Jon:
You are in the right path my friend. I tinkered with the H7, H9 and even the 120mm Projectors. Since the 120mm was way too big for our application, it came down to the H7 and the H9.
If you do more research you will find that the H9 is actually the Hella 90mm Xenon, slightly modded to take the halogen H9, thus offering the customer awesome lighting for fraction of the cost.
Another indication of the superiority of the H9 is the fact that the bulb is 65 Watts, which is the brighest DOT approved bulb found anywhere!
The H7 is rated at 55 Watts, and the reflector surface is at least 25% smaller than that of the H9. Now to detune the the H9 and make it compatible with the stupid and idiotic DOT regulations (
), a frensel (ribbed) lense was installed for US markets ONLY to detune it further, thus reducing light output.
The H7 has no such restrictions, thus a clear lense is utilized, giving it a razor sharp cut-off beam pattern and more down the road visability and projection.
So the best combination therefore is to use the H9 projector and then switch the front lens with that of an H7 projector lens.
I call this my "Hybrid H9 Setup"
Do this and you will get something like this:
***Note: I shaved the cut-off shield, so the actual beam pattern will be a pattern like this: ____/----
