I have been wanting an extra headlight housing for my C-14 for years now to butcher modify to take projector headlights. I finally tripped over a used housing with a damaged reflector bowl for a good price and bought it. The housing itself is in nice shape overall, with a clean lens (no pitting) and as I will not be using the reflectors, is perfect for this job.

The first step is to take the housing apart. The lens portion is held against the housing using butyl glue that is very thick and tacky but never hardens. Unfortunately, there is far too much attached area to pry one of these open without softening the glue first and the only way to do that is to heat the entire housing. So into the oven the housing goes and hopefully sometime before the whole thing warps or melts, the halves will separate. After a fashion I was successful in separating them without damaging anything:

This is the housing separated, along with a reflector bowl removed:


The reflector bowl mounts to the housing with one bolt and two adjustments; one of the adjustments, up / down, is cabled up to the dash so it can be moved from the rider's saddle:


This is the back of the reflector bowl showing the three mounting points:


So now the hunt is on for a set of projectors. I am going to try and go with a full sized projector as they produce the most light (bigger optics make better light given the same lamp). But a 3" lens projector is a big projector and I don't know if it will fit so a smaller 2.5" lensed projector may have to be used.

Next comes the ‘funnest’ part: hacking through the reflector bowls and perhaps the light housing to install the projectors and make the whole thing waterproof again. The projectors have to be correctly timed (rotated to the proper position) in the housings so that the cut- off line of light matches the horizon. They have to be reasonably close to pointing straight ahead but and it would be great if the original left / right adjustment could be maintained but that alignment is the least critical of the three. Finally, they have to be adjustable up / down to be able to move the cut- off line to the right place and really should be easily adjustable because the bike's angle changes quite noticeably when the bike is loaded down for a trip, especially if also carrying a passenger.

I will post more photos when I actually get a set of projectors.

Brian

  

GO BRIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Wow- this is quite the project!

Here, make it even more challenging:  Make them motorized under computer control (steering/angle), like the projector HID's in my G37S 

Nice.

Yep, I have given that a LOT of thought. With a background in automation (high speed, production automation and robotics) and inverse kinematics, it is sorely tempting to get a pair of servos to do all the hard work such as pointing the light where it should be going right now. The really slick thing would be to have a horizon detector to raise and lower the beam based entirely on the distance to a given point in front of you; say, for example, how far it is ahead to the point in space that is at the same level as the centerline of the headlight. That would compensate for both changes in road elevation (relative to the bike's current point) and the vertical shape of the road ahead- if the road had a gentle rise, the headlight would rise to have the cut- off line stay at a certain height at, for example, 200 yards in front of the bike. The exact opposite would happen when riding over a crest- the headlight would turn downward to keep the light on the road instead of projecting into space as current vehicle lights do. It would be, in my opinion and sophisticated designer- speak, 'way cool'. :-)  Unfortunately it would also be quite complicated, take lots of man hours, and I believe be an almost endless circle of trying to make the system work under some really odd conditions such as riding toward a body of water which would not reflect a detector beam (infrared laser) very well, and heavy fog, and rain, and rapidly changing road reflection conditions ahead (puddles, fresh paint stripes, etc.).

To the best of my knowledge, the only current systems only respond to steering input, not actual road conditions. The BMW 1600 is like that- it works pretty well and is a great idea but I do not believe it interacts in any way with the envelope outside the bike itself. In other words, it responds to steering position, speed, etc. but these are all bike only related parameters and the system cannot compensate, for example, a hill or dip in the road ahead.

I am just trying to get the best possible optical lighting currently available and squeeze er, smash, uhm 'gently install' it into a C-14. The great news is that the headlight bucket is absolutely huge inside, especially if one is willing to hack into the city lights, side reflectors, etc. I am hoping a full set of 3" projectors will fit. And if necessary, the rear of the projector can actually project outside the back of the bucket a bit and not interfere with anything on the bike.

Brian

Wow- this is quite the project!

Here, make it even more challenging:  Make them motorized under computer control (steering/angle), like the projector HID's in my G37S 

uhhhhhh.......cool! 

Can't wait to see the outcome, great project. Best of luck.

Yep, I have given that a LOT of thought. With a background in automation (high speed, production automation and robotics) and inverse kinematics, it is sorely tempting to get a pair of servos to do all the hard work such as pointing the light where it should be going right now. The really slick thing would be to have a horizon detector to raise and lower the beam based entirely on the distance to a given point in front of you; say, for example, how far it is ahead to the point in space that is at the same level as the centerline of the headlight. That would compensate for both changes in road elevation (relative to the bike's current point) and the vertical shape of the road ahead- if the road had a gentle rise, the headlight would rise to have the cut- off line stay at a certain height at, for example, 200 yards in front of the bike. The exact opposite would happen when riding over a crest- the headlight would turn downward to keep the light on the road instead of projecting into space as current vehicle lights do. It would be, in my opinion and sophisticated designer- speak, 'way cool'. :-)  Unfortunately it would also be quite complicated, take lots of man hours, and I believe be an almost endless circle of trying to make the system work under some really odd conditions such as riding toward a body of water which would not reflect a detector beam (infrared laser) very well, and heavy fog, and rain, and rapidly changing road reflection conditions ahead (puddles, fresh paint stripes, etc.).

Brian, just couple the thing with a pair of M134. The ones pointing backwards can be fixed; they are only for tail gaters... 

Brian, while you are in there, I've always wondered what those 2 clear plastic multy step strips on either side were originally
designed to do. Maybe they're just silly decoration (very silly IMO), but they appear to be designed to do something that maybe was
abandoned by Mama Kaw. While you have it apart could you test/see if you were to put an LED or flashlight behind those
do they have any light pipe like side illumination properties? I'm sure I used the wrong optical tech terms there but I think
you know what I mean?

I believe they are there to direct light to the side and fan it out slightly. The side lenses are actually a series of stepped wedges- sort of like a Fresnel lens but instead of round, it is just a straight part. Funny enough, they also screw into the lens assembly. A few more pictures before I spit out some (free but probably lousy ideas). First, the entire lens assembly has a housing assembly inside of it along with the lenses for the two city lights:



The side lenses snap in front and are retained in the back by one screw each and can be easily removed:


The inner housing with the side lenses removed:


And finally, the lenses themselves:


I believe Kawasaki is using these lenses instead of running lights or marker lights. At first I thought that they were responsible for the 'tell tale' strips of light on the ground just to the side of the bike on each side (so you can tell if a headlight is working or not from the saddle) but there is a distinct spot in the upper reflector bowl that makes that light streak (and the slight burns in my right retina).

So two thoughts: I think you could get inside the headlight housing and put a strip of LEDs inside those lenses if you wanted to make them more like true marker lights (colored lights perhaps). Modern strip mounted, surface LEDs would lend themselves to that pretty easily. You could also make them strobe at a frequency just below the human eye's persistence of vision and get a tremendous 'make people look' effect (the stroking at the right speed triggers the rapid acceleration portion of the brain; we see the frequency as 'fight or flight' in an animal or human near us and instinctively look towards it. The effect is very pronounced and a little bit humorous because people do not know what they are looking at or even why they are looking (P.O.V. is far longer near the center range of the human eye so it is picked up by the peripheral vision but when looked at directly the lights are just ON steady).

The big problem is going to be how to get the lights in there. If you make a small hole behind the reflector bowls, near the edge where those lenses are, I believe you could slide a stick of LED on some type of self- adhesive tape, into the headlight and affix them to the inside of those lenses directly. Run the wires back and out of the housing and plug the hose with RTV sealant, dum dum or anything else applicable. I believe you can get enough tools and maybe a finger or two into the headlight housing through the H4 lamp hole to do this. You could also add a hole just above and / or below the wire hole to insert things like long screwdrivers to position the LEDs and then hold them in place with a bit of pressure.

If you cannot do that, then you are going to have to open the headlight housing. That is the bad news; the good news is that if you do open the housing you can do whatever you want in there as there is a lot of room and I think it will be easy to do trick things (such as the strobe effect). There is even room for a short word- perhaps five letters or so.... something like HONDA..... well, maybe not that word.

My projectors are winging their way right now along with D2s bulbs. The projectors and HID bulbs (burners) are actually OEM, the projectors Japanese out of an Acura (I have enough data on them that they do appear to have a wider, more uniform and the inboard portion is darker than the German equivalents). Normally I would have gone Hella but will try these on. Now they are huge and may not fit although a C-14 light housing is a pretty big thing itself so I do expect they can be persuaded to go. The bulbs are Phillips 122+ which are OEM on most all German projectors. I will cheat and use Chinese ballasts and igniters just because they work well, are reliable and are a lot less expensive than either Philips or Matsushita HID. They should be here this week.... he says as he rubs his hands together.  :-)

Brian

Brian, while you are in there, I've always wondered what those 2 clear plastic multy step strips on either side were originally
designed to do. Maybe they're just silly decoration (very silly IMO), but they appear to be designed to do something that maybe was
abandoned by Mama Kaw. While you have it apart could you test/see if you were to put an LED or flashlight behind those
do they have any light pipe like side illumination properties? I'm sure I used the wrong optical tech terms there but I think
you know what I mean?

And why are you doing this again? I won't ride at night because I like not running into large stupid animals, are you just bored?

I believe they are there to direct light to the side and fan it out slightly. The side lenses are actually a series of stepped wedges- sort of like a Fresnel lens but instead of round, it is just a straight part. Funny enough, they also screw into the lens assembly. A few more pictures before I spit out some (free but probably lousy ideas).
So two thoughts: I think you could get inside the headlight housing and put a strip of LEDs inside those lenses if you wanted to make them more like true marker lights (colored lights perhaps). Modern strip mounted, surface LEDs would lend themselves to that pretty easily.

Well I was hoping that they would have a sort of fiber optic like light pipe effect where just one bright LED at the end would make the whole strip glow. For that I might be bothered to go in there. The reflector blocks almost the whole strip so I'm still confused as
to what Mama Kaw was trying to do there. Only the very tip scatters any light and it's hardly worth it.
The persistence effect is a good idea for any running light LED setup, I've noticed that on most LED Christmas lights that the peripheral vision will notice the 30 cycles per second that they go off and on, but when you look at them directly they seem steady (unless you move them back and forth, then you'll see the light trail strobe). So what's a good speed? 20-25 times per second?

Two reasons, and the first one is 98% of the reason- I want the best possible lighting on the bike. The second reason is 'cause it will be cooler than other '08's (and I think any year C-14) but mostly just yours. 

I do ride at night and I want any and all possible advantage to spot the forest rats before they do the stupid thing they so often do.

Brian

And why are you doing this again? I won't ride at night because I like not running into large stupid animals, are you just bored?

Again, they seem to function as side marker lights. The top one also throws light up and forward and <may> help light street signs on the way by.

You could put a strip of LEDs on the inside and make then follow a 'chaser' pattern, sort of like landing lights at an airport.

Not sure of the cyclic rate of the lights, and not sure what the percentage of bright / dark should be. There is a company out there already making LED strips that flash in this manner and the couple of times I have seen them in person they always impressed me because I had to look at each bike a couple of times while wonder why I was looking... again. I will have to tinker with both how much they are dimmed during the low cycle as well as the speed. I think part of the trick is to attract the human eye while at the same time not attracting LEO's sufficiently.

Brian

Well I was hoping that they would have a sort of fiber optic like light pipe effect where just one bright LED at the end would make the whole strip glow. For that I might be bothered to go in there. The reflector blocks almost the whole strip so I'm still confused as
to what Mama Kaw was trying to do there. Only the very tip scatters any light and it's hardly worth it.
The persistence effect is a good idea for any running light LED setup, I've noticed that on most LED Christmas lights that the peripheral vision will notice the 30 cycles per second that they go off and on, but when you look at them directly they seem steady (unless you move them back and forth, then you'll see the light trail strobe). So what's a good speed? 20-25 times per second?

They produce a bright spot on the ground beside the front wheel.
Why, I have no idea but I kinda like them.
A riding friend refers to them as my "light stabilisers".
They are probably there to improve side visibility and the downwards effect is just by accident.

I looked at mine just yesterday and the light spot on the ground is created by a facet on top of the reflector housing, not by the plastic 'stick' lenses on the sides. Then again, I have HIDs so it might be different with halogen lighting.

Brian

They produce a bright spot on the ground beside the front wheel.
Why, I have no idea but I kinda like them.
A riding friend refers to them as my "light stabilisers".
They are probably there to improve side visibility and the downwards effect is just by accident.

The persistence effect is a good idea for any running light LED setup, I've noticed that on most LED Christmas lights that the peripheral vision will notice the 30 cycles per second that they go off and on, but when you look at them directly they seem steady (unless you move them back and forth, then you'll see the light trail strobe).

*I* notice that (and can't stand it), *YOU* notice that, but apparently most people don't notice 30Hz (from my personal, interactive experience/questioning).

So what's a good speed? 20-25 times per second?

I am guessing to trigger the "masses", it has to be significantly slower.  20 Hz will probably do it.  I am sure there are writeups on that stuff on the web somewhere...

You could put a strip of LEDs on the inside and make then follow a 'chaser' pattern, sort of like landing lights at an airport.

That might be illegal.  Not sure...

[Re: persistence lighting/strobing] I think part of the trick is to attract the human eye while at the same time not attracting LEO's sufficiently.

Yep, that is probably the case.  If they appear to be pretty much just "on" when looking straight at them, one is likely to not get in trouble (as long as they are white or yellow on front, yellow on sides, or red on rear, of course).

Changing anything on the headlights is illegal in the US simply because the vehicle was not approved with that very specific lighting in place. But a tracer strip of lights might attract unwanted attention to an illegal modification. Put another way, it is illegal but it would be more illegal if it caught the attention of a LEO. :-)

Brian

That might be illegal.  Not sure...

Yep, that is probably the case.  If they appear to be pretty much just "on" when looking straight at them, one is likely to not get in trouble (as long as they are white or yellow on front, yellow on sides, or red on rear, of course).