html

 

I upgraded my headlight with an H4 mod- don't want to hijack this thread so I'll do another post about it. Personally- I like the look of the twin headlamps, but after reading horror stories about fuses going out on night rides and etc. I decided to stick with an improved 55w lo and 60w H4 single, for safety and all that... J