[s-cars] hid upgrades

[ccohen5]

Chris, I don't know where you got all that stuff about lamp and lighting
engineering, but you are spot on!

I used to be a a major investor and owner of Advanced Lighting, whose German
sub. invented the vehicle HID lamp for Osram and BMW in the early 80s.  The
point you make were all big issues at the time, and still are.

BTW, this is also one of the reasons why the so called Xenon conversion
bulbs for H1, H3, H4 and H7 are so ineffective at anything else but color
temperature change.  They are mostly designed for Euro/Asian lamps as fitted
to the OEM applications in those countries.  They therefore have different
focus points in their reflectors to those used in the US.  So no matter how
much you boost your wattage, you tend to get diminishing returns.  With a
Euro spec lamp, and given a well made bulb, the improvements are much more
noticeable.  This is especially true when a 9004 application is converted by
the OEM to say an H7 in the US.

These differences are caused by  nanny DOT rules.

Thanks.

Colin