More ?? on 9007 vs 9004 bulbs rebuttal

[duandcc_forums at cox.net]

OK, this makes sense, but I would rather listen to the "opinions" of my fellow listeners. So, for those of you who converted your lights from 9004 to 9007...did it improve the lighting or make it worse?

Dave
1987 CGT Special Build
SE Virginia


>
> From: "John Stanton" <jjs3rd at ix.netcom.com>
> Date: 2003/03/05 Wed PM 09:12:56 EST
> To: <quattro at audifans.com>
> Subject: Re: More ?? on 9007 vs 9004 bulbs rebuttal
>
> Ok, more fuel for the fire.  I was kind of intrigued about getting better
> head lights on my 95 90q and decided to do some independent research.  Here
> is what I found.  Im confused now any truth to this?
>
>
>
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> Re: 9007 headlight bulbs[200/1988] posted by Daniel Stern on
> Sunday, 8 November 1998, at 6:55 p.m.
>
> The 9004 and 9007 are not interchangeable for several reasons:
>
> 1) The filaments are in a different position, and oriented differently. The
> 9004 filaments are transverse to the bulb axis, and the 9007 filaments are
> in line with the bulb axis. This is important because the reflector and lens
> optics of a particular headlamp are based on specific filament position and
> orientations. The US headlamp beam pattern is bad enough as it is--messing
> with the filament orientation can only worsen it.
>
> 2) The pinout is different. The high feed, low feed and common (ground)
> terminals are rearranged in the 9007 compared to the 9004.
>
> 3) The keying on the base is different, so a 9007 cannot be inserted into a
> 9004 headlamp or vice versa.
>
> To answer your implied question, you don't have a wattage problem, you have
> an objection to the US beam pattern, which doesn't generally do a very good
> job of lighting up the foreground (road near the vehicle) and which tends to
> produce a narrow, rather dim tunnel of light on the road with a "black hole"
> directly in front of the car. European headlamp beams don't have this
> deficiency at all, but US regulators at NHTSA like to pretend they know
> better than the rest of the world, so we're stuck with this kind of junk
> unless we're rich (to install the very expensive, but very good '86-'93 240
> European lamp assemblies) or own a car with sealed beams that can easily and
> economically be converted to European (H4 type) headlamps. "ten more watts"
> would not help your headlamps a bit. 100/80w 9004s wouldn't either, for
> electrical, mechanical and optical reasons which you can read all about at
> http://lighting.mbz.org/faq in the "overwattage bulb" section.
>
> If you're interested in more information about all of the different bulbs
> used in headlamps and fog lamps, I've put up a comprehensive chart at
> http://lighting.mbz.org/tech/info
>
> --Daniel Stern
> Stern Automotive Lighting Consultation
> http://lighting.mbz.org/tech
> Automotive Lighting Technical Info Centre
>
>