HID Wiring

[Cheriff]

I have given into my desires for installing HID/projectors in the Kat. I've read a bunch of posts and did a lot of internet searching... Here is what I have come up with:

Projectors:

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/product_info.php?products_id=221

Ballast Kit:

http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/DDM-35W-55W-Dual-Motorcycle-HID-Kit

Bi-Xenon Wiring Harness:

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/product_info.php?products_id=81

Time Delay Relay:

http://www.wolstentech.com/products/timedelayrelay/basic-instructions.php

Explanation of Components

Projectors: Projectors are not needed for HID conversion, but should be used to gain the most performance from the HID bulbs and prevent blinding other drivers. These will also help you gain less attention from cops as it may be illegal to convert your headlights to HID in some states.

Ballast Kit: When buying projectors, you will not receive the ballasts for firing the bulbs. Want HIDs? Need a ballast kit.

Bi-Xenon Wiring Kit: Probably not required as there are likely some do-it-yourself ways around this harness, but this harness will plug into your stock bulb socket and provide outputs to the solenoids on your projectors to maintain the hi/lo switch operation.

Time Delay Relay: Again probably not absolutely needed, but this relay will delay the power going to the ballasts. This is a precaution to help the life of the ballasts and bulbs during low & intermittent power levels during startup.


Wiring Diagram

Here are two wiring diagrams I have come up with. One or both or neither may be right. I need some knowledgable people to help me with this.




The outputs of the retrofit harness (B1 & B2) are intended go to the +12V of the ballasts. But since we want the power to time delayed through the second relay, the first diagram shows this power going to the "1" & "2" connections of the timed relay. This means that both "1" & "2" will be getting power all the time, when it is supposed to getting power on "1" or "2"... So this may be incorrect. I am guessing the "1" & "2" are for the low voltage source to trigger the relay on. EDIT: For this configuration maybe only connecting one of the connections from the retrofit relay to the timer relay is what is needed since it will always be on.

The second diagram uses the second headlight plug to fulfill the "1" & "2" inputs of the timed relay. Leaving the ballast outputs of the retrofit harness going nowhere.


EDIT: When ordering the time delay relay there are a couple different options. TDR-P will wait the set time when triggers are switched. That means that between switching from hi beam to lo beam you will be in darkness...not good. The company in the link above also sales a TDR-PS version which only waits the delay time the first time it is powered on. This will eliminate the problem mentioned above, but it says it must be wired through a switched ignition source. That means you will be drawing power through your stock harness somewhere...not good. I believe the solution will be to take the B1 output of the retrofit harness to #1 of the TDR-P relay. This output will always be switched on because the bike is always in hi beam or low beam, and only trigger the TDR-P when the key is in the 'on' position.

Once I get some feedback on this I will update the wiring diagram to reflect the proper connections.

[5forty2]

I don't think you're far off with the first diagram, but if you don't mind my asking, why the second relay? Seems like it would make the whole thing more complicated than it needs to be. There are some diagrams in sporty_drew's hid thread that look pretty simple and even talk of using the side stand switch to control the firing of the ballasts eliminating the potential power drain of having them fire before the bike is started.

http://katriders.com/vb/showthread.p...hlight=Hid%27s here is the thread, diagrams are on page 5 I think.

[Cheriff]

I thought I might have ordered the wrong delay relay so I sent a question to the vendor. Here is his answer:

The TDR-PS is only really needed if you have separate TDR relays for each ballast, and are switching between them with hi/lo switching. For your application, the standard TDR-P will work fine, as the two independent trigger inputs are treated the same: as long as one of them is +12V, the relay stays on. The only catch is that, for it to not turn off and go through another turn-on delay, the turn-off delay must be set longer than the time it takes to switch between the two inputs. As this time is probably in the milliseconds, it shouldn't be a problem, but you can always set the turn-off delay to a half-second or longer to be safe. The minimum turn-off delay is about a quarter-second, so this shouldn't even be an issue.


I went with one of the relays to function as a timer to delay the firing of the ballasts. I am using the second relay to make the integration of the hi/lo button very simple. This relay comes on a harness which plugs into the OEM H4 connector and sends the signals to the solenoids. More of a ease of assembly kind of thing. I want to avoid splicing into anything as much as possible.

[5forty2]

Sounds reasonable. And good to know about the time delay.

[chrisgreer23]

Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky,......

[5forty2]

Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky, Sti-cky,......

We have to make sure it works first

[Nero]

I just used the wiring diagram on the two sets I bought, which was set up similar to diagram 1, above. I think they were the cheapest Chinese kits I could find in early 2007, when the prices were ridiculous. Yet, after over four years, I've never had a problem. Luckily, the ZX-14 has as many projector headlamps as a spider has eyes, so if one of the sets does crap-out, I can still make it home on the brights. The brights are white in color at 4K, while the day-to-day lamps are 6K/Blue.

[Cheriff]

I wanted to share some things I found out about the integration of the components I listed above in case someone wants to follow this in the future.

The first thing I learned tonight was that if using the Moriomoto projectors, it was necessary for me to use a metal file to clean up the burs/extra material inside the back of the metal reflector cup. A rectangular (not round) file is best (although both would be ideal). In one area you must remove some material to recover some square inside corners (rectangular file) and then in some places around the ID of the bulb opening (round file would make this easier but rectangular file will get it done too).

Once I got the bulb in place I connected the ballast to the battery and noticed a new issue. The light coming out was slanted.... Higher on the left than on the right when shining the headlight against the wall. Taking a closer look I found the problem.


The yellow line is "true" vertical. For the hi/lo arm to cut off the light in a flat line, the wide part of the surround should be evenly split by that yellow line - meaning the whole light assembly needs to be rotated.... So how is that done??


Here is the back plate used to hold the projector into place. This adapter plate uses three tabs to fit into the OEM locations the stock H4 bulbs use for alignment. Maybe it is just my stock reflectors, but notice that this adapter plate is also rotated maybe 5 degrees clockwise.


Fortunately it looks like there is enough material in the tabs that some can be removed to allow the adapter plate to rotate in place. I will need to remove the material inside the yellow boxes (approximately). With the material removed I will tack the plate in place with some super glue until the backing nut is tightened into place. After the nut is tightened, nothing should be able to shift... Of course if you dont mind making some permanent changes you could always 5 minute epoxy the plate in the proper place.

[swiddie]

I plugged the solenoids directly into the stock headlight harness, no relays. Ground to black, solenoid to yellow. White was low beam, unused.

Like you, I had to file away from the tabs to make it more level.

I ordered a time delay relay, but for now, I've wired a relay to the battery, with control wire from the ignition circuit on the connector on front right side of engine/frame, so it turns on when the bike turns on and ignition is enabled (kickstand up, emergency switch off). I think this may be sufficient, because the hids do not flicker or so much as dim while I'm starting the motor.