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LED headlight bulb?

23K views 31 replies 16 participants last post by  BiomedRider 
#1 ·
Anyone have replace the H7 light bulb to the LED's? I found some sources from China and comes pretty cheap. I wonder if anyone did that and what's the result?
 
#3 ·
do u have a link for the led bulb?
 
#9 ·
curious to see the difference...
 
#11 ·
I have looked into this before. And led bulbs dont put out enough lumens, and it is actually a worse light to use. Especially with a reflection light housing.
 
#12 ·
so it would need to be used in a housing set up for leds?
 
#14 ·
Been and done this on a 2009 R6, total waste of money, they look bright when in the bike looking at them but even with HIGH beam on there is just not light saturation on the road, to the point i was scared riding at night. From what i believe the higher end LED bulbs can be good but the cheap ones from China are just a waste.

Go HID's you can do both hi and low for under $50 AUD from ebay, and they might be cheap but its what I have and are brilliant. My single head light puts to shame most cars on the road. Always a good feeling riding down a 3 lane highway and your head light luminates all three lanes.
 
#18 ·
My bad... That's good to know john.. Guess i should have looked b4 but at least i haven't bought any yet. All though I did find the same brand in h7 so i still want to try it out. Ill post my end results and let everyone know how it goes.

Lol Thanks for correcting me, would have been pissed..
 
#20 ·
Led bulbs have come a long way since this thread was started. You have to kind of know what to look for though. Basically, brand name ones eg; Philips or Osram are a safe bet but pricey. The amazons and aliexpress and the ebays are a minefield of 2nd, 3rd and 16th rate junk mixed with stuff that can be actually really good. The one common theme is they will all boast about a million lumen.
In reality a quality drop in led will be equivalent to a really good 55/60w and draw about 17w, and there are bigger ones that might be equivalent to say, 80/90 and draw 25w.
What you want to look for is a chip pattern that emulates the filament in a halogen bulb, and the reflector that seperates hi and low beam filaments. Also should have a ballast box and a substantal heat sink. Even ticking all those boxes and you can end up with garbage that falls apart or doesnt work properly but there is a lot of good stuff out there too that is over engineered and works great.

Anyhoo, the whole reason i was trolling through this thread was to find out what bulb type goes in an 08 z1k as its probably one of the first things im going to do to this bike when i get it. If anyone can fill me in, thanks in advance!


Sorry about the necro.
 
#23 ·
Ok so Ive since taken possesion of my gen 2 Z and had a look at the headlights,, it is a strange arrangement; ok the h7 drops in as normal, but then there is a 10mm thick spacer that plugs in to the h7 bulb, converts it to the h4 plug type that is on the loom for no apparent reason, provides the 10mm spacing the retaining spring needs for no apparent reason, and provides the "neck" for want of a better word that seals the rubber.
Very strange. Its like the design team changed their mind several times as to what bulb they were going to use during the production of the bike.
So long story short, cheap stupid LED bulbs with no ballast or heatsink will drop straight in, but anything that will be anywhere near useful will require some McGyvering, in the form of at least a home made spacer.
 
#24 ·
That's what I found on my Gen3. It's easiest to just leave them as they are.


I'm halfway through a projector retrofit, because my projectors are too deep for my stock housing, but it's really the way to go if you'd like to see an improvement.


Here are some references:


https://www.z1000forum.com/forum/z1...headlight-retrofit-opening-modifications.html


https://www.z1000forum.com/forum/z1...ations/155457-another-headlight-retrofit.html


https://www.z1000forum.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/148209-retrofit-month-contest-winner.html
 
#25 · (Edited)
Just made the same discovery as Kermit, its got me wondering if an H4 LED bulb will fit fine if we just bypass the adaptor?

I installed my new LED H7's into my 3rd gen Z, but the High Beam switch doesn't activate anything. I swapped connectors to make sure it wasnt a dud bulb and sure enough it was fine. Neither side wanted to be the High beam...cant figure out why. Either way the running light works fine and looks great!
 
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