Even though it is not the nicest bike, I still like to change the things that I think can be made better. One of the main things I didn't like was the headlight. The stock one looked like this:
I didn't like the look or the performance.
I bought an aftermarket headlight that still used an H4 bulb and looked MUCH better and more modern:
However, I still wasn't happy with the light output, which led me to installing an HID kit. I wouldn't do a plug and play, so I decided to retro-fit a projector into the new headlight. Here is the process.
Harness installation:
The harness connects directly to the battery and is then run up to the neck area of the bike. The relay is located at the bottom of the tank, under the support you see below, the ballast is behind the neck covers, and the main headlight connection is under the tank, about half way up the backbone:
Here is just the projector with an HID in it, sitting in the headlight bucket. The shot you see of a door is the light hitting it from about 15 feet away in broad daylight:
Here is where I hit my first issue...the projector wouldn't fit inside the headlight bucket if it was mounted in the traditional way. I then cut a hole in the center of the headlight bowl to hard mount the projector into the bowl. Here is where I encountered issue number two....the projector wouldn't fit that way either:
This was an issue because no one had an idea as to how to mount it. With some help from my wife (I'll never live that down), we came up with cutting an even larger hole in the bowl and epoxing the projector shroud into the bowl, and then simply mounting the projector to the shroud. After a LOT of cutting and checking, I got the shroud to barely slide into the bowl for a nice, very tight fit:
Clearance was no longer an issue:
I then epoxied the two pieces together with JB Quick:
I decided to paint the assembly to help hide the rough cut and small scuffs:
The next morning, I installed the projector and reassembled the headlight:
I will get some light output shots tonight (hopefully) but I can tell you that it is amazing. It is much safer than running an halogen bulb, even upgraded ones.