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choneofakind · November 26th, 2012, 01:13 PM

Hey all,

I finally got around to doing this project on my bike. I really like it and I would like to share it since I've gotten some interest on it, so here's a rough write-up on how I did my retrofit.

To start out, let's go over a quick list of things you'll need:

H4 hi/lo HID kit from DDM tuning. Discard the bulb. This harness has everything you need to run an HID bulb and control a solenoid with the high beam switch. Everything is plug and play with this bad boy.
A basic projector off fleabay (or wherever) Mine appears to be a knock-off of the Morimoto Mini
A 35W D2S bulb in the color of your choosing. I chose 4300k because it's very white, only hint of blue is around the edges. I figure that gives me good light output without attracting too much blue-headlight-attention
a D2S adapter like this one to power the D2S bulb with the HID kit
Whatever fancy LED's that you want (optional)
a dremel tool
a number 2 phillips screw driver
a standard length flat head screw driver with a nice wide blade
a hammer
a heat gun or a good hair dryer. Both work.
a cardboard box big enough to fit the headlight in
a utility knife
spray paint of your choice (optional)
a file will be handy
a spare headlight if you want it
some idea of how to wire in an HID kit. (peruse one of the other 1000 threads online)

Okay, now for the how-to.

First, take off the fairings from your pregen. I'm not going to go over this because it's pretty simple. You should know how to do this anyways.

Right now, your bike looks something like this:

Take off the headlight as well. There's 4 bolts on it. Just take off the bolts and unplug it.

Now get into that HID kit. You should have a few pieces here. The harness:

The ballast and ignitor:

and the bulb:

put the bulb somewhere safe and out of reach so you aren't tempted to put it in the headlight and blind people. I suggest the circular file

This is where I won't be too specific, this step is just an HID install, it's not super hard, and there's tons of write-ups about it all over the web and youtube:

For the harness, you only need one of the connectors. This kit is meant for a car with 2 headlights and they sent it with one ballast as a "motorcycle kit". Ha. Anyhow, you can either cut off the one with longer wire, or do what I did; coil it up, keep it contained with a ziptie, and stick it in that nice little spot between the battery box and the undertail. It fits there perfectly.

Next, you want to lengthen the hot wire that will go to your battery. I found it was easier to lengthen that and hide the electronics up front than to lengthen the multiple wires in the black cord. To lengthen the hot wire, I used about 14" of 14 gauge (the wire is 16. Larger gauge won't hurt anything, smaller gauge is a bad idea) and soldered that into the hot wire. Don't be lazy here; solder and shrink-wrap.

Now get your harness installed, run the wire the hot wire up under the tank and stuff the electronics up front. Zip Ties are your friend here. I used a few to get the ballast stuck to the frame about here. It tucks nicely up in front of the tank:

Now make all your connections with the harness. In front in this picture is the power from the harness to the ballast, and in the background is the input from the factory headlight plug. In the bottom left, you'll see the connector that controls the solenoid that gives you high/low beam control. For now that shouldn't be connected to anything, so just leave it dangling for later:

You'll also need to loosen one of the bolts from the birdcage and use it as a ground. Just slide the ground in and tighten it up again. All good there. The harness is installed.

Next we're on to the projector retrofit!

Take off those 3 metal clips with your flat head screw driver. Take off the rubber boot. Keep both for later.

To get the headlight apart, hack a hole in top of your cardboard box with a utility knife that is big enough to sit your hair dryer in. Make another hole about the size of a quarter in a bottom corner of the box. This will be your vent hole. Put your headlight in the box, put the hair dryer in the top hole, and put it on high temp, low fan speed, and leave it there for about 10 minutes. Use a towel to seal the the dryer in the top of the box; this is why there's a vent hole. If you use a heat gun, don't seal it, and keep an eye on it. You want to heat the entire housing, not totally cook it and ruin it. Heat guns get really hot.

Now use the screw driver to pry the lens off. Again, there's plenty of videos on youtube about this, so I won't go into detail. Just be careful, don't crack the glass, and be prepared to burn yourself at least once.

After you get the lens off, use the phillips head screw driver to back the adjusters out the whole way, and then pop the reflector off of the ball and socket joint at the top right corner. You now should have a reflector, a lens, and a housing that are all separate. Take a dremel to the little tab that secures the standard halogen bulb. It is no longer needed.

At this point, there's 2 things you'll want to do. 1) take your hammer and bend the tabs back on the H4 mounting things. This will make more space for the mounting rings on the projector. It will look like this:

and 2) you'll want to take your file and file off the nub on the H4 mounting plate that comes with the projector. This is to keep the projector from spinning which is good, but the pregen H4 bracket is angled so the left side of the cut-off is higher than the right, effectively blinding people. File that nub so you can get the cut-off level. I also filed the edges of the mounting ring because it was kinda sharp on the corners and was catching on the H4 bracket/cutting my fingers.

Take your dremel and make a hole in the oem reflector, just below the mounting hole. This is what you will run your solenoid wires and LED wires out of so they don't show from the front.

Now is the time for painting. Let it dry for a long time. Mine dried for 48 hours to make sure I didn't leave paint vapors in the headlight. Install the projector onto the oem reflector using the H4 mounting plate and the mounting ring. Make it snug enough so the projector doesn't wobble, and doesn't rotate once you get it level with the bottom of the oem reflector plate.

This is also the time for LED fun time. I used JB weld 2-part epoxy to secure my halo to the projector shroud. I chose this because it is okay up to 600 degrees F, it sticks to anything, and it does not conduct electricity. This ring is why I painted my shroud white. It blends right in.

You will now have something that looks like this:

Now you'll want to install it back into the housing. This means snap the ball and socket joint back in, and then screw the adjusters back in until the reflector is lined up with the housing (pointing forward, not right or left) and relatively level with the housing as well (midway between up and down).

It will look like this from the front:

and this from the back (same picture as used already):

Now you'll want to place the lens back on, and stick the whole assembly in the cardboard box setup again. 5 minutes to heat it up again, and the press the lens back into place. Stick the little metal clips back on, and let the whole thing cool back down.

Get the rubber boot that you took off earlier. Use your utility knife to trim some of it off so that it seals around your D2S adapter. Install the D2S bulb and adapter so that the adapter facing the right (not the left like my picture) and put the rubber boot back on, carefully running the LED wires and the high beam control wires out as well. It will look like this:

note:
I trimmed the outside bundling off the D2S adapter so that there was only an inch or so of it left. This gave me 2 power wires that are more flexible. It made it easier to get them to meet with the wiring harness without stressing the connectors.

Here's me testing the LED halo. For some reason, the bottom 3 decided not to work, but I like how it looks. They are all very white, no hint of blue like my later picture will show:

Now just re-install the headlight, plug in the bulb with those 2 connectors on the harness, and plug in the high beam solenoid. Everything should be operational. Put on your fairings and enjoy.

Here's pictures of mine once I got everything installed:

no glare on low beam:

high beam:

note the lawn mower battery on the side. I drained my battery playing with the headlight and didn't want to wait for the charger, so i jumped it

Finally, as you know, the headlight of the pregen is fluted on the inside, as seen here:

unfortunately this does affect output a little. The good thing is, it doesn't make glare or ruin the ability of the high vs low beam.

This is the projector doing its thing without the lens:

And here it is with the lens on. Notice that the cut off is still in tact; it's still clean, but it's not nearly as sharp as before. The light on the garage door is not glare, it is soft light. Trust me, I can look at it all day as long as I'm looking at it from above the cut off:

Compare the projector behind the fluted lens to the HID kit in the oem reflector with vinyl to cut glare. Much better! The oem reflector just doesn't do the trick. The light has some bad hot spots and there's lots of glare off to the sides:

Overall, this is a great mod. The light output is tons better. There is not nasty glare off to the sides like with the oem reflector, and the oncoming drivers are not blinded. The light output is very wide, I can see the whole road, and the high beam makes a nice arc up into the trees and oncoming road. I really like this. I'm not finished with the wiring yet. I plan to make the halo my running light, and have an a handlebar switch that will flip between the headlight and halo.

November 26th, 2012, 01:13 PM	#1
choneofakind ninjette.org certified postwhore Name: . Location: . Join Date: Feb 2011 Motorcycle(s): . Posts: Too much. MOTM - Feb '13, Feb '14	Bi Xenon Retrofit on a pregen Hey all, I finally got around to doing this project on my bike. I really like it and I would like to share it since I've gotten some interest on it, so here's a rough write-up on how I did my retrofit. To start out, let's go over a quick list of things you'll need: H4 hi/lo HID kit from DDM tuning. Discard the bulb. This harness has everything you need to run an HID bulb and control a solenoid with the high beam switch. Everything is plug and play with this bad boy. A basic projector off fleabay (or wherever) Mine appears to be a knock-off of the Morimoto Mini A 35W D2S bulb in the color of your choosing. I chose 4300k because it's very white, only hint of blue is around the edges. I figure that gives me good light output without attracting too much blue-headlight-attention a D2S adapter like this one to power the D2S bulb with the HID kit Whatever fancy LED's that you want (optional) a dremel tool a number 2 phillips screw driver a standard length flat head screw driver with a nice wide blade a hammer a heat gun or a good hair dryer. Both work. a cardboard box big enough to fit the headlight in a utility knife spray paint of your choice (optional) a file will be handy a spare headlight if you want it some idea of how to wire in an HID kit. (peruse one of the other 1000 threads online) Okay, now for the how-to. First, take off the fairings from your pregen. I'm not going to go over this because it's pretty simple. You should know how to do this anyways. Right now, your bike looks something like this: Take off the headlight as well. There's 4 bolts on it. Just take off the bolts and unplug it. Now get into that HID kit. You should have a few pieces here. The harness: The ballast and ignitor: and the bulb: put the bulb somewhere safe and out of reach so you aren't tempted to put it in the headlight and blind people. I suggest the circular file This is where I won't be too specific, this step is just an HID install, it's not super hard, and there's tons of write-ups about it all over the web and youtube: For the harness, you only need one of the connectors. This kit is meant for a car with 2 headlights and they sent it with one ballast as a "motorcycle kit". Ha. Anyhow, you can either cut off the one with longer wire, or do what I did; coil it up, keep it contained with a ziptie, and stick it in that nice little spot between the battery box and the undertail. It fits there perfectly. Next, you want to lengthen the hot wire that will go to your battery. I found it was easier to lengthen that and hide the electronics up front than to lengthen the multiple wires in the black cord. To lengthen the hot wire, I used about 14" of 14 gauge (the wire is 16. Larger gauge won't hurt anything, smaller gauge is a bad idea) and soldered that into the hot wire. Don't be lazy here; solder and shrink-wrap. Now get your harness installed, run the wire the hot wire up under the tank and stuff the electronics up front. Zip Ties are your friend here. I used a few to get the ballast stuck to the frame about here. It tucks nicely up in front of the tank: Now make all your connections with the harness. In front in this picture is the power from the harness to the ballast, and in the background is the input from the factory headlight plug. In the bottom left, you'll see the connector that controls the solenoid that gives you high/low beam control. For now that shouldn't be connected to anything, so just leave it dangling for later: You'll also need to loosen one of the bolts from the birdcage and use it as a ground. Just slide the ground in and tighten it up again. All good there. The harness is installed. Next we're on to the projector retrofit! Take off those 3 metal clips with your flat head screw driver. Take off the rubber boot. Keep both for later. To get the headlight apart, hack a hole in top of your cardboard box with a utility knife that is big enough to sit your hair dryer in. Make another hole about the size of a quarter in a bottom corner of the box. This will be your vent hole. Put your headlight in the box, put the hair dryer in the top hole, and put it on high temp, low fan speed, and leave it there for about 10 minutes. Use a towel to seal the the dryer in the top of the box; this is why there's a vent hole. If you use a heat gun, don't seal it, and keep an eye on it. You want to heat the entire housing, not totally cook it and ruin it. Heat guns get really hot. Now use the screw driver to pry the lens off. Again, there's plenty of videos on youtube about this, so I won't go into detail. Just be careful, don't crack the glass, and be prepared to burn yourself at least once. After you get the lens off, use the phillips head screw driver to back the adjusters out the whole way, and then pop the reflector off of the ball and socket joint at the top right corner. You now should have a reflector, a lens, and a housing that are all separate. Take a dremel to the little tab that secures the standard halogen bulb. It is no longer needed. At this point, there's 2 things you'll want to do. 1) take your hammer and bend the tabs back on the H4 mounting things. This will make more space for the mounting rings on the projector. It will look like this: and 2) you'll want to take your file and file off the nub on the H4 mounting plate that comes with the projector. This is to keep the projector from spinning which is good, but the pregen H4 bracket is angled so the left side of the cut-off is higher than the right, effectively blinding people. File that nub so you can get the cut-off level. I also filed the edges of the mounting ring because it was kinda sharp on the corners and was catching on the H4 bracket/cutting my fingers. Take your dremel and make a hole in the oem reflector, just below the mounting hole. This is what you will run your solenoid wires and LED wires out of so they don't show from the front. Now is the time for painting. Let it dry for a long time. Mine dried for 48 hours to make sure I didn't leave paint vapors in the headlight. Install the projector onto the oem reflector using the H4 mounting plate and the mounting ring. Make it snug enough so the projector doesn't wobble, and doesn't rotate once you get it level with the bottom of the oem reflector plate. This is also the time for LED fun time. I used JB weld 2-part epoxy to secure my halo to the projector shroud. I chose this because it is okay up to 600 degrees F, it sticks to anything, and it does not conduct electricity. This ring is why I painted my shroud white. It blends right in. You will now have something that looks like this: Now you'll want to install it back into the housing. This means snap the ball and socket joint back in, and then screw the adjusters back in until the reflector is lined up with the housing (pointing forward, not right or left) and relatively level with the housing as well (midway between up and down). It will look like this from the front: and this from the back (same picture as used already): Now you'll want to place the lens back on, and stick the whole assembly in the cardboard box setup again. 5 minutes to heat it up again, and the press the lens back into place. Stick the little metal clips back on, and let the whole thing cool back down. Get the rubber boot that you took off earlier. Use your utility knife to trim some of it off so that it seals around your D2S adapter. Install the D2S bulb and adapter so that the adapter facing the right (not the left like my picture) and put the rubber boot back on, carefully running the LED wires and the high beam control wires out as well. It will look like this: note: I trimmed the outside bundling off the D2S adapter so that there was only an inch or so of it left. This gave me 2 power wires that are more flexible. It made it easier to get them to meet with the wiring harness without stressing the connectors. Here's me testing the LED halo. For some reason, the bottom 3 decided not to work, but I like how it looks. They are all very white, no hint of blue like my later picture will show: Now just re-install the headlight, plug in the bulb with those 2 connectors on the harness, and plug in the high beam solenoid. Everything should be operational. Put on your fairings and enjoy. Here's pictures of mine once I got everything installed: no glare on low beam: high beam: note the lawn mower battery on the side. I drained my battery playing with the headlight and didn't want to wait for the charger, so i jumped it Finally, as you know, the headlight of the pregen is fluted on the inside, as seen here: unfortunately this does affect output a little. The good thing is, it doesn't make glare or ruin the ability of the high vs low beam. This is the projector doing its thing without the lens: And here it is with the lens on. Notice that the cut off is still in tact; it's still clean, but it's not nearly as sharp as before. The light on the garage door is not glare, it is soft light. Trust me, I can look at it all day as long as I'm looking at it from above the cut off: Compare the projector behind the fluted lens to the HID kit in the oem reflector with vinyl to cut glare. Much better! The oem reflector just doesn't do the trick. The light has some bad hot spots and there's lots of glare off to the sides: Overall, this is a great mod. The light output is tons better. There is not nasty glare off to the sides like with the oem reflector, and the oncoming drivers are not blinded. The light output is very wide, I can see the whole road, and the high beam makes a nice arc up into the trees and oncoming road. I really like this. I'm not finished with the wiring yet. I plan to make the halo my running light, and have an a handlebar switch that will flip between the headlight and halo. Last futzed with by choneofakind; November 26th, 2012 at 02:25 PM.
	1 out of 1 members found this post helpful.