Has anyone ever up graded the head light bulbs on the Silverwing High and low beems . With PIAA X treme White PLUS bulb or PIAA intense white bulb or something similar and was the mod a good improvment.

I replaced them both with Xenon H.I.D. bulbs and that was a great improvement.

How do you at the headlight bulbs to change them? Anyone?

I simply took my bike to the dealership and told them to put in the high intensity bulbs. I know this is cheating, but I only had a limited window to get all the service done, so I did it.

Be carefull if you buy one!
H7 is not even H7! Buy a Xenon with H7R, H7 specially for Headlights with reflector. Otherwise you will glare the other traffic and the illumination will not equal

I purchased mine from Xenon Depot/KB carstuff.
There are other places that are cheaper, but you can get some good information from this site, to better understand what you are looking for.

And no, I didn't install it myself. I had the dealer do it.
Search this forum for "xenon" for more info.

Bigbird,
No experience with that company, however since they are advertising for the Silverwing, make sure they are talking about the Scooter and not the older Silverwing motorcycle before you buy. Also given their kit choices I recommend the 4300k kit.
If I recall correctly you are also a member on .org, and there is extensive discussion on that board to refer to.
Just do a search on the word "Xenon".
(I guess I must have mellowed a bit to even mention it here) ::sigh::

After considerable research I'm not going to an HID conversion.
Here's what swayed me:

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/disadvantages/disadvantages.html

I might go with these instead:

http://store.candlepower.com/osraulhiouh7.html

bigbird I went to the links you posted and read all the info and that made my mind up so I ordered the 65w rally bulbs one for low beam and one for high beam I think that is the way to go. The test will be this spring if nobody flashes the high beams at me I will keep them in the silverwing. If I get alot of flashes from on coming traffic I will first try to ajust the aim of the head light if I still get flashed I will go back to stock . I think it will be OK .

Wingmann:
After personally checking with Daniel Stern, I did the same. Daniel highly recommended these bulbs, but couldn't touch Candlepowerinc's price. Shipping was also only $8 to Canada.

Only 81 more days, give or take 7 days, until my Swing is back on the road.
Seeing that you're just north of the Twin Cities, I'll say you'll be on the road in 60 days give or take 7. Sound about right?

I have never spoken to Daniel Stern, but reading the article you
linked to does nothing to disuade me from HID.
His info tells you of potential problems with some HID colors and
applications. Many of his complaints refer to how the additional
light is distributed, which is actually a function of the reflector.
He rambles on against daylight, but the xenon bulbs actually are
only 4300k while daylight can be anything from 5000k to 6500k
depending on the time of day (relative sun position in the atmosphere).



If I had it to do over again I would do the same thing.
I don't know of one person who has gone to HID, and then gone back.

In the USA 55 watts are the legal limit for bulbs.
The bulbs you refer to are 65 watts.
Maybe that is acceptable in Canada.
Most Xenon/HID bulbs are only 35 watts and put out the same light
as their 55 watt filiment bulb counterparts.


Dan

In my naivety I thought the problem of fitting HID lights retrospectively was the mismatch between bulb and reflectors/lenses.
Conventional lights are not optically designed to cope with HIDs, hence the problems of dazzling on-coming riders and drivers.

I found and unashamedly copy and paste these three paragraphs from the Internet:

Glare
Vehicles equipped with HID headlamps are required by ECE regulation 48 also to be equipped with headlamp lens cleaning systems and automatic beam levelling control. Both of these measures are intended to reduce the tendency for high-output headlamps to cause high levels of glare to other road users. In North America, ECE R48 does not apply and while lens cleaners and beam levellers are permitted, they are not required; HID headlamps are markedly less prevalent in the US, where they have produced significant glare complaints. Scientific study of headlamp glare has shown that for any given intensity level, the light from HID headlamps is 40% more glaring than the light from tungsten-halogen headlamps.


Mercury content
HID headlamp bulb types D1R, D1S, D2R, D2S and 9500 contain the toxic heavy metal mercury. The disposal of mercury-containing vehicle parts is increasingly regulated throughout the world, for example under US EPA regulations. Newer HID bulb designs D3R, D3S, D4R, and D4S which are in production since 2004 contain no mercury,but are not electrically or physically compatible with headlamps designed for previous bulb types.


Lack of backward-compatibility
The arc light source in an HID headlamp is fundamentally different in size, shape, orientation, and luminosity distribution compared to the filament light source used in tungsten-halogen headlamps. For that reason, HID-specific optics are used to collect and distribute the light. HID burners cannot effectively or safely be installed in optics designed to take filament bulbs; doing so results in improperly-focused beam patterns and excessive glare, and is therefore illegal in almost all countries. Moreover, most developed countries enforce the ECE Regulation requirement that HID headlamps be equipped with lens cleaning and automatic headlamp self-levelling systems, which usually are absent on vehicles not originally equipped with HID lamps.

Just thought I would throw this in and I know this has nothing to do with head light bulb replacement but was just thinking about the 4700K of these 2 bulbs I installed.

When I installed the Wal-Mart/Optronics driving lights on my scooter. I changed out the stock bulbs with a set of 10 deg. 50 watt, 4700K (that's the color) Solux spot light bulbs. Does a great job of brightning things up in front of the scoot.

http://www.1000bulbs.com/product/1314/MR16S-200.html

Re Mercury; it was easier for me to C&P the whole block in one go than to do bits.

I'm really not arguing either way because I don't know but I took the article to mean that it is not possible to adjust the beams satisfactorily because the HID bulbs don't mate with the conventional reflectors and lenses - the HID bulbs need HID-compatible reflectors and lenses.

Big Bird.... you evidently have not received your copy of the latest issue of Scratch My Ass Arkansas Lawman Magazine. All off duty officers now are being assigned to evaluation of Tennessee restrooms. There has been a recruitment effort to bring officers out of retirement for this hazardous assignment. Special respect should be shown to our officers that are willing to be away from their families during this time. Many will not return.

So Gary, I take it I should be good to go if I bring my Swing with, heaven forbid, 65W H7 bulbs, down to Scratch My Ass Arkansas.

The officers will be doing something much more constructive than checking my electricals. They'll be busy doing another type of load checking.

I have DDM Tuning 35W 4500K HID lights. The Honda Silvering has the worst low beam of any vehicle I have ever driven (and that is a lot) ... I would not recognize any wildlife till I was just passing them. The HIDs helped immensely ... now I can spot them earlier even on low beams.

During the day, I ride with both the low and high beams on for visibility. When a vehicle is approaching road I riding, I will swerve the headlights onto the vehicle a couple times (if possible) to get their attention.

During the night with oncoming vehicle(s), I ride with the low beam. I have not had any problems with the HIDs for oncoming vehicles. I also will position myself in the right 1/3 of lane to provide more visible light off to side of road looking for wildlife.

During the night without any oncoming vehicles, with the low and high beams I can see a lot better both down the road and on the side of the road. When I rode with DennisB (Dennis) and Opalsboy (Gary), we were driving back to hotel from diner and I spotted a coyote running towards us from the field and pointed out to the other drivers ... which would not have been visible with the OEM lights.

Sorry to threadjack, but I believe this one has run its original course so I don't feel bad.

Bill,
Why is a coyote running toward a motorcycle?
Seems awfully ambitious for any coyote outside a cartoon.
Also, what do you have from Manic Salamander (noticed your sig)?

Bigbird you young pup,

I have one of those on my motolights. Cool gadget.

It will be a while before you out-mod me.
Check my Gallery linked in my sig.