I just picked up an all black 06 VFR800 that I absolutely love. However, my girl hates the fact that its "hard to notice" at night coming from my bright red 600RR so she suprised me and bought an LED kit so I would be more noticeable. My question is has anyone installed these on a 6th gen before? I am looking for any advice on good locations to put the leds. Thanks
[image: View Post]Bad324, on 20 July 2010 - 08:32 AM, said:
I just picked up an all black 06 VFR800 that I absolutely love. However, my girl hates the fact that its "hard to notice" at night coming from my bright red 600RR so she suprised me and bought an LED kit so I would be more noticeable. My question is has anyone installed these on a 6th gen before? I am looking for any advice on good locations to put the leds. Thanks
I have a similar kit, all white. I put one of the round ones underneath the tail as my tag light, one on the other side of the tag shining in underneath, one of the flat ones in the front fairing on both sides so that it shines out of both vents. Makes a big difference. I will post pics when I get them. I wired it into the tag light so they all come on when I turn the bike on. Can't see them in the day, but definitely noticeable at night.
[image: View Post]NT11, on 20 July 2010 - 09:38 AM, said:
[image: View Post]Bad324, on 20 July 2010 - 08:32 AM, said:
I just picked up an all black 06 VFR800 that I absolutely love. However, my girl hates the fact that its "hard to notice" at night coming from my bright red 600RR so she suprised me and bought an LED kit so I would be more noticeable. My question is has anyone installed these on a 6th gen before? I am looking for any advice on good locations to put the leds. Thanks
I have a similar kit, all white. I put one of the round ones underneath the tail as my tag light, one on the other side of the tag shining in underneath, one of the flat ones in the front fairing on both sides so that it shines out of both vents. Makes a big difference. I will post pics when I get them. I wired it into the tag light so they all come on when I turn the bike on. Can't see them in the day, but definitely noticeable at night.
awesome that sounds good. Definitely looking forward to pictures when you get a chance, thanks
[image: View Post]Bad324, on 20 July 2010 - 09:40 AM, said:
[image: View Post]NT11, on 20 July 2010 - 09:38 AM, said:
[image: View Post]Bad324, on 20 July 2010 - 08:32 AM, said:
I just picked up an all black 06 VFR800 that I absolutely love. However, my girl hates the fact that its "hard to notice" at night coming from my bright red 600RR so she suprised me and bought an LED kit so I would be more noticeable. My question is has anyone installed these on a 6th gen before? I am looking for any advice on good locations to put the leds. Thanks
I have a similar kit, all white. I put one of the round ones underneath the tail as my tag light, one on the other side of the tag shining in underneath, one of the flat ones in the front fairing on both sides so that it shines out of both vents. Makes a big difference. I will post pics when I get them. I wired it into the tag light so they all come on when I turn the bike on. Can't see them in the day, but definitely noticeable at night.
awesome that sounds good. Definitely looking forward to pictures when you get a chance, thanks
Sure thing. Another thing you can do is put black reflective striping on the rim. I put yellow on mine, but black would keep you uniform, and it really catches the light and looks cool.
I try not to do much night riding but I did swap out my low beams for an HID kit and that makes a LOT of difference up front in terms of visibility over the halogen bulbs !
[image: View Post]VFRCanuck, on 21 July 2010 - 12:00 AM, said:
I try not to do much night riding but I did swap out my low beams for an HID kit and that makes a LOT of difference up front in terms of visibility over the halogen bulbs !
I also have the HIDs and I agree it makes a huge difference.
Here are a couple quick pics I shot with my phone, so please excuse the quality. It's hard to capture the light when the HIDs are overwhelmingly bright in my little garage. I bought a switch so that I could switch them on and off separately but the switch is bad or I am stupid. In any event, the best thing you can do when you are working on placement is find a dark place (garage) and get a 9 volt battery with some electrical tape (not duct tape). Tape the LED wires to the 9 volt terminals and it will light up. Now you can just start sticking the lights in different places to see what effect you can get. In the rear, I just stuck one up above the tag, and one on the back of the tag facing at a 45 degree inward. When placing the sides, I was trying to get as much light coming from the front of the vents as possible, spread evenly. Because the flat LED lights have multiple bulbs at different angles, just rotate it until you get what you want. I used double sided 3M tape to mount. Make sure your surface is clean. You may want to take some of the screws out to give you room to work behind that lower fairing. I have an 07 RWB, so I chose white LEDs. Not sure what color your GF got you, but I would imagine you can get different effects on your black bike. Use the 9 volt battery though. It makes it really easy to figure out where you want them.
Once you figure out placement, then use electrical wire to wire it up to either a separate switch coming off your battery, or you can do what I did and tap into the tag light. I also soldered my connections to make them more durable, as the wires that come with the LEDs are a very thin gauge and break easily if you pull too hard. Heat shrink is good if you have it, but not necessary. You don't have to solder if you are good at taping.
I do plan on putting more on by the way, maybe one facing down on front fender, maybe some shining out the bottom onto the road. I'm just a lazy slug and haven't done anything yet. I didn't even do my left side!
I also left out that I used male and female spade connectors coming from the fairings. That way, since the light is attached to the fairing, I just unplug the connectors instead of having to restick the light later if I take the fairings off.
[image: View Post]NT11, on 21 July 2010 - 07:44 AM, said:
I do plan on putting more on by the way, maybe one facing down on front fender, maybe some shining out the bottom onto the road. I'm just a lazy slug and haven't done anything yet. I didn't even do my left side!
I also left out that I used male and female spade connectors coming from the fairings. That way, since the light is attached to the fairing, I just unplug the connectors instead of having to restick the light later if I take the fairings off.
thanks a ton for the help. I don't know why I didn't even consider the 9volt battery trick, that should help out immensely trying to figure out the positioning
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to ride with those lights on here in the US, are they legal in Canada? It's ok to have them on while stopped, but if you're riding with them on, you can pulled over here. :comp13:
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 22 July 2010 - 05:43 AM, said:
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to ride with those lights on here in the US, are they legal in Canada? It's ok to have them on while stopped, but if you're riding with them on, you can pulled over here. :comp13:
In that case, would it be better to have yellow/amber lighting on the sides and front, and red facing the rear? Still have plenty of extra "look at me" lighting, but compliant with DOT regs.
I'd think, in all practicality, that the police have other issues going on and won't pull you for extra accent lighting. Doesn't mean they won't add on to a speeding ticket, of course. I'd stay away from blue, for sure! They don't appreciate regular folks driving around with blue lights!
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 22 July 2010 - 05:43 AM, said:
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to ride with those lights on here in the US, are they legal in Canada? It's ok to have them on while stopped, but if you're riding with them on, you can pulled over here. :comp13:
Does that mean all those silly neon underbody lighting kits are illegal now? If so, :cheerleader:
[image: View Post]YoshiHNS, on 22 July 2010 - 07:12 AM, said:
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 22 July 2010 - 05:43 AM, said:
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to ride with those lights on here in the US, are they legal in Canada? It's ok to have them on while stopped, but if you're riding with them on, you can pulled over here. :comp13:
Does that mean all those silly neon underbody lighting kits are illegal now? If so, :cheerleader:
Yes, and also the lighted valve stem caps/washer fluid nozzles...
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 22 July 2010 - 07:18 AM, said:
[image: View Post]YoshiHNS, on 22 July 2010 - 07:12 AM, said:
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 22 July 2010 - 05:43 AM, said:
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to ride with those lights on here in the US, are they legal in Canada? It's ok to have them on while stopped, but if you're riding with them on, you can pulled over here. :comp13:
Does that mean all those silly neon underbody lighting kits are illegal now? If so, :cheerleader:
Yes, and also the lighted valve stem caps/washer fluid nozzles...
Yes they are technically illegal to ride/drive with but oddly enough it seems as though the "I leave them on to be better seen by idiot drivers" has worked for several of my friends so we shall see what happens. When I was a younger lad and loved my underbody neons on my car I was pulled over countless times but luckily never ticketed
Sorry. As someone who lived in cleveland, I don't believe anything will help those drivers see you. I've had more issues with not being seen in broad daylight than night. Most memorable one was on I-77 where a businessman in his Silverado Escalade kept trying to merge into me, even though every time he did I would beep at him and he would back off, and try again, beep, back off... And this is a bike with the fastest color with colorful gear. A bit of light on the side of the bike is not a guarantee that they'll see you any better.
[image: View Post]YoshiHNS, on 22 July 2010 - 09:08 AM, said:
Sorry. As someone who lived in cleveland, I don't believe anything will help those drivers see you. I've had more issues with not being seen in broad daylight than night. Most memorable one was on I-77 where a businessman in his Silverado Escalade kept trying to merge into me, even though every time he did I would beep at him and he would back off, and try again, beep, back off... And this is a bike with the fastest color with colorful gear. A bit of light on the side of the bike is not a guarantee that they'll see you any better.
Better off just riding around with high beams.
oh trust me I hate drivers around here, but I like the way they look and its peace of mind for the woman so I was like well they are free soooo ok :)
Stick them somewhere around the radiator vents. Probably don't want to stick them to the plastic, as that would make it a bit of a pain to take them off. That's really the only decent place to put them for side lighting where the bulb won't be shining out at something vs lighting up the bike. Just make sure your knees aren't blocking anything and that. You could try fitting them in the bar ends somehow, but that might be a bit annoying since they'd probably be in your peripheral vision.
End of thread · 19 posts recoveredWayback Machine snapshot 12 Aug 2010