Need HID Lighting help

[SwainRacing]

Ok we are going to be running the 6 hour and 12 hour races that are in the dark and I need to know what you TRX450 guys are doing to run HID lighting on your quads? What systems are you running and do you have to have your stator beefed up and did you have to add a battery? Any help would be great!
Thanks for your help!

[Big Slick]

www.trailtech.net makes a pretty sweet HID kit.

25 watts a piece and you can run your stock lights at the same time.

[trailtech]

You do not need to do anything to the stator. It would be best to add a battery for the HID.
For the actual light, the best option is an 8" HID and maybe a pair of helmet lights.

An 8" HID will run about $450. It will be good enough to be used for the next several years on any quad.

[cummingetit]

When it comes to HID off road lights, look no further than Hella. The quality is second to none. Hella is Oem for Audi, Merc, Jag....

I run two "FF" series Hella lights on my ex with no charging mods. You will need to disconnect the stock lights, they use more power than the HIDs.

[trailtech]

cummingetit,

Hella makes good lights but automotive lights do not work well off-road. Car lights use beam clipping to prevent blinding oncoming traffic - beam clipping is the last thing you want for off-road lighting. Your front end is pitching at 15x then angle of an on-road vehicle.

[cummingetit]

Trail tech

Yes you are right, about the driving lights. They found a second home on the quad. They do get the job done though.

Hella does make off road lights that would be applicable.

How many lumans does one MR16 produce?

[SwainRacing]

Thanks for the help guys!

cummingetit
do you have a photo of your quad with the lights on?

Thanks again!

[cummingetit]

I do not have a pic with the lights on, but i will take one.

[trailtech]

cummingetit,

To my knowledge, Hella does not make ANY off-road specific lights. You can verify this by looking on the box and/or lens for any ECE or DOT approvals. If they have any of these approvals, they are good for street use and not for off-road.

I know this is true of their high end HID's and Halogen's (Rallye 4000 and 8000 series).

Another way to check is to run you machine up against a garage door and look at the light pattern, if it is flat on top, it is clipped and not optimal for off-road. All the big manufacturers do this because the on road market is MUCH bigger than the off-road market. For some stupid reason, they even clip the beam on the stock TRX and YFZ lights! Go figure, they are either worried about blinding some guy who might be coming the other way at night or they are just too lazy to go out and optimize their lights........

[cummingetit]

All of Hella HID is high end.

If you have been around much off road racing at all you will have seen the rallye HID more times than you can count.

What are you getting at?

[trailtech]

cummingetit,

It is our job to be around and involved in as much off road racing as possible. We see Hella lights on most of the off-road cars.

You are correct, Hella owns the automotive off-road market with the Rallye 8000 HID. Just because they own the automotive market does not mean that the light is optimized for off-road. Even more, what works for an off-road car does not necessarily work for an ATV or motorcycle. The shorter your wheelbase, the bigger problem beam clipping becomes (shotrer wheelbase vehicles pitch more). Also, as the speeds are slower, the hot spot in the middle of the Hella reflectors is not good use of light for ATV's or motorcycles.

I was simply pointing out the Hella has leveraged their on-road reflectors into their "off-road" lights which give them a handicap in my opinion.