Dual Dominator headlight Install & Comparison (picture heavy)

Started by Wagoneer, June 18, 2013, 10:40:10 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Wagoneer

So as I was headlight shopping I had a really hard time with finding a good review of the dominators as well as a good comparison to the stock single 7" headlight. So I took the dive a ordered a set of dominators and hopefully make a review/comparison that'll make it easier for future shoppers.

I'll start off with my review of the stock headlight. What can I say, there aren't many positives about the stock headlight. It's beam pattern is messy, a very small hot-spot in the middle, a puddle in front, and almost nothing to the sides. The bright is the same beam pattern, just a few feet higher. Night time driving isn't very fun at all with just the stock headlight.

On to the dominators! Install was super easy. I wouldn't call them "drop-in" like they're labelled, but they're very close to it. I had to grin off a bit of the stock turn signal brackets. If you're using flush mounts or any aftermarket stalks with their own brackets, you probably have nothing to worry about at all; the dominators will slide right in place. I wired up the city lights with cool white LED. There's a plug that isn't attached to anything (at least on my bike) with a brown and black wire, I cut the small plug off and spliced into it to power them. Does absolutely nothing but does visually make the lights seem a bit "whiter" to on-comers which is nice.

I'll start off with some detailed photos of the dominators. These are the matte black ones. They're surprisingly high quality having a completely metal housing and E-code glass lenses. They come already spliced together with a single H4 plug to go right into the OEM harness.







Now lets move on to some install photos. When you first remove the stock headlight, you're left looking at a bird's nest of wiring:



I've read some people chose to remove the gas tank and pull in as much of the wiring harness as possible and hide it in the frame, but I didn't see that as necessary. I tackled this issue by electrical taping up all the exposed coloured wire so that everything was a matching black (I did the same to the dominator harness) and tucking it nicely inbetween the forks behind the headlight. If you place it properly it fits in snugly and is completely hidden by the headlights.

I then found that when you slide in the dominators, they hit the turn signal brackets before the holes line up with the stock brackets. So I took out my angle grinder and went to town. (the photo is before I clean it up and painted it, just to show where grinding was needed).



After that's finished they should simply slide in and bolt up the stock headlight brackets.






Now for some comparison shots. This is the stock headlight beam pattern going down my driveway onto the street. I took all of these photos with the EXACT same settings on full manual with a DSLR. So the brightness levels are a direct comparison.

Stock headlight:





Stock low-beam:



Stock high-beam:



Dominators! This is with the horribly crappy and generic bulbs that they came with. I will take some more of the same shots after my Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs arrive.





Dominator low-beam:



Dominator high-beam:



So my views on the dominators. They ARE an improve over the stock headlights. People complain about how narrow the beam is, but as you can see from the photos, the hot-spot in the cetner is actually a low wider than the stock headlight. When you're on the road, it's even better. More light on the road = better headlight in my mind. The cut-off also seems a lot cleaner on the road. It doesn't seem that way on the garage door, but somewhere looks cleaner while driving down the road. The brights are where they really pull ahead from the stock headlight. The beam looks a little scattered on the garage door, but on the road there is simply light everywhere. And it's not a bad scatter that makes the light on the road dim, there's just simply more light in every direction which makes back road riding with these things AWESOME. This was the exact reason why I wanted to upgrade the headlight, and I'm super happy with how the high-beams perform.

So hopefully after these photos people can make their own decision on whether or not these headlights are right for them. Personally, I'd buy them again and I'm really happy with just about every aspect of them. I love the look, like the beam pattern, and love the quality.

:thumb:
'01 GS500
-140 rear tire
-Jardine exhaust
-jetted
-Katana 600 rear shock
-Sonic .90 fork springs
-1/2" aluminum fork brace
-dual dominators
-R6 throttle tube

Wagoneer

Just noticed the dominator a weren't leveled. I'll take some more of the beam pattern with them lined up properly.
'01 GS500
-140 rear tire
-Jardine exhaust
-jetted
-Katana 600 rear shock
-Sonic .90 fork springs
-1/2" aluminum fork brace
-dual dominators
-R6 throttle tube

Janx101

Ive had the dual setup on while the fairings were being repaired ..compared to the F light they lack a little! .. Beam pattern mainly ...

Though I do agree they may give a better view than the stock E light .. Based on your photos ...

A few things I did notice with mine ...
The Phillips 80+ or 100+ bulbs or any 'more than normal' bulb WILL improve the light penetration ...

You mention levelling the beams .. I started with that and then split them more like your photo again... The issue being trying to find a happy balance between low beam perfect and high beam perfect ... Whichever side of the road you ride on depending on your country .. I suggest you put the light on the side nearest to the white sideline of road .. Lower .. So you get good beam on your line -ish .. And the other you can set for better distance lighting ... (They are a little clumsy in adjustments)

Be really careful you don't touch the bulbs when you install/remove them at any time... The finger grease & any other moisture in the air will vaporise under the heat and coat the inside of the lens with a 'fine fog' ...  :icon_rolleyes: ... Which you can clean up with white spirit .. But it's a pain in the ass!

I added thin nylon washers between the arms and the housings ... The bolts need to be pretty tight so they don't move about.. But the nylon helps with fine tuning the adjustments ... Trying to hold the beam at the perfect spot while tightening the bolts ... Also is a pain in the ass!

That's the main stuff ... There were other minor things .. But I can't remember right now... A can't have been too bad eh!

:thumb:

Wagoneer

Yep, already went through all the things you mentioned (besides touching the bulb). Once you get them perfect and tightened up though you just forget about them!

I drove to and from work in the dark tonight (just a paperwork shift) and I really like them. In the city I couldn't even see the beam on the ground from the stock headlight because the street lights just overpowered them. With the dominators I can at least see the hot spot a lot better.

Yes the Philips Xtreme Vision are 100+ bulbs. I'm really looking forward to getting those in and seeing even more of an improvement.
'01 GS500
-140 rear tire
-Jardine exhaust
-jetted
-Katana 600 rear shock
-Sonic .90 fork springs
-1/2" aluminum fork brace
-dual dominators
-R6 throttle tube

JacobG

Hello, how do you deal with all of the wires, that are already on the bike. They can't be stuffed into the headlight, so they are not covered from water. But is that a problem?

Wagoneer

They're not exactly protected from water inside the OEM headlight either, the whole back of the housing is basically wide open, not sealed at all. I stuffed them all behind the dominators. Tight fit, but it works fine and you can hardly see them. I've been caught in two major rain storms and no problems at all so far.

With the Phillips +100 bulbs them, I'm pretty happy with the output.
'01 GS500
-140 rear tire
-Jardine exhaust
-jetted
-Katana 600 rear shock
-Sonic .90 fork springs
-1/2" aluminum fork brace
-dual dominators
-R6 throttle tube

JacobG

Ah okay, so you can fit all of the connections inside the Dominators? I've thought of putting shrinkable rubber tubes around all of the connectors, so they'll be waterproof in all situations.

Wagoneer

Nothing fits inside the headlights, there's no room for anything in the dominators, it's just all tucked in behind them.
'01 GS500
-140 rear tire
-Jardine exhaust
-jetted
-Katana 600 rear shock
-Sonic .90 fork springs
-1/2" aluminum fork brace
-dual dominators
-R6 throttle tube

JacobG


yamahonkawazuki

Please just aim em properly :angel:, so 1 oncoming motorists can see you, you can see them, and you dont blind them, causing them to flash you, and in turn blinding you.
Jan 14 2010 0310 I miss you mom
Vielen dank Patrick. Vielen dank
".
A proud Mormon
"if you come in with the bottom of your cast black,
neither one of us will be happy"- Alan Silverman MD

Endopotential

#10
Nice to see a fellow fan of dual headlights.

I thought that the Dominators were a bit too small and beady-eyed, so I found some 5" LEDs meant for a Harley.



http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=70953.0

2007 GS500F Cafe Fighter - cut off the tail, K&N lunchbox, short exhaust, 20/60/140 jets, R6 shock, all sorts of other random bits...

The Buddha

Post link please. Also, how did you mount it ?
Cool.
Buddha.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I run a business based on other people's junk.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Endopotential

#12
These were the headlights.  Superbright and really cool looking.  I try not to ride in the dark here in crazy SF, so can't really vouch for real-world illumination.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/One-Pair-Chrome-4-5-LED-Fog-Light-With-Halo-Angel-Eyes-For-Harley-Davidson-/142307726314?hash=item21223393ea

Here's the housing http://www.ebay.com/itm/2Pcs-4-5-LED-Fog-Light-Outer-Cover-Bracket-Trim-For-Harley-Davidson-Motorcycle-/272601278398?hash=item3f784d67be

The seller rattmmotor101 was a good person, sent me an extra headlight for free when the first one had a glitch.

I don't have a good picture of the mounts currently.  The lower triple clamp conveniently has two threaded holes on its bottom surface (maybe for fairings that have since been removed on my '07 F?).  I then made a couple of simple S-shaped brackets from a thin steel bar, with rubber mounts going to the bottom of the headlights.
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=70953.0

2007 GS500F Cafe Fighter - cut off the tail, K&N lunchbox, short exhaust, 20/60/140 jets, R6 shock, all sorts of other random bits...

The Buddha

Lower triple ? well Kat FE on mine, also I may need it for the SV, not neccesarily the GS. I'll look into it, the dominator ones are in many SV's, so I know they do fit good.
Cool.
Srinath.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I run a business based on other people's junk.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Wagoneer

Do they have any sort of cut-off?

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

'01 GS500
-140 rear tire
-Jardine exhaust
-jetted
-Katana 600 rear shock
-Sonic .90 fork springs
-1/2" aluminum fork brace
-dual dominators
-R6 throttle tube

Endopotential

What do you mean by cutoff?  Like no power on startup?  They don't seem to draw an inordinate amount of power. They also have a cool ring of LEDs around the periphery which I wired to be the turn signals. I know, not really legit but it's pretty cool
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=70953.0

2007 GS500F Cafe Fighter - cut off the tail, K&N lunchbox, short exhaust, 20/60/140 jets, R6 shock, all sorts of other random bits...

Wagoneer

Sorry I meant cut off like in the beam pattern as to not blind on-coming traffic. Do they have high-low function? Seems to be just a power and ground wire going to them.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

'01 GS500
-140 rear tire
-Jardine exhaust
-jetted
-Katana 600 rear shock
-Sonic .90 fork springs
-1/2" aluminum fork brace
-dual dominators
-R6 throttle tube

Endopotential

Sorry, not sure about the cut off.  Again, I do my best to avoid after-dark riding for the sake of self-preservation here in California traffic.

But the few times I have ridden after dark, no horns from other drivers so fingers crossed.

They have the central LED which is the bright one.  Then a ring of LEDs around the periphery which are reasonably bright, which I guess you could turn on to serve as high beam (though probably not sufficient).

I just wired mine to have both central lights to be on full time, for maximum visibility.  Then used the LEDs on the periphery as turn signals.  I know, I know, not legit...
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=70953.0

2007 GS500F Cafe Fighter - cut off the tail, K&N lunchbox, short exhaust, 20/60/140 jets, R6 shock, all sorts of other random bits...

iamhiding

twin doms get a lot of hate i find, mostly justified i reckon. :icon_lol: :icon_rolleyes:

light output really does lack, even with decent bulbs and some people will go on about LED or HID but i'm not going to touch that topic haha. doms with decent bulbs are more than adequate unless you do a lot of riding on dark unlit country roads, i've used a couple of different sets on different bikes and i've found them to be dangerously underpowered, for riding at a decent pace they just don't project light far enough.

where i reckon a lot of people go wrong and i think this is possibly why doms get so much hate is how people mount them. most standard headlight brackets seem to leave them protruding too far out and most aftermarket brackets are even worse. personally i quite like the look of them if they're mounted nice, discretely and snug.

some observations and past experience but yeah good post man, always love seeing what people get up to  :thumb:  :cheers:

and endopotential's bike is just sublime. 
current project list:
//cbr 600 f3 fighter
//gsxr 1100 mental oldskool supersport
//gs500 daily rat tracker cafe fighter that changes every couple of month... cafe fighter?

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk