990/950 Twin Hella (90mm) Lighting Project

This is a personal project of mine. However I have to pay for a batch water jet order. When I'm finished I will post some details and sell a couple sets to share the cost and recover some of the R&D cost.

UPDATES:

Lighting comparison:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21884520&postcount=31

Action shots:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22075573&postcount=70
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22363890&postcount=88

Harness info , etc.
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22606691&postcount=103
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22966377&postcount=123

Kit Details:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22985914&postcount=127

Lens protectors:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23047243&postcount=141
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23079597&postcount=144
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23085020&postcount=146

LED running light:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23135403&postcount=148

Final Version:
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23770616&postcount=165
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23880181&postcount=166
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=24045833&postcount=168


The finished project will have the following:
Twin Hella lamps (90mm Reflector Style High, 90mm Projector Style Low)
High beam will have Halogen Bulb.
Low beam will have HID
It will come with complete custom made wiring harness. (Just plug and play)
Kill switch to turn low beam completely off (for US models)
Individual relay for each lamp.
When High beam is ON, low beam will remain on (since the lamps are running from separate circuit connected the battery directly, there will be no load issue)
Custom bracket to mount the Hella lamps.
The bracket will be attached in similar way as the stock light housing.
You will be able to use the stock windscreen or any other after market windscreen made for the bike.
Working on a solution to have LED angel light as running light. (low priority)

The idea is not new. But I want to make exactly what I wanted. I've used Hella lights with HID conversion on my other bikes. So that's a priority for me to improve the overall lighting quality. And I believe I've managed to keep the cost WAY down compare to other comercial options.

I'm looking for about 10 people to get on board. The kit will not be exactly cheap, but that's because I'm using quality parts. Don't need any commitment, but I'd like to get an idea of how many people would be interested.

Just a few pictures of the project.

Everything together will probably cost a bit over $300. This includes the HID kit + 2 Hella Lamps. ($135, price+shipping, I'm not a vendor, I have to pay for everything retail )

You can of course source your own Hella lights, HID conversion kit and/or make your own wiring harness. I can supply the light bracket and the face plate.

You can source your own harness here or make you own.
HL28109 - H4 to H9 High and H9 Low +$104.04
Hella 90mm High
Hella 90mm Low

I read your plans with some interest. At this point my only upgrade would be to the super expensive TT setup. Unfortunately it is the shape of their fairing that mostly drives me (I like it better than any other fairing or screen on the market), as I have yet to read any good reviews of the lights' performance or seen photos of their pattern. Am I right in thinking your lights are the same Hellas?

I'm interested.
Keep us updated!

Funny you said that. I've dumped close to a used set of those TT lights into developing mine. I actually really hate their looks.

On the lamps. They are exactly the same. Hella's Bi-Xeon lights are actually different than the Bi-Halogen lights. But for single beam light (these 90s are single beam), you are just paying for the Hella ballast. What I have is exactly the same lamp touratech sells. You can just put in your own HID bulb.

I know quite a bit about Hella lights. Actually the 90mm is an older design than the 60mm. But there isn't much room to fit those huge 60mm projectors.

For your research/project, you can use the following as reference.
http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum4/HTML/054226.html

ALSO, check out Lynx fairing, they use the same 90mm Hella and have HID kit you can buy. Both will give you a good idea of the quality of light.

As PM'd previously... I'm definitely in!!! And I'll refer anyone else that I hear might want an upgrade like this. I'll be prepping my bike for the KTM Rally in Colorado, so I can point people who are going or show them the set up when I get there and at the CJD pre-rally with his permission too if ( if your quota isn't met).

Rock On!!!

Could you just make it using standard H7 projector housings? I personally see no need for the HID's but the dual light setup would be nice and a set of H7 projectors should still be brighter and have a better pattern than the factory light.

Hella only sells H4 60mm and H9 90mm single beam projectors suitable for this application. I would've preferred the 60mm, but there is no room for both the high and low in 60mm (not enough depth), and I prefer the look of two 90mm.

I wouldn't go with another projector except hella, it's all about the optics (the type of bulbs h7/h4/h9 is not that relavant).

H9 would be fine as well, relatively inexpensive and easily found in any auto parts store. Keep me posted on this as you go. I'm very intrigued.

I'm interested, and sub'd to this thread.....Nice work!

I may be interested in this. I have already changed mine to the Euro headlight shell and installed an HID light in the low beam, which has helped considerably over the stock US version. Additionally, I put the Euro headlight switch on mine (so I could shut off everything). Would this system still work with the Euro headlight switch, or would that mess up the 'plug and play' idea?

I ask only because my wiring skills are less than crappy.

The only interface to the stock lighting wiring is the H4-3 plug (high, low, ground). The Euro switch controls the output directly there. So you will not need a separate kill switch for the low beam. If you look at the picture of the harness, only the yellow boxed terminals need to be connected to the bike.

The rest of the system operates the same way. Because my US model does not have a switch to completely shut off the low beam, I installed a switch inline from the low beam trigger to the relay that eventually goes to my HID low beam projector.

On top of that, I've made the harness such that the low beam will remain on when the high beam is switched on.

The wiring harness is finalized. I added a long 12 gauge ground wire so it will also reach the battery.

Since I'm making the harness from scratch. I will provide a shorter version of the harness if you already have some sort of fuse box installed up top.

Nice looking set-up

I understand they're brighter, I just don't feel a need for it. I never found the only sealed beam lights on my 80's cars (and current Cherokee) to be to dim to see with at night. The super bright headlights actually f* with my night vision as creates too much of a contrast for me. Almost makes the darkness darker if that makes sense. I actually got rid of the HID's on my S4 and went to H7 projector e-codes for that reason. Plenty bright and a more diffuse/broad pattern to see with.

Again, the quality of light has more to do with the projector lens or reflector design. Overall if you have quality lamp design, HID bulb will be brighter than the halogen bulb. I've see all them in person, and I wouldn't understand why anyone, given the option, would not pick the brighter setup.

Have better visibility without adding crash prone auxiliary lights is a huge plus for adventure bikes. I do lots of highway riding at night. The difference is quite dramatic especially for spotting deers..

Because when your lights are too bright than they can limit your ability to see outside the lit up area. I do a lot of night wheeling in my Jeep and have lights underneath the rig to help see whats going on around and below the rig. If those light are too bright you can't see anything beyond the light worth a damn.

I've had to do many hours driving with just black out lights and moon light for the military and you would be amazed at how well you can see with little to no light. That's w/o NVG's too btw.

Obviously this thing is highly subject, and I think it's safe to say you are in the minority. Given most vehicles these days will offer HID or LED option and most people running rally uses LED/HID.

I have many types of projectors from Hella and have tested them in person, this setup works for me and if you look at other people's experience it's quite consistant. I'm just here to get a few people to help me pay for the tooling.

Please help me keep my original goal in focus. We can start another thread about how lights can be too bright. Thanks

I wasn't trying turn it into a debate. I am interested in your setup I was just curious about getting the low beam as a projector instead of an HID.

You can actually mount whatever you want to the low beam section.

Both the 90mm and 60mm low beam from Hella are projectors. They all come with halogen bulbs. I just replace the low beam projector's bulb with a HID bulb. I dont really understand what you mean by projector vs hid.

That said it will be about $40 cheaper (pure cost based) to just use the halogen bulb. The wiring harness was setup to use separate relates anyways and can still be plugged right into the halogen lamp.