Headlight upgrade to 85/80W plus relay kit (comparison pics)
 

Ok, I've been promising these for awhile. Finally got my new 85/80W Osram H4 bulb in the mail. Says "off road use only" on the box.

Here's some pics: 2nd shows high and low beam, it's bright as hell but the lowbeam keeps the beam down. 3rd pic you can see my shadow on the tree a block down.

I set the camera on manual mode so it wouldn't try to adjust different for each photo.

http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/t...comparison.jpg

http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/newlight.jpg

http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/t...ous/shadow.jpg

cool thats awesome stock globes are rubbish

nice work, thanks

Would be interesting to compare with a HID setup. I'll give that a shot if I happen to be down at bikenight or something with other bikes.

Moral of the story, at the very least replace the stock wiring setup with a relay set!

nice job and thanks for taking the time to get comparison pics - a lot of work to do that right. I am an electrical infant. can you explain the relay deal - what it does, and how you set one up for this? any downsides?

thanks

bill

Search on "Eastern Beaver"

thanks much Steve. and for posterity, here are some links to threads on this eastern beaver relay and general info on voltage drop/light intensity drop below.

So in general is this typical of all bikes? age related? manufacturer related?

https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...eastern+beaver

https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...eastern+beaver

does this relay kit basically just give you full power from the battery? is it a basic relay setup or is there more to it? and whats the installation like on this? its something id like to look into. my buddy was behind me doing a night run on his cbr 600 and his hi beams outshined mine. from about 3 lengths back.

Actually the 80W upgrade helped slightly more than the relay kit, and is easier to install and cheaper. But both of them are nice to have.

Yes, it puts full battery voltage to the light... like 14V vs. 11V. The kit is basically plug & play. I zip tied the relays to the frame inside the left front fairing area. The details are in those links.

right on thanks alot

Unfortunately these problems are definitely manufactured faults... If you do the math, which obviously Honda didn't do it's obvious you will get voltage drop with wiring that thin for that length... Then add in a direct inline switch in the handlebar adding resistance to the circuit and it borders on stupid...

I had a friend here in Sweden with an almost new 07 bike (less than 300 km, and this was when it was new in years as well...) complaining about the bad light... We measured and he had ~10V to the bulb...

A relay kit later and the bulb gets full voltage...