Linnm

One more item to think about. Lighting is more than just the bulb but rather is carefully designed to use the bullb with a particular reflector design in order to maximize light in the right places and minimize it where it is not needed/wanted

In shorter words--just a "hot" bulb may not produce the effect that you seek

Linnm

One more item to think about. Lighting is more than just the bulb but rather is carefully designed to use the bullb with a particular reflector design in order to maximize light in the right places and minimize it where it is not needed/wanted

In shorter words--just a "hot" bulb may not produce the effect that you seek

slicky rick

Has anybody tried replacing the halogen bulb with an h7 hid conversion bulb. I know we will have comments of uneccessary as the bi xenon are more than adequate, just wondering how it would illuminate the road. One will loose the flash feature but my god what illunimation will it give....

USMC_DS1

Check with your local DOT laws but I seem to recall that it's illegal to do so in some states so I never looked into it. I'd be curious though re the legal aspects of doing this.

slicky rick

No laws preventing where i am. Just wondering if this will really light up the road. As i recall the halogen hi beams actually fill in the areas where the low beam leaves when we switch to high beams.

slicky rick

Knowing this, blinding light will probably not happen as the new hid bulbs actually illuminate the lower portion of the light area, lower than the line of sight of the incoming traffic

ilko

I've done it in my old 993, the high beams on that car were pathetic. The HIDs helped a tremendous amount! The downside is that if I wanted to flash somebody, it was a bit awkward as the HID bulbs take a couple of seconds to warm up, and it was not very effective.

With respect to the 997.1, the headlights are bi-xenon which means that the low beam acts as a high beam as well - a little gate opens inside the low beam HID lens when you turn on the high beams. That, coupled with the H7 bulb should give you plenty of brightness.

If you still want to use the HID bulb, you should be able to fit the whole assembly quite nicely inside the housing since the ballasts these days are quite small. I haven't had a chance to test the brightness/range of the high beams in my 997 yet, but if I'm disappointed with the result I'll definitely install 3000K HIDs. 3000K light is very effective in fog/rain/snow and doesn't have the blinding effect the common 4300/5000K bulbs have in increment weather.

That is incorrect, the lens on the high beams disperses light in all directions, regardless of its position. It doesn't have a leveling mechanism or a gate like the low beam. It is placed on the bottom of the headlight so that the main beam can go at the top and light up higher up the road - something our vertically challenged cars definitely need

Minok

1) The lag to turning them on, means you cannot get them fired up for far seeing quickly.. is that acceptable?

2) Many more duty cycles - having to beam down and up as oncoming traffic comes by will send the high beams through a lot more on/off cycles. Do xenons work well in that environment?

3) More near field illumination will draw your focus away from the distance a pencil thin, far reaching beam looking way down the road, to the broader near field illumination you will get with a more spread beam. That has you looking at things you cannot avoid at speed at the expense of not focusing as hard on the distance you can react to. So making sure the beam pattern is well adjusted to the high beam aim and focus is critical.

slicky rick

Minok, you are so right these are concerns when we do this exercise. Hmm will it be practical?
Ilko, are you sure? When my lights are facing a wall i clearly see that the h7 halogens actually provide the low beam pattern on high beam mode. The main hid light moves up and creats a broader pattern but leaves a section it previously illuminated on low beam mode, i guess a plate moves to change this pattern. This is why i thought that changing the h7 should not create blinding light as it provides low placed light. In addition the h7 is also housed in a projector unit so should provide controlled light.
Last item i am talking about lights that have dynamic control, the ones that have the 2 projector units in the headlight housing. I think you were reffering to the lights that had one projector and one open lens.

slicky rick

Minok, actually on the third point, i sometimes feel that my lights are too high on highs and too low on low beam mode but they were already aimed by the dealer. On highs, the hids light up the whole place tremendously but as you said the near field illlumination decreases, i feel i want this near field illumination improved, though i did not think it would create a risk by making me focus near rather than far at speed.

slicky rick

With these concerns, that minok mentioned, is there an h7 led headlight conversion avail that will provide more lumens? Take note more lumens not brighter. This will take care of the cycling and the fast start up