Fantasizing about headlight mods

[IamFODI]

Please forgive any evident ignorance here. This is one area where I really don’t know what I’m talking about. Grateful for any input, especially technical explanations.

If I could magic-wand new headlights for my car, they would:

1. Have the control unit mounted somewhere other than on the bottom where a pool of moisture can short it out;
2. Look stock from a few feet away;
3. Retain auto-leveling;
4. Retain stock-looking angel eyes as DRLs but with high quality LED arrays;
5. Keep the low beams in the stock locations without the high beam flaps;
6. Have separate high beam bulbs in the stock cornering light positions;
7. Use common form factor LED bulbs for the high and low beam bulbs; and
8. Omit the cornering light functionality entirely (or retain the curve following but not have them come on with the turn signals).

Has anyone done anything like this? Seems pretty blue-sky and highly custom to me, but I feel like I’m never the first person to think of stuff.

Interested to hear any feedback!

[Obioban]

https://lightwerkz.net

15 years later, still one of the best mods I’ve done.

The elimination of bi xenons is probably misguided, but I’m sure he can do it.

[usdmej]

LED bulbs (and more importantly, LED Projectors) for low/high beam applications have more or less caught up with HID in recent years in terms of output.
so now it's easier to walk away from the typical HID drawbacks (bulb degradation, dimness on startup)

lightwerkz is a good place to inquire with as they're familiar with this generation of bmw lighting and do custom builds all the time

[0-60motorsports]

My plan this year is to get a pair of used headlights and send them to Lightwerkz to do the NHK V projector conversion. Absolutely love that!

[IamFODI]

Thanks, folks.

Conversation ongoing with Lightwerkz. Starting to see why you all like them.

They've told me in no uncertain terms that using easily replaceable LED bulbs isn't feasible and/or would be a downgrade, so the only real way to get LEDs in this enclosure is to retrofit projectors with integrated LED arrays. Still a solid option in terms of performance and efficiency, and would eliminate ballast failure as a potential problem. The downside is that bulb replacement would require replacing the whole projector.

Which option – LED retrofit or bi-xenons – minimizes the odds that I'll have to pull a housing again? LEDs eliminate the worry of losing a ballast, so that's one less possible reason to pull a housing. But...

1. The ballast is basically immortal barring a lot of condensation;
2. If I ever get condensation bad enough to fry a ballast, I'd probably want to pull the housings no matter what kinds of lights are in there, so LEDs don't change that part of the calculus;
3. The housings would be new or resealed anyway, so the odds of seeing that level of condensation again are minimal in the first place; and
4. An LED retrofit introduces its own risk of having to pull a housing, i.e. LED failure.

Lightwerkz really seems to think sticking with bi-xenons is best overall for reliability and serviceability, and I think I see why.

More on this as I continue my journey of becoming marginally less of a noob. Further input always welcome.

[0-60motorsports]

Thanks for the info buddy.

I'll still go with the led projectors as I don't use my car much and I'm sure they'll be reliable. If anything happens I can afford the time to take the housing apart and replace the projector.

[SYT_Shadow]

I really like what Cesar did on the headlights of my e90. I got the umnitza round angel eyes and a few other mods, nothing scandalous, looks great

[IamFODI]

This has been an interesting journey. Lots of "what was I thinking??" moments.

First and foremost, I needed a serious education on using LEDs in headlights. My understanding: because of how LED bulbs are made (limitations of modern tech), they almost never play well with a reflector/projector designed for halogens or HIDs. The beam pattern will always, always be messed up. The only questions are how, and how much. Occasionally there's a combo (LED bulb and projector/reflector) that generates an acceptable output, hotspot, scatter, cutoff, etc. – but that’s a rare exception, not the rule. More often, the hotspot will be worse and/or out of place, or the foreground will be lit too much relative to the distance, etc., so you’ll end up with worse visibility even if total output is greater – not to mention the nuisance/danger to other drivers, especially if you crank up the output and color temp.

The right way to do LEDs in a headlight is to swap in LED projectors. I could do that for both the high/low beams and the cornering lamps, and maybe do some custom wiring, e.g. to make the cornering lamps double as additional high beams. In terms of performance and looks, the result could be excellent. But those upsides wouldn’t be game-changing for me, whereas the downside – losing all serviceability – might be. If this were a third or fourth car, or one I didn’t intend to own for a lot more years/miles, I might go for it. It isn’t, so I’ll be sticking with bi-xenons and the stock cornering light projectors.

For the cornering lights, one could argue that a messed-up beam pattern doesn’t matter as much, and therefore LED bulbs might still be worth considering. But these cornering lights take H3 bulbs, and apparently the beam pattern issues with LED bulbs tend to be especially bad for H3s. Even ignoring that, higher-quality LED bulbs with their big heat sinks might not even physically fit in the first place. HID retrofit is technically an option but I don’t want all that wiring. There are lower-quality LED and HID bulbs that are known to fit comfortably and without a bunch of extra wiring, but those tend to be… lower quality. I guess I could do my own testing and find out for myself, but I think it’s safe to say the odds of a positive surprise aren’t good. So, halogens it is.

Angel eyes are a different story. They take an H8 bulb and there are no beam pattern issues to worry about. A full retrofit is best for performance and looks, but personally I'd prefer the better serviceability of just a bulb swap. In discussing this option, Caesar continued to impress; although he carries multiple bulbs that'd work, he said the best one was one he didn’t carry: the LUX 189. After a bit of Googling, it’s pretty obvious why he likes it.

At the same time, I’m now much less sure I want bright angel eyes. No doubting the benefits in terms of cosmetics or being more visible to other drivers (e.g. when backlit by the sun); the question is what happens at night. Stock angel eyes aren’t lensed like headlights; if they’re too bright, might they illuminate the foreground too much, resulting in more light but worse vision? I haven’t seen anyone address this directly, so I’ll have to do some more digging. I might rather go for a lower-output bulb than the 189 — especially if I could find one with a better rep for longevity, a better warranty, and/or lower power consumption – or just forego this mod entirely. We’ll see.

In sum, given my priorities, it seems like the best plan is:

1. Keep the bi-xenons
2. Upgrade the bi-xenon projectors
3. Stick with halogens for the cornering lights
4. Maybe – maybe – swap in an H8 LED bulb for the angel eyes

In other words, the best combination of performance, reliability, and serviceability seems to come from sticking with stock or OE+ – same as with any other aspect of any well-designed car. In retrospect, it’s hard to fathom why I thought headlights would turn out differently, but here we are...