J.W. Speaker Hid Headlight

J.W. Speaker HID Headlight

CW EVALUATION

Turning night into day

ON A MOTORCYCLE, LIGHTING IS A LOT like horsepower and performance: You can’t have too much of it. Anything that helps you knife through the pitch black with better visibility definitely falls under the category of “a good thing.” Which explains why the J.W. Speaker Corp. has developed a High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlight just for motorcycles.

Like most other headlights, an HID bulb is filled with gas; but instead of illuminating that gas with a glowing wire filament, an HID does it by firing a powerful arc across two electrodes. This results in four to five times more light than given off by standard bulbs, with a “color impression,” as the techies call it, that approaches daylight. Plus, with no wire filament to fail from vibration, expected life of the HID light is about 10 times that of a regular bulb. A few other companies offer similar HID lights, but the 8100 is the fiîSt t0 DOT ap proval, making it legal in all 50 states. It also is the same light that Victory offers as an option on its Vegas models.

Though the 8100 could be adapted to most bikes in which the light assembly would physically fit, it is intended for 1996 and later Harley-Davidsons with a single, 7-inch round headlight. This includes some Softails and all FL touring models except the Road Glide. If installed on a Harley that has a headlight nacelle, purchase of a separate retaining ring kit ($50) is necessary.

To generate the arc, the system uses a ballast to convert low-voltage input power into a very high voltage, much like a fluorescent light. An HID bulb takes a few seconds to initialize, so it serves only as the low beam and is always on; the high-beam function is left to a separate halogen bulb. The package also includes a control module that delays the firing of the ballast until the engine has started. This is necessary because the initial current draw is a whopping 20 amps, whereas the steady-state draw is just 3.2 amps.

Installation of a Speaker system on an H-D Electra Glide took us a few hours, and we were very pleased with the results. We had to make one minor clearance modification to the fairing so the light unit would fit comfortably, but everything else installed without a hitch. Finding room to mount the ballast and control module can be a bit of a problem on Softails,

but those components are easily hidden on the faired FL series.

Our first late-night ride was enough to convince us that this light is worth the investment. It provides a curb-to-curb spread of brilliant, pure-white illumination on low beam, augmented by a narrower shaft of light that penetrates deep into the night when high beam is flicked on. A secondary benefit is higher visibility that allows other vehicles to see you even in bright sunshine.

You could say, then, that J.W. Speaker’s HID light offers benefits at both ends of the “see and be seen” spectrum.

DETAILS

J.W. Speaker Corp.

W185 N11315 Whitney Dr. Germantown, Wl 53022 262/251-6660 www.jwspeaker.com Price...$399

Draws no more current than stock headlight Cooler-looking than your buddy’s 3500 hours of bulb life!

Downs Steep initial cost Replacement bulb $150 Can’t be fitted to some models