Bimmer-Bob's 128i Belated Build Thread

[TheSt|G]

Originally Posted by Bimmer-Bob

What's wrong with the US-spec xenons vs the Euro ones, besides the cosmetics (amber vs clear corners)?

Not sure there is necessarily a difference, but given the difference in headlights between US and Euro spec cars in the past, it seemed prudent to be clear.

Either way, they are awful. Diffuse and dim light pattern that frequently has me reaching to turn on the high beams a second time. Both my fiance's ZHP(especially with the quad highs now) and my 30 year old 911 with Euro spec H4s out perform it.

[andrey_gta]

Originally Posted by TheSt|G

my fiance's ZHP(especially with the quad highs now) .

Did you retrofit? or is this via Coding?

[TheSt|G]

Originally Posted by andrey_gta

Did you retrofit? or is this via Coding?

Quad highs was via coding. She lucked out and got a car with the nice ZKW xenons(random between good ZKWs and bad ALs at the factory) and I replaced her flash to pass halogens with 85w rally bulbs. Coding lets me turn them all on at once, along with the fogs. Provides some light.

[Bimmer-Bob]

Got started on the Euro lights yesterday. I used this thread as a go-by. As noted, the front bumper needs to come off for this install. Here's one final "before" pic before I got to work:

Bumper removal is fairly straightforward; it's more time-consuming than difficult. Of course, much peace of mind was provided by the fact that I'm having a brand new bumper fitted next week, so even if I totally botched the job it wouldn't have been too big of a deal. Here's the bumper fully off:

Next, the headlights had to come out. Very finicky suckers! There are six bolts that need to come out, and only a couple of them are easy to get to. Even once all the bolts securing the lamp are removed, it takes some maneuvering to get into or out of place. Here it is with the first headlamp removed:

Next you need to swap bulbs and ballast over from the old headlamp to the new. Actually, the only bulbs I needed to transfer were the xenon bulb and the turn signal bulb, as the new units shipped with both the H3 cornering light bulb and H8 angel eye bulb pre-installed, which I wasn't expecting. I actually went ahead and purchased some PIAA Stratos Blue H8's a few weeks ago. Normally I'm not an aftermarket bulb-type of guy, but I wanted the angel eyes to more closely match the LED eyebrow, and from what I've read 5000 Kelvin appears to be a pretty good matching color temperature. These bulbs are from PIAA Japan, found on eBay:

Speaking of the LED eyebrows, my pre-LCI car is not wired for them, so I had to do a bit of extra work, tapping a new wire to power the LED into the wire that powers the angel eyes per this thread. Unfortunately, I purchased the wrong wiring harness and I couldn't get the pin to seat all the way into the connector, and my soldering wasn't so great, either, so I could never get the brows to light up. So I'm going to purchase the (much cheaper) proper wire here, [EDIT - actually, per another member, these are NOT the correct wires, but can be made to work with some modification] and have a go at trying to get the wiring done at some point in the future (probably when I can't stand to look at un-illuminated eyebrows any longer, LOL).

Anyway, I was getting pretty frustrated with the whole thing, and finally decided to get the car put back together as is. Here it is as it sits this AM:

I feel like some of the panel gaps are a little wonky, as I rushed to get everything put back together. Like I said, it doesn't really matter, because a brand new bumper will be getting put on next week at a BMW body shop. I think I'll also have them confirm placement of the lights as well, since if you look really closely the left side looks a little lower; they're going to have the bumper off anyway, so it should be no problem for them to take a look at the positioning of the lights.

One more thing: you may notice in the second-to-last pic that the corners still have quite a bit of amber in them - this is because the amber bulbs reflect like crazy off of the headlamp housing (as they are designed to do, obviously). I didn't realize that, in Europe, BMW uses chromed bulbs to conceal the amber when the bulbs aren't in use. So I ordered a couple of those from ECS as well. Luckily, they install very easily through the wheel wells.

[andrey_gta]

I really like this look. Thanks for the mock up

[swagon]

Great journal. I like what you're doing with the car, it's going properly awesome with the M Sport bumpers. Always liked red E82's and sometimes I wish my car was white or red...

[Bimmer-Bob]

Thanks guys for the compliments. Got the driver's side headlamp positioned properly and the xenon bulb seated correctly this morning, so no weird panel gaps or beam cutoff anymore. I think it's going to look fantastic with the proper silver turn signal bulbs and the Performance aero kit - of course, pics will be forthcoming.

Incidentally, something I noticed today is that the Euro headlamps have adjustment knobs for both vertical and horizontal axis adjustment, whereas the US-spec lamps only have a vertical axis adjustment knob and a dummy knob where the horizontal axis adjustment knob is. Don't know how useful the extra adjustment will be IRL, but an interesting discovery nonetheless.

[TheSt|G]

I would check to see if PIAA has some type of bulb verification page like Phillips does. There are quite a few China knockoff bulbs of major manufacturers rolling on eBay that are downright dangerous(they like to catch on fire).

[chris82]

Originally Posted by Bimmer-Bob

Got started on the Euro lights yesterday. I used this thread as a go-by. As noted, the front bumper needs to come off for this install. Here's one final "before" pic before I got to work:

Attachment 1269667

Bumper removal is fairly straightforward; it's more time-consuming than difficult. Of course, much peace of mind was provided by the fact that I'm having a brand new bumper fitted next week, so even if I totally botched the job it wouldn't have been too big of a deal. Here's the bumper fully off:

Attachment 1269668

Next, the headlights had to come out. Very finicky suckers! There are six bolts that need to come out, and only a couple of them are easy to get to. Even once all the bolts securing the lamp are removed, it takes some maneuvering to get into or out of place. Here it is with the first headlamp removed:

Attachment 1269669

Next you need to swap bulbs and ballast over from the old headlamp to the new. Actually, the only bulbs I needed to transfer were the xenon bulb and the turn signal bulb, as the new units shipped with both the H3 cornering light bulb and H8 angel eye bulb pre-installed, which I wasn't expecting. I actually went ahead and purchased some PIAA Stratos Blue H8's a few weeks ago. Normally I'm not an aftermarket bulb-type of guy, but I wanted the angel eyes to more closely match the LED eyebrow, and from what I've read 5000 Kelvin appears to be a pretty good matching color temperature. These bulbs are from PIAA Japan, found on eBay:

Attachment 1269670

Speaking of the LED eyebrows, my pre-LCI car is not wired for them, so I had to do a bit of extra work, tapping a new wire to power the LED into the wire that powers the angel eyes per this thread. Unfortunately, I purchased the wrong wiring harness and I couldn't get the pin to seat all the way into the connector, and my soldering wasn't so great, either, so I could never get the brows to light up. So I'm going to purchase the (much cheaper) proper wire here, [EDIT - actually, per another member, these are NOT the correct wires, but can be made to work with some modification] and have a go at trying to get the wiring done at some point in the future (probably when I can't stand to look at un-illuminated eyebrows any longer, LOL).

Anyway, I was getting pretty frustrated with the whole thing, and finally decided to get the car put back together as is. Here it is as it sits this AM:

Attachment 1269671

Attachment 1269672

I feel like some of the panel gaps are a little wonky, as I rushed to get everything put back together. Like I said, it doesn't really matter, because a brand new bumper will be getting put on next week at a BMW body shop. I think I'll also have them confirm placement of the lights as well, since if you look really closely the left side looks a little lower; they're going to have the bumper off anyway, so it should be no problem for them to take a look at the positioning of the lights.

One more thing: you may notice in the second-to-last pic that the corners still have quite a bit of amber in them - this is because the amber bulbs reflect like crazy off of the headlamp housing (as they are designed to do, obviously). I didn't realize that, in Europe, BMW uses chromed bulbs to conceal the amber when the bulbs aren't in use. So I ordered a couple of those from ECS as well. Luckily, they install very easily through the wheel wells.

Yea the turn signal bulbs can easily be installed through the wheel wells, I did that on mine which is lowered quite a bit, just turn the wheel to get the acess you need. Nice look, lights look great

[Suhb]

Can't wait for to see the aero bumper put on. It's probably going to be my next mod. The front, square fog light bumper really holds back the overall look of the car.

[Bimmer-Bob]

Originally Posted by Suhb

Can't wait for to see the aero bumper put on. It's probably going to be my next mod. The front, square fog light bumper really holds back the overall look of the car.

Was supposed to be installed this week, but body shop pushed back to next week due to their schedule. Stay tuned.

[Bimmer-Bob]

This morning I decided to finally try my hand at coding, and thought I would start with the popular "Euro corner delete." If you don't know, all this is is coding the turn signal bulbs to "off" when the headlights are illuminated (US-spec cars keep them on as sidemarkers whenever the lights are on). Anyway, I was never too bothered about the stock behavior, but since switching to Euro clear lenses, I wanted to completely emulate the Euro look. Plus, it's a little annoying having your clear lenses constantly illuminated in amber - kind of defeats the purpose.

I've been reading up the last few days on coding, and as I was doing my final review before diving in, the doorbell rang. It was the mail carrier, and she was dropping off these:

Perfect timing! Now I could finish the Euro look with the proper bulbs as well as the coding. I went right to work since they would only take a few minutes to swap. Here's a side-to-side pic after I pulled the amber bulb so you can see for comparison purposes:

Finally, here are some shots of the entire headlamp assembly before:

and after:

With that done I got started on the coding, using this thread as a basic go-by. He mentions using "Junior's tutorial" but the link he's provided is dead. I had seen this thread earlier at N54Tech.com, so I knew what he was talking about.

After a few days of reading various tutorials and DIY's about how to use NCS Expert, my head was spinning a little and I thought maybe I shouldn't mess around with it. But once I got started I found it to be rather simple, and the Euro corner delete was done in no time. Here's a before and after:

You'll notice that, unfortunately, I still haven't gotten the LED brows functioning. That's a project for this weekend.

The coding was such a breeze, I decided to also try the AHL2 coding. It basically codes the adaptive headlamps to Euro-spec as outlined in this thread by forum super-user Dackelone (). Seemed like an appropriate mod, although I haven't had the opportunity to do any night driving yet.

Anyway, it seemed like enough for today. Tomorrow it's headers and a cat-back.

[Bimmer-Bob]

Almost forgot - finally got to get out to an autocross again a couple of weekends ago! It was a two day event, which is good because I was feeling rusty as hell. I hadn't even driven my car for 7 months while deployed, and before that I was so busy with the move from CA and then pre-deployment training that I only got to do 2 events all year. So really, it's been since 2013 since I was autocrossing regularly, and that was my novice season. Unfortunately, it can be tough to be consistent about getting seat team when your life is full of irregularity.

Anyway, the first day I sucked. I DNF'ed most of my runs, but finally turned in decent (or at least not very embarrassing) times at the very end. The second day I felt WAY better - no DNF's, and times were pretty consistent and respectable all day. The only problem was my second run was the best, and then I felt like I was chasing it all day, and could never top it. It seems like I should've been able to improve a little on my afternoon runs, but no such luck. I finished middle of the pack in class (but would've finished second in Novice, which is where I sort of felt like I belonged sometimes, lol).

Oh well. It felt good to get back out there, at least. And there are still 4 more events this season that I should be able to make, so hopefully I can knock some of the cobwebs off.

Anyway, someone snapped a pic of one of my runs and put it on FB, so I snagged it for this thread:

[Bimmer-Bob]

Last Friday I made the drive to Raleigh, NC to stop in at Black Forest Industries. They are primarily a VAG shop, but they are also an AA dealer, so they seemed like a good choice for the header install. While they were at it, I had them install the MagnaFlow cat-back as well.

Originally I was going to have BFI flash the ECU with AA's off-road tune at the time of install, but I decided to just go ahead and order the Simon 3 cable myself instead, just in case I ever needed to reflash. I don't have that cable in-hand yet, and so can only give my impressions of the car in its pre-tuned state.

The first thing I noticed was the car is quite loud on cold start. Not only that, but the MagnaFlow's tone is quite deep, certainly deeper than the BMWPE it replaced, and combined with the headers you can really feel the engine at idle. It almost has the presence of an old muscle car (well, maybe not quite, but you get the idea).

In terms of volume, the car is definitely louder at start up than before, by maybe 25-50%. At lower RPM's, the volume level is not unlike the BMWPE on an otherwise stock car, but by 4K it starts to quiet down to the point where I think it is actually a little bit quieter. I'm disappointed to say that the lovely burbles and pops of the BMWPE are mostly gone now. There is still some low-toned burbling, pretty subtle and all kind of running together - but the distinct, higher pitched staccato pops of the BMWPE are gone. Bummer, but perhaps a little more stealth and "civilized," if that matters to you.

The second thing I noticed was the uneven idle. The engine never stalled, but it was not its usual refined self; the fueling seemed off. About a hundred miles or so later, the car finally threw a CEL and started idling normally, and has continued to do so.

With regards to engine performance - well, I don't want to say too much before I flash the ECU, but I will say one thing: you always hear people talk about improved throttle response when they mod their cars, either after an intake, or an exhaust, or something as simple as changing out their air filter. If you're like me, you're pretty skeptical of these claims and chalk it up mostly to placebo effect. Well, a freer-flowing exhaust path from the headers back is a little bit more of an upgrade than a drop-in K&N filter, and believe me, the engine is definitely quicker to rev now. In fact, that's probably the thing I notice the most (at least pre-off-road-tune).

Not being a huge fan of internet video clips of exhaust sounds, primarily because of the difficulty in accurately capturing and reproducing sound in a reliable way, I have nevertheless recorded a simple start up, drive off, and drive back video to give y'all an impression of the sound. I would say that it seemed louder from the driver's seat:

Next up is the BMW Performance Aero Kit. In fact, the car is at the dealer right now getting the parts fitted. Funny thing was the body shop manager was drooling over my car when I dropped it off, talking about how great the 1ers were, admiring my engine bay, etc. Then I gave him the keys to move the car into the shop, and when he stepped back into the office he said, "Well that doesn't sound like a normal 1 Series!" No - no it doesn't, lol.

[andrey_gta]

Video seems to be offline. Otherwise I'm intrigued by this sound description. I don't think one like this has been described before.

[Bimmer-Bob]

Originally Posted by andrey_gta

Video seems to be offline. Otherwise I'm intrigued by this sound description. I don't think one like this has been described before.

Don't know what's going on with the video. Shouldn't I just put the URL between the YouTube tags (U2B)?

[Bimmer-Bob]

One more thing: when driving slowly with the windows down past a Jersey barrier or wall, or something similar that reflects sound, there's a distinct ticking noise vaguely reminiscent of one of these:

Kind of annoying, but also kind of cool. I figure it's just valvetrain noise that was previously muffled by the stock catted headers.

[asbrr]

Sounds great, toes the line between being aggressive bit still somehow oem. Would love to hear more, maybe some light revs and in car clips?

[Bimmer-Bob]

Originally Posted by asbrr

Sounds great, toes the line between being aggressive bit still somehow oem. Would love to hear more, maybe some light revs and in car clips?

Sure thing; will try to get some more/better exhaust clips uploaded once I have the ECU re-flashed.

[andrey_gta]

Definitely a nice and unique sound. I heard the lack of rumbles and a 70's muscle car feel. It may have to do with Stainless steel in both header and axel back.

Any 3stage manifold plans? I don't think you mentioned it.

[Bimmer-Bob]

Originally Posted by andrey_gta

Any 3stage manifold plans? I don't think you mentioned it.

3 stage intake manifold done in December 2013.

[chris82]

Originally Posted by Bimmer-Bob

Don't know what's going on with the video. Shouldn't I just put the URL between the YouTube tags (U2B)?

just paste the video link, nothign else. It will automatically embed the video

Car sounds good, it's very mellow