[audioholic]

Headlight upgrade yet again:
I was a fan of a good pair of projector lights which I now have in all my cars. While the Ninja did have projectors from my earlier swap, its mentioned here that they were one sided projectors, and compared to the other projectors I have, the beam formation was not uniform. This led to some dark areas which was affecting my confidence at night. Of course, I do not venture outside the city at night on my bike, but even within the city given our mixed lighting conditions with all sorts of high beam etiquette, I thought of replacing the projectors.

If you have read the previous posts, this would be V3 of the headlight upgrade. The first upgrade to HID projectors was a sort of a mess. I ruined the cutoff plate, which is explained here, and the quality of the headlights were crappy, which would not hold the extra weight of the projectors. Since these projectors were mounted on the existing reflectors, alignment was a pain and there was always a wobble in the beam going over rough roads. Hence while there was a lot of learning, I ended up demolishing those headlights and still have the projectors with me.

Hence came V2 with the stock headlight assembly of the ZX6R which was a direct swap with a far better part quality compared to the earlier replacement headlight assembly. I thought this was going to be the end since the lights also looked excellent. But then I got to try LED projectors from Blaze India on my cousins car and fell in love with them. But those were for the fog lights while I wanted replacement projectors.

Blaze India suggested a pair of AES Bi-LED projectors which costed me 14k for a pair. These are on the expensive side but the results make it worth it. Installation was DIY and since I was replacing existing projectors with these, the issues such as mounting it on reflector, aiming it right was nil and the mountings also were already built to handle similar weight. While I could not document it well since that wasnt my priority, some details:
In order to remove the headlight assembly, front half of the bike has to be stripped down. Insane engineering from Kawasaki. Thanks to some power tools and my knowledge of the various fasteners I can do this eyes closed and faster every time I repeat it.

Removed the headlight assembly and then used heat gun to remove the lens away from the back. The result was this:


So as per my expectation, the most tedious task was to remove the headlight lens. After this, the rest was supposed to be bolt on. Removed the stock projectors and its mounting plate. Here is the stock projector on the right and AES on the left:




If you notice, these projectors are very similar in dimension. Even the mounting of the projectors to the plate are similar. The only difference is in the bowl of the projectors due to the nature of the bulb. And of course, the AES projectors are built much better. This solves mounting problems and makes an excellent choice if someone is looking to replace factory projectors on their car/bike.

My assumption was that the mounting holes would also be similar, but that was not the case. Only two holes were similar and the other two werent. I was in no position to leave it hanging on only two screws since I had already had enough of wobbling projectors. Hence after carefully marking the holes on the plate, I took it to my friendly neighborhood welder who drilled the extra holes in the plate. Never try this by hand drilling since it never goes straight and you will end up with a tilted beam, which is non adjustable.


After this, it was just bolting on the projector to this plate, and then the plate back onto the alignment screws of the main headlight assembly. Though vertical and horizontal alignment can be done using the screws on the outer body of the headlight, we must ensure that the beams are not completely off alignment. The screws themselves hold the projector assembly in position and if we do too much of adjustment, there is a chance that the projector mounting plate will come off the adjustment screw and that will be a self goal, especially if you have sealed back the assembly.

And most importantly, we should wipe the projector lens clean just before sealing the lens back in place. I did this and yet ended up with a finger print on the projector which has ruined the sharpness of the cutoff line. First impressions after sealing the lens and then realised that I messed up:
Low beam, which is insanely bright even with some daylight

High beam, again a rockstar but never to be used unless for flashing:


So the cutoff got better as time went by since the finger print oil sort of evaporated due to the heat produced by the bulb. However, some external shots, where you cant observe any difference, except for a blue tinted projector.




As night approached, the lights started standing out on the road. Went around the area doing height adjustments and noticing how high the cutoff falls on neighbouring and oncoming vehicles.



Here you will notice that the beam is on the lower side with a pretty intense hotspot on the road. This is too low




Tried another position and here you can notice that the swift is illuminated only till the window line. But this was a declining road and hence towards the end of the road beam looks high.



High beam:

High beam aperture is on the wider side, which will allow low beam to be placed lower avoiding glare and yet giving a good throw on high beam. To finalise the height setting, came back to my parking lot and also with a vehicle in one end to check the ideal height. If you notice, the beam cuts off lower than the bonnet of the BMW, which is not very high either. Hence I would not be causing any glare in low beam:


Overall, this is one worthy upgrade and would be the future choice if I have to replace any projector. Excellent illumination on the road and most people make way just seeing the beam formation

[Sabertooth93]

Which HID are you using on the high beam?

[audioholic]

Inching towards six years and just 9000kms

Not many updates on this thread since the Ninja is like a Garage queen. I put 9k kms in each of my car every year, and the Ninja only crossed it after six years owing to sparing use, typically once a week office commute when the weather permits and hardly any highway riding. Everytime I wash the bike, it still shines as good as new, with no wear and tear or any fading shown on the parts. I have been maintaining it on my own, following all replacement intervals as specified by the manufacturer and with genuine part replacements only.





Since last monsoon, I faced some trouble with the starter. The bike would randomly not start and there would just be a clicking sound heard with no action from the starter. Initially I attributed the issue to the battery being weak due to age and non usage and contemplated replacing it. But the issue was very random and when it didnt occur the cranking was normal. Hence I removed and cleaned the connector to the starter motor, which had a very wierd rubber boot pointing upwards which will make water seep into the boot and nullify the whole purpose of having the boot. This had led to the starter motor wire lug to corrode and completely rusted the nut. Cleaned it up and thought the problem was gone but it reappeared after a while.

Next step in the order of expenses was to replace the battery and I ended up buying a normal exide battery in replacement to the Yuasa battery at 2k rupees and while the first crank was quick and I assumed the problem was solved, it reappeared in a few days. This issue was making me leave the engine running in all signals and temporary stops. Finally did some google and figured out there is a starter relay that goes kaput in the bike. Since I would hear the clicking noise every time, I always thought that the relay was working fine and there was some other problem. Now this was supposed to be close to 11k in the ASC. Talk about the stupid costs of these parts.

Ordered this along with a few other rubber parts and fasteners from Megazip, which turned out to be an excellent place for OEM parts and came at a landing cost of 8k for the genuine relay. Note that there were some alternates available for 2k odd rupees in Amazon but I did not want to get an aftermarket replacement for such a part.









Replacement was fairly straight forward, even though it involves removal of the seat cowling, seat assembly, disconnecting the ignition controller, removing battery. Since I removed all these I ended up cleaning the whole place and then removed the old relay. Turns out that the old relay had corroded badly inside and its contacts and traces were in bad shape. Even the allen bolts were badly corroded. Cleaned up the whole mess and refitted the new relay with plenty of silicone grease and a generous coat of anti rust spray around the area.

The Michellin Pilot street radial at front has developed multiple cracks and was not holding pressure off late. Hence I plan to replace the tyre in a few days. Have Apollo H1 and Vredestein as two options. H1s are relatively cheap and available in 110/70 for front whereas Vredestein is only available in 120/70 and thats more than double expensive. As for the rear, I had upsized to 150/60 in the beginning however only the H1 is available in the size while the Vredestein is available in 150/70. Thinking of Vredestein at the rear and Apollo at front for now.