Mike_K

You're reading this, waiting for me to ask where I can get get HID angel eyes for my LCI headlights. But I'm going to buck the trend and surprise everyone because I'm not asking. I already did it and since I had a miserable time finding info on how to do it (without just buying a kit) I decided to do it myself and figure it out.

At first I just tried running a generic eBay 8000k H8 HID kit out of the box. No go... It would work in daytime mode but at night time mode when the car dims the angel eyes they would just flicker and shut off. So then I decided to run a harness that would bypass stock wiring and just use the stock angel eye plug as a signal source. Again, no go. I didn't have a multimeter at my house but from judging how the relay on the harness was acting, it appears that the angel eye power source is constantly switched on and off, almost like alternating current but it can't be because it would power the HID kit in daylight (full AE power) mode. Either way, I couldn't even use it for a signal wire.

So all hope is not lost. I noticed that the eyebrows say 12v on the plug and they appear to be a steady 12 volts too. So what I did was tap into them for my signal wire. So if the eyebrows are on then the AE's are on (no bother to me). If this is something you can live with then you can have these cheap. A set of HIDs from eBay is about $25 last I checked and the harness is $18 but can be had for cheaper I think if you look around. Here's the harness I used:

HID Headlight Harness

Once I figured it out it was a snap. The only wire you need to splice is the AE signal wire. I tapped the eyebrows for signal, took power from the jump box on the cross brace, you can steal ground on each side from the headlight tab screws and then the other two connections just plug in. Install was about 10 minutes. You'll want to drill the headlight access caps so you can run the wires through them (the wires include a rubber grommet) but that's it.

It looks spectacular in the day or night and cost me $45 when it was all said and done.



I read about the outer ring being dimmer than the inner but it only seems to be that way if you're close to the car and above it. If you're in the vantage point that another driver would be they look pretty uniform.

In the next week or so I'll investigate the stock harness for AE's and see if I can use them for signal and I'll update the post if/ when I do. The eyebrows need to be watched as a permanent power source because they fade from off to full brightness and from full brightness to off when the car is locked an unlocked. That's fine for the LEDs in the eyebrows but not fine for the HIDs. It will shorten their life span.

If this information is old news or there's already a cheap way to do this that I completely missed then please accept my apologies. I did a bunch of searching and I found a lot of people asking if it could be done and a lot of people pointing to expensive (relative to $45.00) kits so I thought I'd at least share my experience for anyone looking in the future.

BlaSTiWi

Why go to so much trouble tapping here and there? Why not just coded the AE to stay on the same 12v voltage during the day or night (DRL mode or parking light mode) then all set.

That way no need to depend on turning the eyebrow on to lit up AE (and could forget to turn it off then drain the battery) ... just stay on auto light mode.

MORI3L

This will get the kit working 90%...but welcome lights will not work still. Just put a capacitor in front of your relay harness and wire resistors on each side and everything will work 100%.

iamnatio

Did your HID kit come with shields? I ordered some HIDs for my other car and it came with shields and by the looks of it, it could help to even out both rings on an E60 LCI.

Persian_535i

Interested to see what the angel eyes with shields look like physically, and what they look like on your car in the daytime. Make sure to post some pics when you get them.

Mike_K

Because there's so many posts about the subject, and so few of them have usable information that I basically approached it as if I was on my own. So keeping that in mind, I had no idea that could code the AE's to stay full voltage but even if I did know that, I don't have the cable so it's an extra step that some (probably many) wouldn't be comfortable taking.

No but really, you have to be off to the side for the outer ring to look dimmer. If you're looking at the car head on they look really even, maybe the outer is a bit dimmer. Nothing that would bother me though. I can't imagine a shield would help here. If anything you're just going to dim the inner ring but that's not necessarily going to make the outer ring brighter.