Yuen

Check out the guy with the ///M shaved into his head at 4:05.

Great work Jochen. How does the 'dimmed highbeam' function work? Run halogen highs at a lower wattage?

Major enough to talk to a paint shop about it. Don't know if they can just re-clear or have to re-paint the thing but at 22 years even a re-paint isn't unexpected.

HB Atta, have a good one

Nice wheels If you ever take the tyres off could you weigh them? Would be interested to know how heavy Alpinas are.

Good work! Expect you'll be doing a bit more driving now

Sweet!

That's odd... the last time I checked (admittedly it was a few years ago) BMW did not sell replacement adjusters for the angel eye headlights, only the pre-facelift. There are aftermarket adjusters available though. I have opened the lights but haven't replaced the broken bits... at the time there weren't many sources yet. I'd fan bake at a lower heat to start with and try to separate first, put it back in and try again if not. The hardest bit was separating the lense from the body (I used a hair dryer, it should be much faster with a heat gun or after being in the oven) and removing the reflector from the housing. I don't know how Glenn does it, but DIYing it took a bit of force... I sat on a chair facing the sofa, pushed the housing with my legs while pulling the reflector. I might have used string to get a grip on the reflector, can't remember. Using the sofa or any other soft surface ensures you don't send the housing flying when it suddenly comes apart. Can't remember having any trouble with the angel eyes, so I don't think they're glued on. This will be useful:http://www.bimmerboard.com/members/catboy/headlight_adjusters_e39.pdf

Hahaha... I wonder how many people you could fool with that... It looks like a good job. "It's the new Aston Martin compact with the electric engine" Would be interesting to see if the interior was modified.

So glad to hear I'm not alone. Does this mean we can't complain about the missus having too many pairs of shoes?

Good stuff! Hope to see a video sometime

Read somewhere that it began in Europe as a result of laws which limited how far the tyres could stick out past the car fender, so people started stretching as much as they could to maximise the rim width they could use. And I guess it's now popular as it's considered the 'euro' look.

Great info... thanks for taking the time to put this up Glenn.

Thanks Glenn. I spoke to State today. According to them, it isn't a modification unless the parts used aren't factory bits. Or if you were swapping from say a 5 speed to a 6 speed it may be a bit of a grey area so ask them first. If it's a standard 5 speed auto to 5 speed manual swap, it needs to be done by a professional and you have to show that factory parts were used (certing was mentioned, though I'm not sure if it means a proper LVV cert or if a statement from the professional who carried the work out will be sufficient).

Ok, I will check with the insurance companies and see what they say.

Cheers guys. I don't have one yet Tony, but I am looking for a car atm and if they treated it as a modification then I'd want to focus purely on factory manual cars.

I suppose it's to do with the modifications increasing the risk of something happening to the car, ie: higher risk of getting stolen, or some statistics showing that people who modify cars drive them faster/more recklessly etc hence having a higher chance of being in an accident.

Seeing as some of us have done manual swaps... Does anyone know if insurance will consider a manual swap to a factory auto car a modification? Even if factory parts are used for the entire swap thus it would be identical to a factory manual. Or would they just re-class it as having a different transmission? I don't know if there are higher premiums for a manual but I'm assuming it would be less than the premium bump if the car was 'modified'...

Oops, you beat me to it elmarco

+1. Never seen a car with dual factory HIDs (high and low). A car with HID highs has bi-xenon (same bulb/ballast/projector but uses a solenoid to control the shield). A car with single xenon would have halogens as its high beam. The reason HIDs aren't used as a separate high on a single xenon setup is because they need to be warmed up - it takes a high amount of voltage to ignite the arc in the bulb and you can see when you first turn on HIDs they change colour. Long story short they won't last long if used like a normal high (lots of on/off cycles when flashing to pass etc). If you were to leave them on for extended periods of time, they'll be perfectly fine and they're great for distance. There is nothing wrong with proper HIDs, they make the road safer. In fact it would be a great thing if every single car on the road had factory HIDs. The problem is people chucking HIDs into lights that weren't made for them in the first place. The beam pattern is off, you get hot spots, and if you argue that you can aim them lower, doesn't that defeat the purpose of having the extra lumens in the first place - to see further? Summary: More output is better - it just needs to be aimed right.

HB Doug

Sick is right... especially that frontal shot

Looks nice... How hard is it to find a new front seat and did any come with air-con?

It's ok if it's just the city lights... can't blame them if they want better visibility. Some countries have DRLs anyway. If it's fully on then it's just funny because they probably forgot to turn them off. Like most I hate it when people use rear fogs in normal conditions. Serious safety hazard for those driving behind them, I can't sit behind them for any extended period of time. Front fogs are fine to me, I don't get annoyed by other people running them, really it really comes down to aiming for most lighs (except rear fogs)... not so much the light itself. A 1980's car with old, low output lights that are aimed too high are infinitely worse than properly aimed HIDs.

Cooler = 4 doors for M cars - fast and practical. Only drawback is lack of vaders in sedans for the E36. Better looking = 2 doors in general.