Bypassing Headlights and Installing LEDs

[bahamutcog]

Hi Guys,

Just picked up a mint 840ci and now its time to have a little fun.

I don't like the way the pop-up headlights ruin the clean hood lines, so I am looking at bypassing them and installing high power LEDs in place of the fog lamps.
Trying to least invasive way possible since I want to be able tor evert to the original setup without destroying the car or its value.

My main concerns are power requirements and the low profile of the new headlight replacement.

Anyone attempted this? Any hints/tips before I dig in?

cheers,

[Timm]

The headlights in the light strips are high-beam only, and are designed just to allow the driver to flash his lights when the pop-up lights are down (which is why they are called Flash To Pass [FTP's] lights). The fog lights are in the pop-up clusters. The reflectors in the light strips are not suitable for low-beams- more info here:

http://www.meeknet.co.uk/e31/timms_b...Main_Beams.htm

[bahamutcog]

Thanks for the help Timm. After reading over your LED conversion, why couldn't I switch out the fog lights for the LED assembly you install? Then my fogs would become low beams. Are the fogs the 'dipped beams' you mention later in the instructional, the ones that would dazzle oncoming traffic due to the refraction angles?

Like I first mentioned, ultimately I want to never have to use the pop ups, but obviously want to drive at night

[mbarrett635]

Thanks for the help Timm. After reading over your LED conversion, why couldn't I switch out the fog lights for the LED assembly you install? Then my fogs would become low beams. Are the fogs the 'dipped beams' you mention later in the instructional, the ones that would dazzle oncoming traffic due to the refraction angles?

Like I first mentioned, ultimately I want to never have to use the pop ups, but obviously want to drive at night

I think you missed timm's explanation that the fog lights are in the pop-up assembly. Replacing the fog lights with LEDs won't allow you to achieve your goal of not using the pop up lights.

Mike Barrett

[rockytt]

What you are asking has been done - once (AFAIK)
Fern has a few posts about his conversion on this forum and you can find them if you spend a few minutes searching. Not sure he'd even try and do it again as the results were not great for actually driving at night. Beam pattern sucks, among other things.

(Fern - if I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me!)

[mikae31]

Just do Timm's mod and install leds in the side light pods. After that you are able to drive with pop ups down untill it is so dark it doesn't matter how the pop ups look. I did that and i'm extremely happy with the result. Many thanks to Timm!

Seriously you won't be able to make decent "night time" driving lights in those light strips so don't even bother and make your car so much worse.

[bahamutcog]

OK, sounds like I can put LEDs into the side light pods / fog lights (or any other name given to the small strip of lights that don't recede) and use them at pretty good darkness level (per mikae31).

So I'll go try it out.

Also, I just noticed that the fog lights are not on, even though I have the switch on the right of the cluster toggled on. They are both out, so it seems it would be a fuse issue, but my fuse #3 looks good. All other fuses look ok too.
Thoughts?

[mikae31]

OK, sounds like I can put LEDs into the side light pods / fog lights (or any other name given to the small strip of lights that don't recede) and use them at pretty good darkness level (per mikae31).

So I'll go try it out.

Good decision. And just to be clear. They are not driving lights and dont produce that kind of light pattern. But they are bright enough so you can drive with them at pretty good darkness level. Check Timms website and you can see how bright they are.

http://www.meeknet.co.uk/e31/BMW_E31...in_the_FTP.htm

[e31gixxxer]

OK, sounds like I can put LEDs into the side light pods / fog lights (or any other name given to the small strip of lights that don't recede) and use them at pretty good darkness level (per mikae31).

It would be less confusing if you read the replies carefully and noted what the knowledgeable people are saying. The lights you can see, that don't pop up are called FTP, NOT fogs.

[tangcla]

I think what you are wanting to do, is to have no pop-up, and to have the FTP light strip (where the indicators are - stands for flash-to-pass ie highbeam) to function as the low/main beam headlights.
Do-able, but as mentioned above, the beam pattern will be dazzling towards oncoming drivers. You would need to take out the reflector assembly and do some custom work to fit some sort of projectors there to control the beam. But consider the functionality of doing this, as you will have your main beams situated very low.