Soon after I got home from that trip, I ordered a kit to retrofit my stock headlights with High Intensity Discharge lights (HIDs), which sat untouched for almost a year.

From Wikipedia:

HID stands for high-intensity discharge, a technical term for the electric arc that produces the light. The high intensity of the arc comes from metallic salts that are vapourised within the arc chamber. These lamps are formally known as gas-discharge burners, and produce more light for a given level of power consumption than ordinary tungsten and tungsten-halogen bulbs. Because of the increased amounts of light available from HID burners relative to halogen bulbs, HID headlamps producing a given beam pattern can be made smaller than halogen headlamps producing a comparable beam pattern. Alternatively, the larger size can be retained, in which case the xenon headlamp can produce a more robust beam pattern.

I knew that the ballasts that run these lights would need more robust wiring, so I also ordered a wiring harness from Jim at Eastern Beaver Electrics. It shipped remarkably fast from Japan.

Installation

I took exactly zero pictures of the install process, so I will recap this with words as best I can. The installation process started with removing the flyscreen and headlight assembly from the bike.

Once the headlights were removed, I laid in the new wiring harness and started trying to figure out how the system of relays, terminals, and fuse connectors linked up with everything.

The fused end was obvious, so I connected it to the battery terminals and removed the fuse (so the harness wouldn’t be live). The relay ends were a bit more complex, but between searching for similar installations on Badweatherbikers and some trial and error (resulting in half a dozen blown 10amp fuses) I finally figured out how it all went together.

The wiring harness has two 30 amp relays built into it. These relays are no different than a light switch, except that they use electrical current to flip the “switch” instead of your finger. Once I figured out how they worked, I realized that I was supposed to use the stock headlight wiring as the “switch current” for them. This made perfect sense; since the bike already knew how to switch between the high and low beams, this technique would allow me to use the high/low beam switch without modification. Once I got everything working, I wired in a jumper between the two wires that switch the high/low beams so that both stay on when I switch to high beams. This was optional, but it means fewer re-fires of the HID ballast, and will give more light on dark backroads.

<insert clever illustrations of what everything looks like here>

Shoving two ballasts and a bunch more wiring behind the tiny Ulysses flyscreen was one of the hardest parts of the project.

Results

Wow, what a difference. The HIDs take a few seconds to warm up when ignited, but quickly settle into a daylight-colored glow. When running both the high and low beams together,  I have full coverage across the roadway and well outside of the roadway as well. Street signs glow like they are lit from within.

Visually, it seems like there is twice as much light as there was before. Well worth the roughly 100 d0llar price of the imported HID kit, and highly recommended for any Ulysses owner who finds themselves on the road at night.

As soon as I got back to Dell, I bent a paper clip into a U shape and shorted the two main pins of the data port under the seat. Turn the key, hit the engine cutoff switch, and saw:

Blinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblink……….blink…blink………..blink……….Blinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblink

For those who don’t speak fluent Buell, what I did was cause the computer to display the error code(s) that were causing the check engine light to show by blinking the check engine light repeatedly. The first six fast blinks mean “pay attention, error code coming”, followed by two blinks (2), a pause, and a single blink (1), then another six fast blinks meaning “end of message”. So whatever was wrong was sending error code 21.

I called Bumpus Murfreesboro to see if they could look up that code, and it turned out to be the Exhaust Controller.

1200cc Buells are basically built with two exhaust systems in one muffler. One for low rpm-lower pressure use, and another for high rpm-high pressure use. The engine computer tells the exhaust controller when to open a valve in the exhaust to switch between these two modes, and it pulls a length of cable to actuate the valve.

Apparently my controller was malfunctioning.

So early Saturday morning, I took the bike down to Bumpus Murfreesboro to get checked out. They called yesterday to let me know that the work was finished. It was then that the story got a bit more interesting. My conversation with Dave, the service manager, went something like this:

Dave: “Did you buy this bike used?”

Me: “No, I bought it new from you guys”

Dave: “Has it had an aftermarket exhaust on it?”

Me: “No. It’s all stock”

Dave: “The reason I ask is because the cable that opens the valve in the exhaust has been removed”

Me: “Could it have been removed when it was rebuilt last year after I dropped it last year?”

Dave: “No, we wouldn’t have removed it for that….. Wait…. Did we do a dealer trade for you?”

Me: “Yes. I think it was a dealer in Alabama”

Dave: “Ah. That explains it. They may have been messing around with an exhaust before trading it to us”

So. I think my Uly has a fully functioning exhaust for the first time since I’ve had it. I’m picking the bike up from the dealer today and I wonder if I’ll be able to notice the difference.

I originally posted this on the Badweb forum, but decided to post it here as well.

Buell understands technology, and has generated some of the most innovative designs in the motorcycle industry. Zero-Torsional Load (ZTL) brakes, underslung exhaust, fuel-in-frame. These are only a few of the innovations that make Buell unique in the motorcycle world, and more recently, envied and copied. Look at where many motorcycle manufacturers are moving exhausts these days (under the bike).

When Buell released the XB12X Ulysses in 2006, I knew that eventually I would have one. I test drove one on three separate occasions. In October of 2007, I brought one home. Most of the bikes I have had before have lost their appeal within a year or so of ownership, but not this one. I’m just getting started with it.

I originally saw this video on the Motorcycle.com blog, and had to repost it here. It captures a lot of the reasons why I ride one.

Buell Motorcycles – :30 Advertisement – Patents from paul on Vimeo.

The install took roughly an hour, and there were very few hiccups on the way.

First step was to remove the instrument cluster from the bike, and bring it inside to where I was less likely to lose any of the small parts.

Here you can see the necessary ingredients: Instrument cluster from a 2008 Buell XB12X, Signal Dynamics voltage monitor, little blue electrical splicers (worthless, I ended up splicin into the wires themselves), and my Dell Mini 9, which was displaying the post referenced above.

This is what the voltage monitor itself looks like. The black box houses the electronics, and the LED is the output. Depending on the voltage it senses, it glows green (good), yellow (not as good) or red (bad). This alerts you to the health of your battery and charging system.

Disassembling the instrument cluster, you end up with this piece. Notice the two extra circles at the bottom? The LED will fit into one of those, which I have marked with a center punch so the drill bit doesn’t wander across the plastic face.

Drilling out the holes in this piece, the circuit board that holds all of the instrumentation, and the back of the cluster took only a few minutes. While threading the wiring for the LED through all of the necessary pieces I slightly mangled the heat-shrink tubing surrounding the LED, but I figure it will be protected by the rest of the cluster. Several screws later, I had this:

The wiring exits the cluster through a vent port on the back that would normally allow moisture to escape. Now it allows moisture and wiring to escape. The electronics adhere to the back of the cluster with double sided tape. The only part left to do is to wire the positive red wire and the negative black wire to somwhere that receives power on the bike when it is running.

I chose the two leads that come out of the accessory plug. Since the accessory plug is only hot when the bike is running,it is the perfect location. Incidentally, the two blue wire splicing plugs seen in this photo didn’t work at all, so I threw them out and spliced directly into the wires themselves. A few tight wraps of electrical tape, and I should be good to go.

The final step was to test the monitor to see if everything was working correctly. Turn the key, set the ignition to on, and thumb the starter.

The bike coughed to life, and the LED flashed green, then yellow, then red, then settled at green and stayed lit. Perfect.

Now I know at a glance whether the battery is in good shape or not, and it samples in real time, so every time I plug in a GPS, heated vest, or turn on the heated hand grips I know what the electrical system is doing.

This image is from two weeks before it went into the shop

It went into the shop on October 30th, and came out on January 21st. Nearly everything on the bike is new at this point except for the motor, seat, etc. Close to $5000 in new parts, and another $1000 in estimated labor. The last two weeks have been spent waiting on a single fuel pump line worth $50 bucks or so. The dealership finally had to call another dealer in Mississippi and convince them to ship them one out of their own stock, as Harley corporate was backordered on them until March.

Even though the ride home was cold, it felt good to be back on two wheels.

No real ride report, as this happened months ago. Next trip will have a formal write up.