I originally wrote this article to post on the Hoosier Hooligans website
I really like the performance of HID headlight systems and see a great benefit to them on motorcycles, both in making the bike more visible to other drivers and making the road more visible at night. I found an HID kit that fit my bike, which uses an H4 size bulb, and installed it. You might find my experience to be helpful but not necessarily step-by-step with your particular equipment. I ordered a kit with a 4300K bulb with HID low beam and a halogen high beam along with a slim ballast for $85 overnight shipped to my door. It seems that the prices are changing from time to time but have always seemed to be a good deal. I selected the 4300K bulb because it provides the most visible light, as compared to other higher Kelvin bulbs. Since I wasn’t doing the upgrade for cosmetics, but rather for performance this was the most logical choice. Many people select higher K bulbs to get more of a blue or purple looking light even though the light output isn’t as good for seeing the road.
These photos were both taken against my garage door about 12 feet from the headlight. I still need to adjust the aim of the HID.
Before
After
This photo shows the HID bulb I got with my kit. It came with this plastic cap to protect it prior to installation and in shipment Plug A plugged into the stock bulb connector inside the headlight assembly Plugs B, C, and D plug into the Ballast.
This photo shows the ballast that came with my kit 1 Plugs into C; 2 Plugs into D; 3 Plugs into B.
This photo shows the screw on the headlight that holds the chrome ring in place. When you loosen the screw you can remove the ring. The lens and reflector came off as one piece with the ring. The screw won’t come out completely from the ring so you just need to loosen it, not remove it.
The 3 prong connector seen here is where Plug A in the first photo is connected. This is the only connection that I had to make to the bikes wiring and it was plug and play. This photo shows the assembly removed from the headlight bucket. The 3 prong wiring harness seen here was plugged into the stock bulb, which is fitted to the middle of the reflector. There is also a small bulb with a wire connected to it and a second wire for that bulb. It is the bulb that comes on when you turn your key to the park position.
This photo shows the spring clip that holds the bulb into the reflector.
This photo shows the spring clip after it has been released. I found that my original bulb had a bit of sealant holding it in place and I had to do a tiny bit of gentle prying to get the bulb free of the reflector.
Removal of the OEM bulb from the reflector Notice the blob of gray sealant on the reflector at 5 O’Clock that stuck the bulb in the socket.
When I tried to install the HID bulb into the reflector I found that something kept it from seating all the way. At first I worried that the bulb was too long and was bottoming out but then I discovered that there was two little protrusions into the seat area of the reflector. You can see in this photo that the projections were hitting the base of the HID bulb.
You can see in this photo that the OEM bulb has a flat spot, seen on the right portion of it’s base.
This photo shows the area that I had to Dremel away. Since the HID bulb didn’t have the depression in it’s base that the OEM bulb had above, the seat of the reflector had to be modified a bit to make the new bulb fit
This photo shows the HID bulb fitted to the reflector after I ground away the problem are of the reflectors seat. I also fitted the spring clip to secure the bulb in place
At this point I realized that I hadn’t given much thought about where to put the ballast, or how to get the wires from the bulb to the ballast. I removed the headlight bucket from the bike. It’s just held on my the two allen bolts, one of either side, which attach it to it’s mounting brackets. After I unbolted it I disconnected the wiring that held the bucket to the connector behind it. I was torn between drilling another hole in the bucket and using the grommet that you can see on the wiring above in the last photo to pass the wires through the bucket. This would have required making a 1″ hole in the bucket somewhere. I decided instead to remove the connectors from the HID bulb wires and try to push them through the grommet in the bucket where the original wires had passed. I was able to remove the big connector which is shown in the photos below but wasn’t able to figure out how to disassemble the two smaller connectors. After I disassembled the connector I popped the grommet out of the bucket and tried to push the wires through the existing hole. I ended up having to carve the hole out a tad bigger using a pocket knife and got all of the wires through and pushed the grommet back into it’s hole in the bucket. By far the hardest part of the install was pushing the grommet back into it’s place in the headlight bucket. I had to remove a little material from the area where the wires passed through to make the grommet compress enough to fit again. Apparently the new wires had fattened up the grommet to the point that it didn’t want to fit back in it’s home.
This photo shows a clip that held the wires into the plug on the end of the bulbs wiring. Since I couldn’t push this giant plug through my stock grommet I too it off temporarily.
This photo shows the clip after I had unhooked it. After it is unhooked it just lifts away. The bottom portion of the part around the wires is open so it can be lifted off of the wires
This photo shows where I pushed a paper clip into the tip of the connector along the side of the metal connection to unlatch it from inside of the plug
This photo shows the wires once they came out of the connector. I took this photo with the connector in the background so I could remember which wire went in which part of the connector.
Fast forward a little bit since I had my hands full pushing the wires through the headlight bucket and reassembling everything. I neglected to take photos but basically I just got the wires through the grommet, refitted the grommet, reinstalled the connector that I had removed, and screwed the reflector/lens/chrome ring into the headlight bucket.
This photo shows the headlight bucket after it was reassembled with all of it’s guts. I fitted the ballast to the wiring to see how much length I had to fit it to the bike.
This photo shows the wiring run from the bucket after it was installed back on the bike. It’s not easy to spot and that’s something that I am happy about 
This photo shows where I fitted the ballast and extra wiring length. I installed it above the front part of the airbox and beneath the ignition switch. It doesn’t interfere with turning the handlebars at all. It doesn’t interfere with removing the airbox lid. It isn’t really visible with the tank down unless you get down and look behind the headtube closely where there was already stock wiring to see.
Overall, I am happy with this mod. I do need to aim the headlight but I like the light output. The system works just like the original system. If I flip the switch from low to high it turns off the HID and immediately turns on the halogen high beam just like the OEM system did. When I flip the switch back to low it turns off the halogen portion and immediately turns the HID back on, just like the OEM system did. The HID doesn’t take time to come back up but it does get brighter a few seconds after it powers back up. When I pull the flash to pass lever on the left hand controls both the low and high beams come on. The high beam didn’t seem quite as bright as the original bulbs high beam but the low beam works great! The 4300K light is more blue than the high beam light. The high beam looks yellow whereas the HID looks like the light output of a camera flash to my eye.
