[Wrassemeister]

hey guys... I purchased an hid kit which consisted of a set of two h3 bulbs and two slim ballasts and igniters for $39.95 plus shipping. I installed them in my 04 998 and its a night and day difference (the stock lighting is useless)! The h3 bulb fits perfectly fine in the h1 highbeam spot. the ballasts are 35 watt ballasts and they are lower amperage than stock. The ballasts are very small and fit right behind the oem cluster. Lots of guys on the r1 forum use these. I Will post some pics of the outcome soon... but if you are interested in the upgrade, these kits can be purchased from ddm tuning. They are the raptor brand ones and come in pairs.

http://www.ddmtuning.com/index.php?p=product&id=102&parent=85

 

[Nacademus]

Please do post more. I was looking into installing HID on my 748. Could you perhaps post pics of where you hid the ballasts, as well as how well your beams look now? What temp lamps did you get? Thanks!

 

[Wrassemeister]

The lights are extremely bright. The stock bulb is tiny and has terrible light output, quite frankly its dangerous. I got the 6k ones. The install was very easy; the hardest part was just finding the space to hide the ballasts, also you have to bend the low beam bulb clip a little to get it to fit over the larger hid h3 bulb. The h3 bulb fits perfectly into the h1 high beam bulb spot. Since the ballasts are very small you are able to hide them inside the front fairing behind the gauge cluster... its a tight squeeze but they fit in there. I will take pics tomorrow, I keep my bike at my buddies garage and i'm not by it now.

 

[SuicideHz]

Those DDM guys are C()cksuckers though. They sent me my 55w kit and H3 bulb which sparked up once and never again. I cannot contact them for their lifetime warranty. I've read up on them and supposedly it IS in FACT a bunch of Chinese kids working in the back of a shop in CA putting these things together.

My H3 didn't even fit in the socket correctly. I don't know what it was rebased for but it wasn't the H3 the Ducati requires...

 

[SuicideHz]

Wrasse- Are you going up to Player's Club Tuesday night? The 9th? I plan on being there.

I'd like to see how you hid the ballasts.

Joe

 

[Wrassemeister]

Probably not, I'm still waiting on a few more parts for the bike before I start taking it out. The ballasts and igniters are not noticeable unless you take the front fairing off. There is a small bit of space right behind the gauge cluster, so you are able to mount the ballast right on top of the headlight bucket behind the cluster and you can also mount the igniters right on top of the slim ballasts... I wish I took a few pics of the install, But I didn't think of it because I was too excited to put them on lol. I will most likely end up taking the front fairing off again as soon as my led bulbs for the cluster back lighting come in and ill snap a few pics then.

As far as the h3 bulbs fitting, they fit perfectly... they are obviously going to be larger because there are two power leads running right to the bulb unlike the stock h3 bulb which has one off to the side, so there is a minor issue with refitting the stock metal retaining clip, but with some force and bending it snaps in place and hold the bulb well.

For the money, you cant get a better deal in my opinion, the extra light output is much appreciated....

The high beam is way too bright to ride around with though it will easily blind oncoming drivers and should be used when there are no oncoming vehicles.

 

[SuicideHz]

Dang, you better make it! I need to see this in action.

 

[tonered]

The high beam is way too bright to ride around with though it will easily blind oncoming drivers and should be used when there are no oncoming vehicles.

Too freakin' funny. This is a warning that would only come from a Duc owner.

I have also been thinking about a HID upgrade for my ST. Thanks for the link.

Have a good one.

 

[desmoduo]

I don't have these for my 916 just yet, but I did install the actual 55W DDM slim ballast kit on the Exige earlier this year. The quality of the kit is really good, and actually, I found customer service to be very good. They do have some QA work to be done, as they originally sent me the 35W kit. But they were very responsive and immediately emailed me a shipping label for the return. I had my kit a few days later. The key is getting them on the phone. They aren't very responsive in email.

FWIW, I'd spend a few extra $$ and get the DDM slim ballast kit -->http://www.ddmtuning.com/index.php?p=product&id=101&parent=85. It's extremely light weight, and could easily be tucked out of the way. One other thing to consider is that HID's don't respond well to flashing. If you are a flasher eek I'd just do the low beam and reserve the second ballast/bulb as spares