Definitely brighter
I have to make my way over to your place Matt and pick mine up, I'll call ya

Ian, I can't remember (and I'm too lazy to look back) are you doing the light upgrade on the c70 or the volvord? cause, if its the c70, I'm curious to find out how much (or hopefully little) a pain in the ass it is to do.

Dale's got 'em, Ian.

Damn, drove right past his place tonight ... oh well, call you later Dale.
Kat, they are for the C70, but probably will not be installed for a while

And you didn't stop in...why?

Don't call too late. I didn't sleep well last night...early to bed tonight...

well dale sleep well tonite....and uh...mom brought down some almond roca for you n your fam for helping me move....so...uh....come by and get it

Back on topic (I swear!) Ian, when you do get em installed, if you need a second hand, let me know, I can't imagine our inside of the headlights being too different between your car and mine....or, just let me know how easy/hard it is, and how much of a difference it makes while driving you are my guinea pig! mwahahahahahhaha!

Okay, so I installed them into my wagon today, and took it out for an aiming tonight. They're bright, alright. I'm not sure if it's my E-codes that are the problem or not, because I've never really been happy with the pattern (even with halogens), or if it's because of the HIDs, but they seem to scatter a bit. I've got them aimed downwards quite a bit to avoid angry oncomers, but I did manage to get the driver's side bulb holder turned back to RHT standards so the pattern is much better.

The other thing to get used to is that the high beams aren't much brighter than the low beams: they're just a difference in aim, really. Still brighter than any headlight I've had before now, but I'm not sure what the perception will be out on the road.

They start up pretty slowly too. I've never driven a car with HIDs before so I don't have any experience to base things on, but I didn't expect them to be so dim and purple at first. Within 20-30 seconds they're at full brightness, though. Definitely not good for temporary use like in a dedicated high beam, and definitely not good for a dedicated low beam that is shut off during high beam operation (like the 9006/9007 combination in Dale's GMC). Should be okay in the H7 setup that's in the 850/SVC70s, but I'm still not convinced that you'll even notice the high beams come on with such a bright low beam.

I'll fiddle around with them a bit more when I get the chance: maybe they're not properly seated in the bulb holder (though the cutoff is pretty good right now, indicating that they're close if not right on) and maybe the shield modifications I have in mind will do the trick. The shield mod should improve the high beam output, anyway.

So far, though, they're looking okay. Except for when I turn on my fog lights, my high beams now come on. That never happened before, though I did have something goofy going on between the two with the halogen bulbs. Good thing I'm not like every other asshole in this city who thinks it necessary to have their fog / auxillary lights on all the time... It is pretty cool to have instant-on high beams now, though: since the HIDs are already lit and are just snapped into high beam mode by a solenoid, you don't have to wait for the H4 bulb to heat up.

kewl Matt, thanks for the update I may just have to partake in this next time anyone else wants to go halfsies on the shipping...

Wow...matt and I must be on somewhat parallel tracks, but I'm behind as per usual. I just finished rebuilding a 1031 and changing the fluid with a fresh 588 true-trac, which I do slowly.

But, I got more time to play with them a bit more. I get the same hotspot/scatter thing happening using them in 7" round cibie H4s on the lowbeam like your bosch 7" roundies show. I think a forward shield would help a whole lot. I don't think it needs to be something overly complicated...just a piece of sheetmetal carefully folded would be the ticket I'd imagine. Oh, and WOW are they ever bright on low, and they do kind of glow brighter slowly for sure, but I haven't driven with them. Just tossed them in the vice in a 7" roundie so far. Granted, the H4 e-code lights out of the 2002tii parts car are even more ancient design wise than the H4 TV screens.

I don't drive HID cars that much, but they all come on slightly bluey to me. These once warmed up are still a bit more blue than I'd like (I like my headlights a bit on the yellowy side), but I doubt I'll be noticed in a crowd if I eliminate the hotspot and aim them well down and well out of the vision of other people. I'm not going to drive them without fixing the hotspot, as I absolutely loathe people blinding the crap out of me in tall cars, let alone ones with terribly aimed super bright DOT lights with fog lights, which is basically the norm here. like "OMG I HAVE FOG LIGHTS YO, ERGO THEY MUST BE ALWAYS ON BECAUSE MY CAR HAS THEM!!111."

Anyway, thanks a lot for the pictures Matt.