Wanted to give everyone an update on my light mods. On my Baja I put a 55/100 main and 55 side lights, all xenon bulbs with a blueish tint. They worked great, did alot of night riding at glamis last weekend and didn't have any problems ( like too much draw or heat). It was the best cheap mod, and I in a way I was able to go faster at night!

 

Would my local auto store have those lights I know my bomb dealer only has yellow tint and they are horrible at night they are two dim.

 

The main headlight is a H4 bulb, most auto stores have the H4 in 55/65w which is street legal and what comes factory in your DS. If you want to keep the same wattage bulb, changing the bulb to a Xenon type should give you a little more light they the yellow tint. I definitly recomend goin to a 55/100w, the stock stator has no problem supplying the needed watts. I got my bulbs from JCwhitney, I believe Dennis Kirk sales them too.

 

I put the Xenon bulbs in my Baja and they work great. I put in the H4 90/100w and the fog lights H3 70w and it is like day light when they are all on.

 

whats the difference between the 55/100 and the 90/100 bulbs

 

fast the 55/100 has a 55w low beam and a 100w high beam the 90/100 has a 90w low beam and 100w high beam

 

JMAC650 - Are the H3 bulbs 70 watts each? That would put u at 240w with the high beams on. Aren't you overdrawing your system?

I went with the 55/100 vs the 90/100 because I was concered about having a 90w light on when just idling (heat build up and power draw).

 

if you are running the 90/100w h4 and the 70w h3 you are overloading the stator capacity. You may not see any negative affects immediatly, but you will burn something out eventually. Don't be supprised if you burn up the stator, voltage regulator, or ignition module.

you may get lucky, but I bet not.


anyway, that's my 2 cents

consider yourself warned. Hopefully I won't get to say "I told you so"....


-Tom

 

What is the maximum you can run in watts?

 

ok I may have to eat my words already. (but maybe not)

For some odd reason, I was thinking that the ds had a 230w stator. It actually has a 290w stator (at least the 03 model does). Being that, the 55/100w h4 (or 90/100w h4) in conjunction with the 70w h3 MAY be ok. That leaves it 60w under spec, but that only accounts for the lights. You still have the ignition, cooling fan and charging system to think about, theroreticly that 60w padding would enough to handle these.

However, If I remember correctly, the output rating for the stator is measured at a specific rpm (4000rpm if I remember correctly), so at idle it may not be enough to keep the battery maintained properly. Once the battery starts to drain down, it will try to draw even more power from the charging system adding stress to the rectifier/voltage regulator and stator.

I won't even get into what kind of stress is put on the system when you try run a dead battery on the quad (ie. ran it dead and jump started it). Don't ever do this unless it's an emergency. But that's another subject. (Proper battery maintianance)

But then again, without an accurate reading of the stator output at idle, this is all guess work.

Use caution. unless you have cash.