AHL LCI Xenon lights retrofit on 2004 E61 - all works as post 08/2005
 

Hi All

Just wanted to share with you that I just finished fitting LCI lights on my 2004 E61. According to the official BMW retrofit instructions (can be found on forum), the retrofit is only possible on post 03/2005 models.
Previously I fitted LCI lights on my 2003 E60. Got everything to work except cornering lights (the inner halogen lights which comes on at low speeds when turning, illuminating to the sides - not the same as AHL). I discovered that the reason is that, before 03/2005, E60/61 has a separate module to control AHL. On later models, this functions has been moved into the LM2.

Ok, so I wanted to get the LCI lights on my E61 as well, but this time I wanted to have everything working as a post 03/2005 model.
I figured that probably the way to make it happen, was to reroute the wires coming in to the AHL module underneath the glove compartment, over to the LM2. In addition, the LM2 would have to be coded as a post 03/2005 model, and not as a 2004.

I went ahead and installed the head and tail lights according to the official BMW retrofit guide. There is a bit of a mismatch with the wire color coding, but this is probably because of the different build dates. Anyway, the differences are small, and you can easily figure out what to do.
In addition to the work outlined in the retrofit instructions, I removed the AHL module underneath the glove compartment, and routed 12 wires from the AHL connector over to the LM2 connector. Here are the details of how I did it:

AHL pin #2 -> LM2 pin #38
AHL pin #3 -> LM2 pin #37
AHL pin #5 -> LM2 pin #27
AHL pin #6 -> LM2 pin #7
AHL pin #8 -> LM2 pin #55
AHL pin #9 -> LM2 pin #54
AHL pin #13 -> LM2 pin #71
AHL pin #14 -> LM2 pin #72
AHL pin #15 -> LM2 pin #66
AHL pin #16 -> LM2 pin #46
AHL pin #17 -> LM2 pin #76
AHL pin #18 -> LM2 pin #75

Next step is to code the LM2 such that it "thinks" the car is never, and thereby activates all functions related to AHL (including cornering lights). As I bought the LM2 from EBay, it was already coded to the right functionally, so it worked right away, I have not actually coded it yet, but will do in the next few days, to make sure the VIN and FO in the module matches my car.
Anyway, there is already lots of information over at bmwcoding.com on how to do all this.
If anyone is interested, I can do a write up of how I do in, once I have actually done it.

I can only recommend people who has the LCI upgrade done on pre 03/2005 models, to do this tweak to get the full functionality of the beautiful LCI AHL headlights.

Next up: ACC :D

Hi can you explain more about rerouting the 12 wires from the AHL module to the LM2 module do you have to run new wires from the AHL to LM2?