Phil's Mods

[1VENOM]

Great job, excellent pics and write up. Thank you for sharing.

[CanAmMick]

Phil,

Where did you run your wires for you gps. I have one that I want to install but not really sure how/where to run the wires. Would you by any chance have any additional pictures?

Thanks!

Mick

[Phil]

Phil,

Where did you run your wires for you gps. I have one that I want to install but not really sure how/where to run the wires. Would you by any chance have any additional pictures?

Thanks!

Mick

Hey Mick!
First, On this 4th of July, I thank you for your service.

No additional pics of this part of the mod right now. I do plan on working on my headlights soon so when I have them out, maybe I can get some pics.

I added a front, extra fuse block, then wired in a 3 outlet 12vdc concenience cluster in the empty space behind the headlights and behind the cluster. I plugged in a 12vdc to USB adapter. Inyo the USB, I plugged the iPhone power chord and routed it out the center of the handlebars (there is a hole plug there that is easy to remove). Routing the wire to that spot is really easy. Adding the outlets took a bit of time.

[Phil]

Tonight it went down to 92 so I headed to the garage to install the newly powercoated Elkas (pics above of the power coated springs)

First thing was to get a reference on the current headlight alignment. I used the garage door:


I did one line for the heads and one for the fogs, just for fun. You can see that I had already done the HID mod on the fogs. IF everything works right, I hope to do the HID/ headlight mod tomorrow.

Next... open the garage door to let out the fumes and catch a little bit of the slightly cooler evening air...



What everyone has written about the difference in difficulty between the right and left is highly understated. I did the right one in about 45 minutes start to finish. REMEMBER, I'm the electricl geek, not a wrench guy so I had a lot of tool trial and error. If I had it to do over, personally, I would remove the frunk due to the difficulty with the left top bolts.

The issue is that on an RT, the top left bolt has VERY VERY little clearance to get wrenches or drivers in, and even little room to slide out the bolt!!!

I had to wiggle the bolt out by hand and sort of slide it into the air intake.

But I managed to keep after it for about 60 minutes and finally got it out and got the Elka sort of in place:



Here you can see the bolt back in place after installing the Elka. This shows there is about 1.5" from the end of the bolt to the frunk body:


Well, 3 hours start to finish, here are the results--


I was hoping the purple lights would sparkle off the satin chrome springs and they do!


I reaimed the lights, using the tape line as a giude and took my test ryde....
WOW!!!!! I had read everyone's review, but they are as understated as the work involved to remove the upper left bolt! I took ride through our community that I've done hundreds of times with the stock shocks. NO, NO NO comparison! I headed for manhole covers water valve covers and known dips in the pavement. I hardly felt them at all!!! My out loud comment was that it was like ryding on butter (assuming you like ryding on butter). Thank you Len. Thank you John. Thank you ELKA!!

[cougar]

Alas. Another Elka believer!! I see it is still too hot to live in Texas. Let me know when the evenings get cooler!! Phil, do you guys have a pool?

cougar

[SteveMac]

Excellent write-up bro and nice look on the springs!

I agree 100% with the difference in ryde!!

[Phil]

Alas. Another Elka believer!! I see it is still too hot to live in Texas. Let me know when the evenings get cooler!! Phil, do you guys have a pool?

cougar

Evenings are not bad now after about 8pm and it's a nice transition time to RYDE. October is when it starts getting more reasonable

Yup... We have a saltwater pool. Helps alot.


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[CanAmMick]

Hey Mick!
First, On this 4th of July, I thank you for your service.

No additional pics of this part of the mod right now. I do plan on working on my headlights soon so when I have them out, maybe I can get some pics.

I added a front, extra fuse block, then wired in a 3 outlet 12vdc concenience cluster in the empty space behind the headlights and behind the cluster. I plugged in a 12vdc to USB adapter. Inyo the USB, I plugged the iPhone power chord and routed it out the center of the handlebars (there is a hole plug there that is easy to remove). Routing the wire to that spot is really easy. Adding the outlets took a bit of time.

Phil,

Thanks!!!! My wife and I are both retired Air Force. Had some great times and was able to meet some wonderful people while traveling around the world courtesy of Uncle Sam.....

I'm a Texas boy living in North Carolina now and loving it. Sure don't miss the Texas heat. Until about a year I wasn't too far from your area. Lived outside of Huntsville, Texas for the past 16 years. You need to come out my way so you can really enjoy some great riding areas. If you ever have the opportunity be sure to let me know. We have plenty of room!!!

I'm just not sure where to run my wires for my gps. I should have paid more attention when I was looking at all the Spyders at Maggie Valley.

Mick

[Phil]

A couple more pics of my Elka shocks with the chrome power coated springs --->

Yeahhhhh!!


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[MarkLawson]

When I get the coins together, I now know who to go to to get them installed... SWEET!

[Phil]

When I get the coins together, I now know who to go to to get them installed... SWEET!

And I'll use some of those coins to get replacement knuckles! I was bruised for a week, but very happy! Like loads of other things, once you do it and know the proper tools and tricks, it's not so intimidating.

[Phil]

RT + HID = HAPPINESS!! I know that many have added HID lights to the RS. This is a how to for RT owners.....

OK.... I have installed the Xenon Depot Xtreme HID kit. It went very well. Here's the end of the story........

Comparing the left to the right, in the pic you can see that there is definitely more light output from the HID. That picture is pretty accurate. I elected to go with the Xtreme 4300k lights (your personal preference may vary). I have 5,000k lights in the fogs but wanted a warmer light in the heads. What the picture doesn't show is that the HID is not just brighter but the color is a 'higher' white than the halogen. You'll see lots of pics further down that show the what it looks like on a road and on my garage wall....


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Now... on to how it all happened...
I'm not going to detail how to remove the headlight on the RT, because if you don't know how to do that, you should likely let a professional do all of this for you. As I've said on other posts, I am a LOOOOONG way from being a professional!!! I'm an electrical guy and not a wrench guy. I have high respect for the Lamonsters and Scottys on SL. A lot of what I do is trial and error. But I've had the lights of several times so this was not too challenging. When you take the left light out, you have a hole that looks something like this....

I have a LOT more wires in there than a stock RT has. Most all of them are to support all of the LEDs that I've added and some of the mods to the dash area. You can see those on earlier posts in this thread.
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This is what the back of the light module looks like...

The connectors on the left are the two that supply power to the module. It is power for the actual lamp, then the high beam shutter (it is NOT a second lamp, but a mechanical shutter) and then a round accent LED that you can see in the upper left. The big black cover in the middle is the dust cover for the lamp housing. The actual lamp is behind this cover and that's where our work will focus. (Yup that's my ugly leg. It was 99 degrees that day)
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Removing the cover is simple and obvious, and when you do this is what you see.....

You might notice that the halogen bulb says clearly that it is a 9005 bulb. You'll also see 65w. Most of us equate watts to a bulb's brightness. When everything was incandescent lamps, that was mostly true. But with HID and LED and other newer lamps, that's NOT true. The watts really only indicates the amount of electrical power the lamp consumes. The brightness of a light is its LUMEN output. The HID we're installing is only 35 watts, but its output, to the eye, is higher than the halogen stock lamp. I don't find a lumen rating on the XenonDepot web site so I don't have a comparison for you.
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Carefully remove the stock lamp by twisting it (the direction is obvious). At this point you'll have the HID kit nearby. I plugged in the HID power lead to the plug that WAS plugged into the halogen lamp........

The instructions tell you to make a possible polarity change on this connector, but I didn't do it on this connector. I'll explain why later.
In the lower left you can see where the lamp goes.
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This is how the new HID lamp comes. The plastic that you see is to protect the bulb.....

You can see that it is 4300k as well.
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Carefully unscrew the plastic covering to expose the bulb. The kit from XenonDepot came with 2 gloves that you should use. Now my hands wouldn't even START to fit in the gloves! So I didn't use them, but I've done HIDs in the past and the #1 thing is to get ZERO hand oils on the lamp. I was really careful . Once the cover is off, you still have the bottom part of the cover that needs to go away. I chose to crack it and slip it off......

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Carefully insert the lamp and twist it in place. It only fits in one way.



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OK... now we start destroying things!! The HID lamp wiring has 3 wires that come out. So to get those wires from the lamp, out of the dust cover, you need to drill a hole and not a small one! The power connector is the largest and the hole needs to be just big enough to fit that connector through the hole. As you'll see later, the kit comes with a good size gromet to take care of sealing that hole.......

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Sorry for the lousy picture, but you get the idea that it makes a nice clean installation.....

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Time to check polarity. The Spyder uses -12v as the ground and +12v as the 'hot'. Not all bikes or vehicles are like that. In fact the kit came backwards from what I needed. GENERALLY the black wires on the Spyder (and other 12v devices) are the ground side of the 12v and this IS the case on the headlight connector. I powered up the RT and used my meter to see that the black was in fact the ground. Looking at the power connector for the HID kit, and reading the instructions, I saw that I needed to flip the polarity. I didn't do it inside the lamp housing because I wanted to do it on a connector that I had easy access to.....

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First, use a small screw driver (or screwdriver depending on your country ) to pry off a small wire strain relief....

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Insert the screw driver as shown and push out the female connectors. It takes a little force to release the lock....

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Here are the two wires so you can see the connectors and get an idea of the little 'locks' built into them.....

As the picture says, swap the sides (black where white was and white where black was). Then push them back into the connector with some good force. I used the small screwdriver again to help lock them back into place.
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Time to connect everything up. I'll say that the instructions assume that you know something about how this all goes together. Fortunately I did. The kit ships with a relay harness. GREAT VALUE ADD!!!! The relay harness helps in situations where a motorcycle or car may throw errors or not even light up correctly if the ballasts are wired directly into the system. I tried mine without, HOPING I would NOT need them. My reason was that if you look back at the first picture, I'm rather crowded behind the lights. 'NORMAL' folks won't have the space issue I have . Anyway, this is what all of the pieces look like for testing....

Reconnect the power from the bike to the headlight module.....


Connect the power lead that comes from the HID harness into the ballast (((I just noticed that I took this picture BEFORE I swapped the polarity of the wires!! Oooops. When the polarity is correct on the Spyder, the white should be on the side that has the + sign)))...


Connect the wires from the ballast to the lamp (these are the high voltage lines (85v)


It's about time for the test.....

The connector in the foreground is where I changed the polarity. As it says on the picture-- TRY EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU REASSEMBLE!!! Double check all connections and give it a whirl.....

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Now... figuring where to put everything. The ballast is the biggest concern. All of the rest of the wires were just 'stuffed' (gently) into available space behind the lamp housing. I tried several places for the ballast and here is where I ended up....

DO WATCH OUT FOR THE SCREW!! Or better yet, temporarily remove it. I scraped up the label on this one pretty good, but was more careful on the right hand light.
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So.... we're back to the beginning picture to show that it really works!

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Here's what it looks like on my garage door. Notice the blue painter's tape. I put that line there before I swapped to the Elka shocks to I could realign the lights 'post Elka. As it turns out, the HID alignment was spot on!....


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Proof was in the ryde. I shot this while ryding so it's not steady and it really doesn't show just HOW BRIGHT it really is.....


I pulled over in a parking lot where there were trees about 50' in front of me.......


Again, the high beam pic really doesn't do it justice. As I was riding in our subdivision with high beams on, I could CLEARLY see way ahead and the trees on either side of the road, for a long way.
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I'm known for not leaving well enough alone, so while I had Darth torn apart to do the HIDs, I added a few more LEDs!!!!



SUMMARY
Bottom line is it went very well. There were a few fear moments, but all in all I'm 100% happy. Again, if you are fearful of messing things up and don't have a working knowledge of electrical (really doesn't take much), I'd recommend having your dealer do this mod. Ten again, maybe all of these instructions will help take away some fear! I'd say if I did not take all of the pics, I could have done the entire HID mod in 90-120 minutes (including tupperware). Now that I know what I'm doing... 60min.

NOTE.... I have only run the lights for about 90 minutes so far. I have not had even a peep out of the Spyder's error system. I cannot vouch for your rydes. Mine did not need the relay box that XenonDepot supplied, yours MIGHT. Yours might toss a headlight error, mine did not. Thus ends the fine print

Steve with XenonDepot was helpful. The times I've called for him have not had success. Reaching him via SpyderLovers PM is great with fast response. The instructions that come with the kit are NOT specifically for the Spyder so you have to fill in lots of gaps . But again... I'm 100% happy with the quality, size and value. Now... your turn!

[XenonDepot]

Subscribed for pictures :-)

[Pandy]

Did you once have a GoldWing?

Patrick

[Phil]

Did you once have a GoldWing?

Patrick

NOPE

[CyncySpyder]

[Phil]

Heeeeeeere it is!!!!

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...6&postcount=90

(back on #90)

[MarkLawson]

Looks sweet!

How long did it take?

[Phil]

Looks sweet!

How long did it take?

With photos and trouble shooting, water breaks from the heat- 4 hours. No pics and getting it all right the first time, should take about 60-90 min Tupperware on to Tupperware on.


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[Phil]

Here are a few shots to compare the stock halogen (on our left) and the HID (on our right)

[coz]

dam phil, do you do mods every day? that is a tremendous garage by the way. we all should be so inspired..................coz,,,,,,i hope there isn't a gas water heater or furnace near your spyder.

[Phil]

dam phil, do you do mods every day? that is a tremendous garage by the way. we all should be so inspired..................coz,,,,,,i hope there isn't a gas water heater or furnace near your spyder.

Ha!!! not EVERY day. What can I say. It's fun and rewarding.
GARAGE- thanks Coz. Nope no furnaces or water heaters. By September it WILL have an HVAC outlet near Darth with a remote control damper. More fun


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[SpyderAnn01]

Thank you Phil for your how to instructions on the Xenon Depot HID lights. I just finished installing mine today and I couldn't have done it without your instructions.

[XenonDepot]

Any pics??

[Phil]

Ok gang.... I'm at it again! As some know, I am now the very proud owner of an RT622 trailer. Here's a sneak peek of the lighting I'm working on. So far, interior lights to see EVERY corner on the darkest night.

OFF


ON


OFF



ON



Later I'll show how to easily control this and the other lights, yet to come. Purple glow is coming.




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