Not a big surprise to me.. the H11 bulb is a bit unique and finding an HID conversion that really matches the filament placement/size may be difficult. More light isn't necessarily better light. Too much light thrown close to the bike will cause your pupils to close down, meaning it gets dark beyond the close-up light REAL quickly. Ideally a high-beam pattern projects a distance from the bike with a fairly dark area between the bike and the landing of the beam. That really isn't totally possible on the R12R since both low and high beams are illuminated when the high beam is used. The other downside of this sort of conversion is there is no anti-glare coating on the HID capsules that I've seen, meaning anyone looking at the illuminated light IS seeing the filament directly, as a point source. That causes blinding and target fixation by the person looking.mogu83 wrote:UPdate ---
I did the HID conversion. Couldn't use the 35 watt kit because the CAN-bus didn't like it. It was looking for a 55 watt draw when it checked the lights. I went for the 55 watt kit. OMG the light standing in front of the bike was like looking into the sun. I was happy happy, but the light still had to pass 'the test'. It came this weekend on the back roads of North Carolina and the HID failed miserably. While it threw a lot of light, the light was totally unfocused and I actually think my real world visability was worse when I put the Hi-Beam headlight on. So out comes the HID kit and back in goes the Osram Night Breaker.
Naturally YMMV
A better solution IMHO is always auxiliary lights. Good ones can do amazing things when focused and aimed correctly.
Count me as not a fan of HID conversions (tried it on a car - ended up ripping them out and going to a good halogen light source.)