PIAA bulbs

[stanbloke]

Anybody use the PIAA Extreme white bulbs ??.

At £66 they are a touch on the pricey side, so any info if you have it please.

[McFly]

Had some PIAA super bright rally bulbs in my GTfour when it came from Japan, amazing! Sooooo bright! I baulked at the price when one blew and replaced the pair with the best normal bulbs I could find. Not a patch on the PIAA ones so I paid up for a replacement and went back to them. Best upgrade bar a HID conversion for your lights imho.

[stanbloke]

Had some PIAA super bright rally bulbs in my GTfour when it came from Japan, amazing! Sooooo bright! I baulked at the price when one blew and replaced the pair with the best normal bulbs I could find. Not a patch on the PIAA ones so I paid up for a replacement and went back to them. Best upgrade bar a HID conversion for your lights imho.

Thanks McFly , no way can I justify the HID's . .

I'm gonna order a set and the 1100x lamps as well, a chrissie prezzie from me to me.

[Lumiya]

£66 quid, when you can get a double set of HI/LO HID's for that from fleabay..........

Kymmy

[stanbloke]

£66 quid, when you can get a double set of HI/LO HID's for that from fleabay..........

Kymmy

I had a look at them, are they better than the piaa's then.

[Lumiya]

You are talking about the difference between a filament bulb (PIAA) and one that gets it's light from an electrical ARC (HID).

HID's use the same process (just by a different method and in a different gas) as an electric ARC welder gives off light (simple analogy for ya ) Although it doesn't use the current of a welder as it also relies on the gas inside also exiting and giving off light where as the filament bulb can only ever be as bright as they can heat the metal without burning out the filament. Also the hotter a filament goes the more prone it is to breaking under vibration.

The only drawback for HID's is the long start up time (anything from 5 to 15 seconds) but as most of us run lights on all the time it's not an issue. High beam isn;t a seperate arc but instead a movable shield or arc bubble that either guides the light full on or partly down (dipped). As well as increased light output the best thing about them (apart from the initial startup current) is that they run at about 35W per bulb which is about 3Amps compared to 5amps for a 60W bulb.

I still though stand by my initial posts that HID's are fantastic for trail/raid riding but if you;re going to use them for road usage then for gawd sake set them up correctly as they can dazzle oncoming traffic

Kymmy

[stanbloke]

so apart from better lighting they reduce the load on the regulator , therefore giving me more amps for gps/music or more lamps .

The plan for next year includes some events that run thro the night, so the more light I have available the better really.

My set up will include two sat navs, one for total time/distance and the other for directions. and anything that will give me more available electric to run the extras the better.

Give me a choice of HID's that you would recommend mate. I'll have them on over the winter, thanks for the info.

[Stormforce8]

Give me a choice of HID's that you would recommend

I'd send a PM to Richardg - as he's converted quite a few bikes, and would be able to recommend the correct fitment.

[Jenna]

I swapped the XTZ (and will be all the other builds too) on to HID, its an easy fit and as long as you buy the right fitments bulb for the light unit it can be done in minutes. Absolutely loads of places to buy HID from now (especially on ebay), we bought ours via germany but the kit itself is made in china.. shouldn't need to pay anything more that £75-£90 for a dual lamp set.

[stanbloke]

Thank Stormforce8 and Jenna. (Kymmy, as well)

will have a look at this set
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Xenon-Hid-Conv...QQcmdZViewItem

they should do the trick, I think.