PIAA 510 ATP Series Light Kit Review

Review By: Buster

If you do any trail riding at all in the dark, then you know that whatever your current lighting setup is, it can be improved upon. Whether it's adding brighter bulbs to your factory lights, or adding secondary lighting to your quad, if you ride at night, you'll want to improve your visibility.

PIAA is the lamp of choice for manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz and Toyota because they continually exceed SAE durability and corrosion standards. The compact and ultra thin housing provides for an unlimited amount of applications. The 4" diameter the PIAA 510 ATP Series Light kit is a natural fit for both ATVs and Side by Sides as well as many cars and trucks.

The ATP Series is a newly released line of lamps made specifically for the all-terrain product industry. The beam pattern wider and longer than conventional ATV lighting patterns and should be perfect for off-road use.

Product Details:

Bulb Type: 12V - H3, 35watt = 60watt, Extreme White bulbs give a cool white light.
Description: Black stamped steel housing and glass lens
Kit Includes: Two lamps, wiring harness, relay, weatherproof switch and two black mesh style covers

Size: 4-7/16" Overall height, 3-15/16" Diameter, 2-7/16" Deep

Mounting Options:

Initial Thoughts:

Upon first inspection, it was clear that our light kit was made with the quality one would expect from a company such as PIAA. I immediately felt that this light kit was well worth the money. The housing is made of stamped steel and appears extremely durable.

The lens is made of glass rather than a cheap plastic found on many other competitors' products. This also allows for additional options down the road in the way of bulbs since the glass lens will withstand more heat than a plastic lens would. This means the lens can handle much brighter bulbs for the freaks who just have to have the brightest bulbs money can buy when the provided 35/60 watts bulbs aren't quite bright enough. That is assuming your quad's electrical system can handle it. Remember to check the output capabilities of your application or ask a professional to assess this for you before you damage something.

Moving right along, the provided parts appear to be well made in typical PIAA fashion. We can honestly say we've never had a PIAA product that we didn't like. The optional mounting brackets provided by PIAA are just icing on the cake, setting them far above the competition. Most importantly, the provided instructions are well-written, ensuring that the most technically-challenged enthusiast would still be able to handle the install with basic tools.

Installation:

With two different mounting brackets available, you need to first decide how and where you want to mount the lights. this way you will know what size bracket is needed for your particular application. We mounted ours in a couple of different spots to see what we liked best.

We wanted to experiment mounting them in a few different locations. We first mounted them on our front rack and felt they looked pretty good there. After a test ride, they seemed quite functional. However, we weren't 100% satisfied with this mounting setup, yet we weren't quite sure why. There was something that could be better about our chosen mounting location, but we couldn't quite put our finger exactly what it was. Was it the look or function (function having nothing to do with the lights themselves but more of how they worked where we currently had them mounted.)? They consumed part of the rack thus eliminating a portion of it's usability. Plus, they were virtually unprotected sitting high up front.

We knew we wanted something a little different anyway so we took another route and decided to use the #74100 mount shown above. With this mount we installed them on our handlebars. Right off the bat, we knew this was where they needed to be. After a little adjustment, they seemed to be just perfect there.

There are a few advantages to this final position: Not only does it look pretty trick mounted there, but they're a bit more functional than on the rack. When mounted on the rack, the lights are in a fixed position just like the headlights. However, mounted on the bars, they're aiming wherever you point your front wheels. This in turn lights up the area you're about to approach while turning. This is a much better setup in our opinion, so that's that we stuck with.

Now that we've decided on a mounting spot, it was time to run the wiring. PIAA provided the kit with a nice wiring harness that included a sealed switch that actually lights up. An easy to understand wiring diagram was also included. We routed our wires down the handle bars, below the handlebar mounts and then towards the battery alongside the other wires in the factory harness. After connecting the positive wire to the battery as well as a ground, we simply plugged in the pair of wires from each light, used some tie wraps to affix everything in place and awaited darkness to fall upon us once again.

With the lights mounted on our bars, we positioned them low enough to look good and still allow an ample view of our speedo. Initially, we were unsure whether the lights would block an easy view of the dash, but with some fine tuning of our mounts, we had it so the view was perfect. Our initial test consisted of sitting on a straight road with factory headlights burning on low, then flipping the PIAA lights on. There was a substantial difference when compared to the factory low beams. The top mounted PIAAs shined a much great distance as well as spread out wider than the factory pattern. We then did the same comparison against the factory high beam. While the high beams obviously did a much better job, they still couldn't compete with the PIAA ATP driving lights. We still found that the PIAAs reached out farther and wider than the factory headlights.

Now, its off to the trail so we can further test our current mounting location, atop the handlebars to better assess their performance. It was instantly obvious that night time trail riding was much better in every way with the lights mounted on the handlebars. Our improved visibility allowed for us to better prepare for the obstacles and hazards we encountered on the trail. We could now see further around turns making night riding much safer.  While going around a fast turn, the factory headlights will shine straight ahead into the tree line, while our PIAAs shined in the direction of the front wheels. This gave us a much better field of view. In essence, this protected us from hazards and allowed us to greatly increase our trail speeds on our nighttime rides. We not only were able to see around a corner, but the beam was longer and wider so we could see farther ahead even in straight line runs as well. With this wider beam pattern, we found they were now shining into the tree-line to allow us watch for deer or varmint that could run into our path at any given moment.

In the sample shot taken above, you can tell we were sitting on top of a hill with the quad aiming slightly downhill. However, this view shows the extreme lighting abilities of the PIAA 510 ATP Lights.

All in all, we were very impressed. Since we like to ride a good bit at night, we feel like these were a great addition to our quad. The PIAA 510 ATP lights are a must have for anyone who rides trails in the dark. PIAA has produced a quality product that truly performs as advertised and is welll worth the money. That’s why AtvTorture gives these lights our “Tortured” stamp of approval.

Contact Information:

PIAA Corporation USA
3004 N.E. 181st Ave.
Portland, OR 97230 US
P: 800.525.7422
F: 503.489.6600
http://www.piaa.com