HID and you

[abacall]

There are so many people "upgrading" to HID kits that I thought I should share some very valuable information. Most people think going to HID will give them better, more usable light. More often it hinders their ability to see over distances (increasing reaction time) and causes glare to oncoming drivers often "pulling" them into your lane. Not good.
So, rather than rewrite all the information, I'm just going to post some links. Please read them thoroughly, it can save your life (at the very least some $$ in wasted mods).

Advantages and disadvantages

Converting to HID (check out the tests on the bottom)

There's also a ton of other useful info on that site, worth checking out..

I hope this helps some people, I know it saved me from wasting my $$ on a crappy kit.

[reiobard]

i disagree, I have the HID and find it to work much better than the stock bulb did, Studies are easily skewed to favor either side of an argument.

[FZ6inNH]

Actually Rob, there is a point to this. The optics Yamaha provided are for non-HID bulbs, where an HID optimized system has a different reflective dish and concentrates the beam to best suit the HID bulb. Yamaha offers the reflective surface for the stock beams thus concentrating the light provided accordingly. To switch to HID, one should consider the design of the headlamp assembly accordingly. An HID in our stock lens configuration isn't optimal when you consider the reflective dish background.

[aceman1741]

I don't know Reiobard, but after checking out the website and reading the explanation about HID's, he's got me convinced that it's not a great idea so I'm definitely going to spend all that cash on HID's and lose my vision at night...

[rsw81]

I'm with Reioboard on this one. I did the HID conversion on both sides of my FZ6 and love it. The night vision is so much better, I can see easily twice the distance in front of me with these. No one has ever flashed their brights at me to say that my beam pattern was in their eyes either.

Now, apart from my opinion. All of you are right that the reflective housing of the FZ6 was not intended for HID bulbs and will not do as good of a job using that light as a headlight designed for HIDs. Even so, the light output is still better than the halogen bulbs that come with the FZ6 stock. One step beyond this would be to do a projector retrofit to even better it one step further. I did this on mine and would never go back.

If the HIDs in the stock reflective housing was twice as good as stock, the projectors with HIDs is twice better again!

[reiobard]

i also agree that the HID's in a HID housing would probably blow my lights away, but when i do a HID on the high beam side i would like to do a side by side comparison with my bike and Eric's bike (I have to do the high beam side to be fair since Eric has the dual lows (unless he wants to disconnect his high beam side just for the test.).

[GodSpeedLuc]

so how is the installation for HID's? i know that the price is generally more of a concern. but does the installation for HID's require heating the housing like with the angel eyes or no?

[FZ6inNH]

I don't disagree that the light is a brighter light for those that switch, but I do have the opinion that the HID bulbs are better served in a housing designed to best focus that extra light. For me, it seems to just sort of be a wide spread flood light with our stock reflection pods.

[abacall]

^^Exactly. While the arc lighting will certainly produce more light, it is not used effectively. The increased light output you think you're seeing is an illusion. Works similar to using fog lights, which is a horrible idea on open roads that you want to see longer distances on. While there is more light coming out of the front of the vehicle, the way it is being used actually hinders night time visibility as it changes how your eye sees. You focus on what is directly in front of you rather than in the distance.
I'm all for a good debate, but the articles use real tests, and they have absolutely no reason to skew the results. They sell HID bulbs, and all sorts of other bulbs. Why would they try to sell you a cheaper lighting alternative?

Part of the article:

But what about all the rave reviews you read in magazines and on Usenet about how marvelous HID headlamps are? Well, here's the double whammy of high levels of foreground light: When you can see every last pebble in the road, all the way across, it's very comforting. You don't have to strain to see what's immediately in front of the vehicle. And the most recent research seems to be suggesting that this, to an extent, improves driver performance at night, possibly because with the foreground adequately illuminated, we tend to trust our peripheral vision to handle the foreground, and keep focussed out in the distance where we should be looking. (See above comments regarding too-low levels of foreground light in many US headlamps...). BUT, foreground illumination is *only one* performance aspect of a headlamp, and it's very, very easy to judge a headlamp \\"good\\" because of very strong foreground light, when in fact the distance vision isn't so grand. In short (finally!) an HID headlamp has a strong tendency to create a false sense of security.

[mellofelow]

Advantages and disadvantages

If you illuminate the foreground very strongly, your eyes will adapt to that big area of strong illumination, your pupils will become smaller, and your distance vision will be reduced.

NO WAY! When the pupils are smaller, your depth of field increases. This is a simple rule of photography. But even if it's true, how close is the illumination he's referring to? To be blinded by the object you're lighting on, you will hit it.

I have already converted 2 of my family vehicles to HID and never looking back (pun intended). Since we live on a neighborhood without street lights, we now can see joggers and dog walkers much sooner with HIDs. The visual improvement is HUGE!

I just received my HID for the FZ6. I'll post some before and after pictures.

Check out this picture... check out the size of the vehicle for comparison.