Hi Ken, according to the Hella blurb the FF50 has a slightly longer throw which is why I went with them. I have a FF50 on my BMW which I have converted to HID. I tried converting the headlight to HID but got flashed ny everyone as it was just not the right reflector for it. Also in OZ it is illegal to have HID on low beam without the right reflector and rear suspension levelling in place ie we can't.
So for high beam I added the FF50 with HID and it is phenomenal. Will be done to the RGS when it gets here.
I did a write up on it for the K11 page which I will copy here:-
So faced with buying Piaas at an enormous cost I decided to convert my existing Hella FF50 to HID. Turned out to be really easy and at 5% of the cost of the PIAAs very affordable as well. And the light!! Phenomenal!! It's a wonder all those photons shooting out the front don't slow the bike down.
So here's the result, along with a swag of bugs from the recent SS1600:-
The HID kit is from an ebay seller elconline although there are many others. I chose the 4300K temp and the FF50 takes the H7 bulb. If you have a different driving light then you should be able to get something to fit it as well. Just search eBay for "HID Motorcycle H7 kit" and you should find something in your area. This particular kit is also available from http://hidcountry.com/Products/motorcyclehidconversion.php (Thanks to Naked Hoof for pointing that one out).
So this is what you get in the box:-
Power goes in the red and black wires, just wire this in instead of the original bulb. Note this is polarity sensitive, ie the red wire must be +ve.
You need to pull the light apart to install the bulb and drill a big hole in the case. I did it in the middle next to the original hole. The big rubber grommet fits in there well:-
To mount the light, I already had 2 holes under the chin of the fairing I used for some previous lights, I drilled holes in the FF50 bracket to suit, but if I was doing it again I would use the supplied bolt in the middle. I don't like drilling holes in the bike but at least these are not visible really. You need to take the black cover plate out which is 4 screws to get at the other end of the bolts.:-
For the ballast I used double sided foam tape to stick it to the inside of the fairing under and just behind the horn on the right hand side:-
The other bit of the ballast sits in front of the forks under the headlight quite neatly. Cable ties used to keep it and the wiring under control.
So under the left hand vent you can see the wiring for the 3 relays, 2 for the hi/lo headlight and one for the FF50. The left switch turns all headlights off and on, some of you refer to this as the euro switch which ours aren't fitted with, and the right one turns the FF50 off or on, but the on only works when the high beam is on of course. I'm going to install a bit of matte black plastic over the relay wiring to hide it eventually. I also have a 6 pin connector between the relays and the wiring to make it easy to remove the sidecover.
So I am much happier with setup than the HID headlight which to be honest was a disaster, and WAY cheaper than the PIAAs, although I will admit the PIAAs are neater as the ballast is inside them, but unfortunately I'm poor...... And yep it works brilliantly! I have a second FF50, I might set it up so that I can fit it for long trips and take it off again for the bulk of the time. But there's so much light now, I'm not sure it's needed.
http://k11og.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8867
