BMW Ellipsoid Euro Headlights

[five&dime]

I thought about doin these. I also have an E34 5 series. I cut those apart and retro-fitted Acura TSX projectors and HID's. I want that in my 510. Check out my spread with just the low beams.

[johnbureezu]

My friend Vince just did the HID's to his Ellipsoids. I saw them lit in his shop and they are bright! I may have to do that too.

http://ddmtuning.com/ <--- cheap but reliable HIDs, or so I've been told and heard plenty of times.

+1 for ddmtuning. That where I get HIDs to sell at the bike shop. Local here in SD.

[zootowndime]

Wow five&dime that is some impressive lighting. I would love to have that sort of setup in my dime. The current headlights are terrible, have been upgraded a bit, but still nothing close to 100 yards of lighting the road in front of me like your bimmer. Was it hard to retrofit the tsx projectors? Those seem to be the projectors of choice.

[defdes]

Wow five&dime that is some impressive lighting.

Yeah, but how much would you hate coming the other way around a bend on those?

[ichorid]

this thread is great! lighting is on my list right after seals, and head liner. I saw this on ebay today.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Parts-Ac ... ccessories

It screams "you get what you pay for" to me. Ill be going the projector route Im almost certain. I think cars with blue/yellow/ any other color lights draw way to much attention.

[defdes]

this thread is great! lighting is on my list right after seals, and head liner. I saw this on ebay today.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Parts-Ac ... ccessories

It screams "you get what you pay for" to me. Ill be going the projector route Im almost certain. I think cars with blue/yellow/ any other color lights draw way to much attention.

I don't like that at all....reminds me of the glaucoma test at the eye doctor.

[ichorid]

I would sooner put groud fx on my datsun than buy a plug and play angel eye kit for 80 bucks on ebay. I hadn't even considered the Acura projectors, getting stoked.

[djlotus]

Not going to lie, if those angel eye setups were cheaper, I would have picked up a set sometime ago. It can't be too terribly hard to switch out the bulbs/leds that power the halo. Plus if you don't want to shell out for euro ellipsoids, it's just like having city lights, with a change from blue to white of course.

And I'm not gonna lie, I've considered drilling a little hole and installing a bulb to get the city light look, if I can get another set of cheap ellipsoids (sometimes i can get them for $10 a pop) I'm gonna give it a shot.

[Byron510]

Hate to be a bit of a nay sayer, but if these Bimmer lights are so good, why did Hella and Bosche make a kit available to "upgreade" to H4's???
I have H4's and H1's in my 87 Bimmer (legal 55w units in lows, 100w in the highs), lights pretty darn good after the sun falls - and I’ve had some real lighting systems to compare it to over the years on the rally cars.
The Bronze has properly gauged wiring and relays for its lighting system incorporating an ancient set of 4 Cibies (pair each of H4’s and H1’s)- anyone who's been in that car after dark has been impressed, so I wonder how much better can they get?
I'm all for more light that doesn't burn the retina’s out of the oncoming drivers, and this is something that the aftermarket lights do very well as of late. I'll stick to my tried and true Bosche, Hella and Cibies for now, but I'll keep reading this thread to see what transpires. I’m all for an improvement if it really does improve something and not just make up for a half failed system in the first place. People might be just trying to out trick themselves.

Byron

[bigjim5551212]

the stock BMW elipsoids for north america have crap 9006 and 9005 bulbs. the euro units are better.

[five&dime]

Wow five&dime that is some impressive lighting.

Yeah, but how much would you hate coming the other way around a bend on those?

I don't understand why everyone seems to think these lights would blind oncoming. You wouldn't be blinded or annoyed at all. They are stock Acura TSX projectors. See the cutoff line. No light is above that point. No difference from coming around the bend and seeing any stock Acura TSX, TL or Honda S2000 coming at you. I just removed the BMW projector and retro-fitted the Acura projector. They retain all their stock features and output. Since the BMW outer lens is clear glass nothing changes from the Acura. They were aimed at a shop with the aiming station as well so they are just right.

[Byron510]

The alignment is really important with any lights. If you have checked yours thoroughly, then that is good. But I have to say that many people, when installing auxiliary lights, do not properly check alignment. The statement wasn't an attack, but simply a statement from a guy who spends a lot of time on the road, and have been blinded by many an auxiliary light.

The new projector style lights are very focused, and do light well to the point that they are aimed. But the light is comparable to a high intensity LED. It's focused at one spot, but overall lighting is not really improved. Have any of you tried an LED shop trouble light? Crap in my opinion, what a waste of money. I’ll take the old incandescent or fluorescent bulb any time over the LED unit. The light is so focused, that no where else gets any light at all, making the positioning of the light critical – what a pain in thhe but when working in confined space like under a dash. Same goes for the headlights. A focused point dead ahead is nice, but I like to see what’s coming from the side, and the ditch, and slightly around a corner to get the full picture. Having driven a whole range of rental cars in the last few years, the one thing that I have noticed is that all manufacturers use a focused beam of some sort - call it what ever you will, Zenon, HID......- but they all have a regular incandescent or halogen bulb for the high beams that supplements the low beams, which just simply stay on. If the projectors work so well on the lows, why are they not used on the highs? I would think that the time it takes an HID light to start up is one reason, but is there another reason? Maybe someone with knowledge on this question could post an answer. More of a question for person knowledge than anything.
I'm all for finding a solution that provides better light in any car. The H4's and H1's that I've loved for all these years are getting harder to find at local auto parts stores, simply because no one is buying them anymore. I collected a rock in one of those age old Cibies on our last Oktoberfast road trip, and that light does need to be replaced. I'll have to do it as a pair as you can't find these things anymore in singles. I'll continue to read on, and if someone finds a good solution that improves lighting, I'm all for it.
Byron

[five&dime]

I think the reason they don't use them is b/c the HID projectors are so focused. you want your brights to have a very broad spread. The other reason I'm sure is cost. With factory HID upgrades costing $1k-2k on top of the sticker price, not many would want the extra cost for highs as well.

[SMITHENGINEERED]

I installed mine a while back, but put the LB where the HB should be just so I didnt have to hammer the crap out of my engine bay.

[icehouse]

Byron I have Cibi's in my 620,I rewired them as well, compared to my BMW aftermarket projects they don't even compare. I want to get the projectors in all my cars. One thing I have noticed is that my 1200 has 7" headlights, the sealed beams in the 1200 are brighter than my Cibi's which makes me think the reflector has the most to do with the quality of lighting. Right now I'm driving my L car which has very unaligned sealed beems. The low circuit is messed up so I just unplugged the middle bulbs and run highs It's funny I've never even been flashed because they are to bright. I want projects with HID's bad!!!