Its in, it works but the beam pattern is less then desired. I am figuring I am just down to bulb placement now, but I am going to pick your minds on which direction it needs to go. I have only modded one lamp so far so I have the original, unmodded lamp to compare to. It seems like the pattern may be tighter then the original pattern as well, but its not where it should be. Im expecting the patterns to be slightly different due to the size of the arc compared to the filament, but they should still be similar. Right now they are like completely different lamps.

The beam pattern hits the ground considerably sooner then its halogen counterpart. In fact, the entire pattern is lower. Bulb to high in housing? I am thinking that it may be a slight bit off center (right) because the hotspot is a little left of center.

Today will be my friday so I will be able to tear into both lamps over my weekend to compare filament/arc position, bolt the ballasts to the car, etc.

-Jon

what headlamp/vehicle/h4/h7 is this on?

...H9, Hella 90mm.

so u are working on a high beam H9 Hella 90mm?

Yes I am.

I found it. Since I was quickly throwing the car back together last night to reseal the lamp, I didnt take measurements or check fit.

A quick comparison to the unmodded backing plate with bulb showed me that I had the bulb pushed in about 3mm too far and it was ever so slightly off center.

All is good now. To finish up this side I need to get some O-rings to seal the backing plate to the housing and to seal the bulb to the backing plate.

I still have yet to do a test drive but putting it up against a 5'x5' white board at about 10' gives me a very close example of what the old lamp used to create, only much brighter.

-Jon

High beam needs more distance to focus than low beams, use 20ft distance.

I will take them to my favorite aiming spot tonight. The car was locked in the driveway last night otherwise I would have done it then.

I thought that the H9 highbeams were good before, they are quite nice now. On the interstate the car is like a small train when I approach an underpass. I cant have them on if anyone is in front of me, partly out of respect and partly because I dont want to draw attention to myself.

Anyway, they are all complete. Here is an early pic when I was still playing with bulb placement (the right lamp had the bulb too high in this pic). They are now even and the pattern begins hitting the ground about 30' in front of the car. The lowbeams were on in this pic, they were the H9 versions at the time.



The pattern is just slightly tighter then the pattern created by the H7 lows but goes out (and up) for as far as I can see. Foreground illumination is almost equal to the lowbeams with it just getting stronger the further out you go.

-Jon

I actually tried a very similar thing before I started assembling my headlamp: Inserting D2S into the hella 90mm high beams. They relly looked good. Would be nice to have, I live in a very urban area - lots of traffic, no chance to get to use high beams. The seup you have there is not far from the setup that is used by many LeMans cars. One or two high beam Xenon hella 90mm.

I have noticed what you are mentioning about the urban areas. Even on a fairly deserted interstate I will now keep them off (though I would keep the halogen highs turned most of the time too). They are just way too offensive to other motorists so if there is anyone in front of me I dont use them.

However, when noone is in front of me, I can steal one of Hella's slogans, I own the night.

I guess thats even more incentive to get the auxiliary 90mms 'foggies' inserted.