Looking for brighter bulbs

A

awicki

Member
www.lehighpi.com
Hello. For obvious reasons I prefer to stay as visible as possible on the road. Has anyone tinkered with brighter light bulbs? Not a whole new lighting kit, but just replacement bulbs one can buy at an auto store. On my HD Sportster I was able to simply replace the stock bulbs with bulbs which simply brighter -a higher output bulb..........they burnt out quicker but that was the only drawback................Any ideas?

Turn signal bulbs to be precise
 
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I thought about doing the HID install on my bike until I read in a different forum that people just run high beams on all the time. My friends say that the high beams on the FZ1 are very bright. I some times wonder if I'm creating a hazardous situation at night though and will go down to the regular beams at night but in the day time for sure high beams. Also, you may want to consider investing in some daylight running signals, what I bought were the watsons, best mod I've done yet...well i lie, the best one has got to be the gilles rearsets. But still the watson signals are awesome, I was very skeptical at first but once I got them I realized they're worth every penny.
 
thank you ROMR. I'm going to look into the mods you listed............I generally do run high beams all day. I also like to have a little extra "peripheral' lighting. Maybe an LED light bar or somthing.
 
Don't buy into the HID conversion thing, it's crap. Do some research into it and you'll see why; here is a good place to start:

Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply

As far as bulbs go, you can't get any better than Philips X-Treme Vision. They are the same wattage as OEM bulbs but have updated technology and are much brighter. Lifespan seems to be fine for me and I have used them in the last... 5 of my bikes. I've converted my friends to them as well and 3 of them are using them in their bikes too.

Personally I don't think you can get much better lighting for the money or without going to some serious effort.

I have some serious doubts that running high beams all the time will do anything but annoy & distract people. I'd go as far to say that you're probably doing more harm than good by confusing and dazzling oncoming traffic. Besides, the traffic ahead of you is the least of your concerns
 
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Short of putting a flashing beacon on your head, I don't think brighter lights have that much to do with other vehicles seeing or paying attentionm to you. You may be able to see a little bit farther but even HID kits won't illuminate that crittter that jumps out in front of you from a ditch or treeline close to the road. HID's require a whole new wiring scheme to keep from buring up your OEM wiring loom so you might want to take that into consideration. I've tried darned near everything and not muh has seemed to prevent grandma, grandpa or a 16 year old from pulling out in front of me. Being on the allert is your best defense. I was only minutes behind a fatal accident not more than a quarter mile from my house when an older lady turned right in front of a rider who was in a hurry to get home on a Saturday afternoon. The rider was a tech at the local dealership and he was late for something so he was more concerned with getting home than watching for unattentive drivers. He t-boned the car and died in an instant
 
I went for brighter headlights with Narva Blue Power bulbs. Heaps better day and night but very bright for oncoming vehicles at night. Even the Police flash me!:cowboy:
 
Hmmm there's an idea! I'm sure I can mcgiver something on my arai...

And you haven't tried everything, how about stingers?


Lonerider59 said:
Short of putting a flashing beacon on your head, I don't think brighter lights have that much to do with other vehicles seeing or paying attentionm to you. You may be able to see a little bit farther but even HID kits won't illuminate that crittter that jumps out in front of you from a ditch or treeline close to the road. HID's require a whole new wiring scheme to keep from buring up your OEM wiring loom so you might want to take that into consideration. I've tried darned near everything and not muh has seemed to prevent grandma, grandpa or a 16 year old from pulling out in front of me. Being on the allert is your best defense. I was only minutes behind a fatal accident not more than a quarter mile from my house when an older lady turned right in front of a rider who was in a hurry to get home on a Saturday afternoon. The rider was a tech at the local dealership and he was late for something so he was more concerned with getting home than watching for unattentive drivers. He t-boned the car and died in an instant
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Your bloody mad running high beams while riding all the while.............The Gen 2 fazer has some the best lights in the biking world the reflector is great even with stock bulbs in,but alas if you want more light yes just go for the extreme power bulbs people see me coming and move out of the way on most roads even up to half mile up ahead.Philips have brough out some better ones called extreme vision 100% brighter compared to the power which are 80% brighter than standard.either way no need to run high beams or go down the HID route ,if these bulbs do not do it for you go to spec savers.........
 
Dustin said:
Don't buy into the HID conversion thing, it's crap. Do some research into it and you'll see why; here is a good place to start:

Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply

As far as bulbs go, you can't get any better than Philips X-Treme Vision. They are the same wattage as OEM bulbs but have updated technology and are much brighter. Lifespan seems to be fine for me and I have used them in the last... 5 of my bikes. I've converted my friends to them as well and 3 of them are using them in their bikes too.

Personally I don't think you can get much better lighting for the money or without going to some serious effort.

I have some serious doubts that running high beams all the time will do anything but annoy & distract people. I'd go as far to say that you're probably doing more harm than good by confusing and dazzling oncoming traffic. Besides, the traffic ahead of you is the least of your concerns
Click to expand...

bloody right too....................philips extreme the way to go.......hell even the brit bike mag said the fz1 was great for night riding or was that night rider ? hummmmmmmmm
 
Your right on Magpie. All the guys I ride with always tell me how bright my lights are. They always used to tell me to shut down the Hi Beams when we stopped. I told them that I always ride on low beams and they couldn't believe it. My lights are really bright but if I ever have to replace them I may try those Philips.
 
My FZ1 had one of the best lighting systems of all the bikes I've owned. The only one that was better were the CBR headlights off my 125 (same as the 600/1000), they had an excellent spread and perfect cutoff. It only used a single H7 for the low and a single H7 for the high, but the light output with the Philips bulbs was fantastic. A close second was a Koito single round glass lens that was on my '81 GS650--it was only a single H4 but was an excellent unit!

Now the SV has a horrible plastic single headlight. Thankfully the Philips bulbs make it tolerable.

It's not all about the output and wattage, design makes the biggest difference. If a headlight has a poor design, a high output bulb will still perform poorly.

... and stay away from anything blue or tinted in any way ;)
 
Have you thought about replacing your stock bulbs?
I get flashed regularly because people think I have my high beams on. LOL I mean regularly. Gets kind of annoying but they seems to be bright enough to make the on coming traffic blink. :confused0024:
 
THank you everyone for the information provided. My inquiry was directed towards brighter TURN SIGNAL BULBS. As far as high beams, I always ran them on my HD sporster.

Any information / threads anyone feels would be beneficial to a new FZ1 rider would be greatly appreciated. Previous bikes: Ninja 600, then FZR 600, then Honda Rebel 450 (I know...) then an HD 883. It seems the FZ1 will have plenty of power that I'll never use, but I've always preffered the "Speak softly and carry a big stick approach"
 
awicki said:
THank you everyone for the information provided. My inquiry was directed towards brighter TURN SIGNAL BULBS. As far as high beams, I always ran them on my HD sporster.

Any information / threads anyone feels would be beneficial to a new FZ1 rider would be greatly appreciated. Previous bikes: Ninja 600, then FZR 600, then Honda Rebel 450 (I know...) then an HD 883. It seems the FZ1 will have plenty of power that I'll never use, but I've always preffered the "Speak softly and carry a big stick approach"
Click to expand...


LOL
That happens to me all the time. I start a thread and it goes another direction. LOL
I have heard both good and bad things. The connections seem to be a problem. Something about the angle they were installed + vibration from driving = bad connection and no power to the lights from time to time. The guy I talked to said it was an installation error. The kit itself is pretty nice....from what I have heard.
 
He he, well dang it say so! Hey, the Watsens man, take a good hard look at them. Also, the videos or the pics don't do them justice. I thought about the protons too but I opted for the Watsens. I also come from an EE background so I had to see the spec for the actual LED used etc. If you guys are really interested it's the Diamond Dragon LED that it is used. You can't just stare at it for too long or you'll go blind! :)

http://catalog.osram-os.com/catalog...=showBookmark&favOid=000000010001feb602880023



awicki said:
THank you everyone for the information provided. My inquiry was directed towards brighter TURN SIGNAL BULBS. As far as high beams, I always ran them on my HD sporster.

Any information / threads anyone feels would be beneficial to a new FZ1 rider would be greatly appreciated. Previous bikes: Ninja 600, then FZR 600, then Honda Rebel 450 (I know...) then an HD 883. It seems the FZ1 will have plenty of power that I'll never use, but I've always preffered the "Speak softly and carry a big stick approach"
Click to expand...
 
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