Chris Karolenko

Good Day everyone!

I recently took on two of my most anticipated mods. Blacked out headlights with DTM angel eyes and Blacked out LCI brake lights (unfortunately I did not take pictures during that process but I will still outline it).

I had added LED angel eyes to my headlights last November but quickly wanted more!

Headlight Mod ToDo List-
-DTM Angel Eyes -(Yes, from china. But much cheaper and very good quality. Buying from these guys is like skipping the middle man.) B-deals CE Rohs E-mark switchback style e92 crystal led angel eye lighting for bmw headlights, View led angel eye, B-deals Product Details from Guangzhou B-Deals Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. on Alibaba.com

-Blacked out insides

-Retrofit Source Evo-Xr Projectors

-Frosted Fin

Here we go.........

Started with this. It worked for a while but was too basic for me and left me wanting to do more.
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Original brightness and cutoff lines of the old xenons.
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So I cut them open again. And you can search around to see how to cut the lights open but basically, you cut the clear plastic as close to the seal as possible. I taped the front while cutting so I didn't scratch the lens.
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*** Let me explain something. I have the non-adaptive lights that arent even orignally xenon. Just halogen projectors. The Evo-Xr lights are bi-xenon so I wouldnt need the highbeam bulb any more. BUT without the headlights on, the "Flash to Pass" function would not do anything. I put white LED H7 bulbs in the highbeam spot just to flash when I flashed the highbeams with the xenons off. ***

I painted the reflector as well since I now had switch backs and frosted the fins to make them stand out more. I did keep the bulb in the turn signal spot though to give just a little extra light. I thought about paining the eyebrow black but decided it was too difficult and liked the silver lol
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Going back to the highbeam issue, I also didnt want a led light to be that visible. So I cut up the old projector housing and used JB Weld steel-stick to glue them into the reflector housing. Switching the new Evo-RX projectors in was just a simple swap with some cutting to make sure everything fits.
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The angel eye are great. They look sharp and are very bright. I tested them before cutting open the lights to make sure that they worked. They did. I didn't like, however, that they rounded more towards the top. So i cut into the acrylic coating a little and blacked it out. This gave it a more horseshoe look.
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Put it all back together and this is what I got!!! I used Amazing Goop automobile to glue it shut and let it sit for 24 hours. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Any errors I "thought" i made were not noticeable and the whole project came together nicely.
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The new cutoff lines are amazing. I put the Osram CBI bulbs in and they are ridiculous compared to any other bulbs. Don't waste your time on aftermarket bulbs.
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Full Frontal
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Highbeams on. Using the old lens gave it a quad projector appearance.
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Total Cost ~ $400 (worth it)





Now on to the taillights (LCI ONLY!!!). This project was much easier that the headlights and only took one day instead of two. I used Amazing goop glue again and acrylic gloss black paint. Again, no pictures for this. I was watching netflix the whole time and forgot

Cutting them open takes time and patience. Be careful as well. You must cut as close to the seam as possible again. I used a dremel. I dont recommend using it unless you have a saw blade attachment. The plastic cutting wheel left a few unsightly marks on the inside of the lens (hardly noticeable to be honest though).

Once they are apart, undo the three torx screws on the back side of the unit. gently pull out the reflector for the turn signal. followed by the clear lens at the bottom and then the fog light dish and then the piece covering the leds. undo the torx screws holding the optics in and be very careful pulling them out. unplug all the LEDs and set them aside.

Paint each piece and let them dry. Once they are dry, simply reinstall everything in the exact reverse order, being careful not to scratch the new paint.

I plan on getting LEDs stop lamps eventually but not right now. They work well enough. Ill get the Sylvannia Zevo lights though.

Here's what you'll get in the end.

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If I could do this one again, I'd paint the clear reflector too. But I didn't this time. People will charge you $300 dollars to do this for you. It may be worth it but I like to risk things and take chances on my own stuff. In all this one costed me $11.


I hope everyone enjoyed the read and love the finished products as much as I do! Thanks for hanging in there!

pocholin

A lot of work! Congratulations, it looks great! love the black inside in headlamps.

GcD

Nice DIY. Impressive!

Kewill0360

U should do this to my bi-xenon headlights and my euro tail lights......

AbyssalCreation

Did you get any errors and do you know if these would work with pre-lci headlights?

Chris Karolenko

Thanks everyone! Everything is staying together very nicely and still looks great!



Are you referring to the projectors or the angel eyes?

The eyes would be no different than mine but the projectors I am not sure about. If you email retrofit source, they can tell you if they will fit or not.

I did get a few errors but its all just bulb monitoring codes that you can code out with NCS Expert or Carly for BMW.

Francisco Reis

WOW...amazing dude!!!

Will make this soon. Where did you buy the projectors ?

Thank you and good job.

Chris Karolenko

Got the projectors from the Retrofit Source. Angel Eyes link is in the first post.

r9ndy

Can you post pics of your lights turned off? Thanks