adventure headlight dual 4" HID light swap

anyone swapped a couple 4" (or larger for bottom light) HIDs in their factory headlight housing? i've got a couple WARN 4" HIDs they gave us through desert racing sponsorship, and i'm really thinking about keeping the factory headlight housing, but modifying the inside via holesaw to house two lights. might consider a projector headlight from a car up top as the low beam, and the WARN light for the high beam. i don't like the look of the rallye style fairings with two little projectors, so that idea is out. i need to measure when i get home from the firehouse to see if i can fit anything larger in there, and if the WARN light is too thick. i'm wanting to keep it fairly factory looking. i already have some auxilliary lights with the triple mount from our fellow ADVer, and plan to swap some LED bars onto it from my other sponsor, Black Knight Lighting.

basically, it'd be setup similar to the trailtech X2, but behind the factory headlight cover and windshield. the brighter, the better!

and yes, i've searched, but didn't see anything i liked, and touratech is too expensive, especially since i already have/can easily (cheaply) obtain most of the lights anyways.

Single HID light in the lower would work but two probably wont be very good. Too much heat will peel the inside of the reflector

I've been thinking about it, and I even have an extra headlight housing to play with, but I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet. Seems like the best way would be to get a good projector headlight with the cutoff mask included, and fit it into the lower headlight area, leaving the upper parking light alone. Check out theretrofitsource.com. They sell a 1 light kit for bikes, looks like the projector is 3-4" diameter including the mounting plate. $150 for one light, including the HID bulb and ballast. . . . pretty good deal for good light, but I'm a cheap bastard, so I haven't done it yet.

Someone on here cut the back off the stock housing and mounted two Hella 90mm projectors in there. Complete lights, not just bulbs in the stock reflectors. Seemed a great approach to me.

I can just almost remember who did it. Dang it. There were photos and everything.

When I put the Euro light in my old 04 950 I cut the clear cover off of the stock light and I still have it sitting on the work bench. Plan was to fit something else in behind it. I don't have the bike any more but now I would consider installing either two LED's or an LED/HID combo. HID low beam LED high beam. Low beam stays on all the time, LED high beam would be instant on and off...no need to wait for the ballast to fully energize the light.

Consider a Baja Designs 4" Fuego HID in pod light form with a Fog pattern for your low beam and run a Rigid industries 2x3 LED for high beam.

Wasn't Boatman going to do something like this with a couple of Hella light modules?

I'm interested in this approach myself. I was hoping there was a fairly simple mod that could be done with the stock US housing vs. buying the Euro housing then upgrading it with HIDs. Looking forward to seeing some ideas!

I think my warn 4" might be too deep to mount properly as the top light, so I might pull the fairings and check it it one day soon. The bottom, I'm thinking maybe a Black Knight Lighting 4" LED bar, their 5 LED light, or maybe even a RIGID D2 to compliment the RIGID 6" bar I'm thinking would go nice directly under the headlight where the little screen area is if I can figure a mount out.

I was thinking about using the 5.75" JW speaker LEDS. We have installed them in quite a few cars with great success and they only draw 2 amps.

I found that having HID low beam, while brighter at night, tended to become annoying in that sometimes the ballast would take a crap when I started up the bike. Solution was to add the euro switch giving the ability to off on but that only worked at night when I could see that the low was off. Ended up just swapping back to an incandescent for low beam keeping the HID high projector.

I pulled out my old 950 headlight that I cut down to the clear plastic. A 2x2 rigid LED fits nicely in the top and I suspect a 2x3 would fit nicely in the bottom. The rigid lights are shorter than the stock headlight housing so you could make brackets and mount them in place of the stock headlight unit while retaing the stock plastic so that the headlight wouldnt look too odd at first glance. between the two lights you would draw about 30 watts iirc. Same light spectrum as the HID, probably not quite the same distance but also a fraction of the cost of a good HID, no ballast issues, instant on, no bulbs to burn out (Yes HID bulbs can go bad). etc etc.

They have 70 and 100watt hid ballast and bulbs out now. Go big or go home! Im going home because I'm only running a 55watt HID bulb/ballast for my low beam and a 27watt halogen for my highbeam. I know, I suck.

I do rock the 4" amber spot light setup from Rigid Industries on my crash bars. There awesome in bad weather and traffic

That's what I have a light sponsor for. I've got a pair of KC 8" HIDs that are 70 watts each. They did GREAT in Baja! If one would fit in the headlight housing, it'd be on there already. If I could fit my 42" clear or 22" amber LED bars on the KTM, I'd gladly do it! Lol.

Can I be your friend with sponser benifits. Those KC HID's are just what the doctor ordered for me soon to be ranch hand bumper on my Derdge.

there is no such thing as enough light. we run 4 hella 4000's on the rally car and it works....but at 95 mphdown a tree lined road you wish for more.

It was amazing how difficult it was for me to fit a H4 HID in the lower position...spent lots of time moving and tying back the loom in order to make it work, and that was just the bulb. Yes, the H4 is a little deeper because of the attached solenoid, but I had to hide the ballast in the side fairing to make enough room.
Long story short, the wider the reflector, the deeper it will be, generally speaking, so I would measure the depth carefully. I wish you all the best, as I had *planned to look into doing this myself.

Yeah, he was/is, all the parts are sitting on the shelf ready for cutting and assembling. Just haven't had the time.

Hella projectors are what I have and then after I got them to fit I was going for HID.




http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=1800

Maybe this video helps...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3p5jedQcjg&list=UUvRflQco2iLsx-eiSo7gIHg&index=8&feature=plcp

These look the business...anyone tried them on a Katoom? Seems like the whole of the rear shell of the OEM headlight would have to go to enable the top one to fit (?) Or you would be back to using a custom fairing or the TT rally one to get enough clearance. There are other threads where this has been done. Perhaps one in the lower portion of a Euro light setup and retain the upper Halogen or convert it to HID too. It would not matter so much that the top lamp might not come on quickly for flashing purposes, as the bi-xenon would be on full when switched to Hi-beam anyway.

Seems to me I've seen an Adv. 990 with a Rally fairing with these projectors in them... can't, for the life of me, find the thread now.