Well i installed my E-36s today with the help of my dad, last night we took the headlights, brackets, corners, and grille out. Then we took the extra crap off the brackets and marked them for cutting...took about 2 hours. Then this morning we started cutting and fitting the lights. Got it all put back together and lined the lights up to shoot right. took us about 5 and half 6 hours with a break for lunch. All and all the job wasnt difficult but i got scared a lil bit trying to line up the lights. It makes my car look great, next thing i want to do is custom grille.

i added pics to the car domain site, here

i followed skymax's write up which was great, his pics of the brackets cutting is awesome.

here are a few pics




The dremel is fun!!!

oh and yes i know the car is dirrty.

 

cool, ive been looking into this mod for a while. but i want projectors and HIDs to go along with it.....

 

Looks good. Pics are too big. What was the final cost?

 

Total cost was $160 for bulbs, wiring, odds and ends, and e-36s.

sorry bout picture size, i didnt realize they were that big, i took resolution down to 1 megapixel.

oh and i used sylvania "hid like" bulbs, they look bright a$$ white and really good, the high beams are super friggin bright. good alternative to hid i think.

 

I just picked up some Street Glow Super White Xenon lights for my max. with a slight blue halo-overtone cost bout $40 alittle less, but worth the buy for the brightness and clarity, I'd definatly recommend them to anyone on here thinking about a quick light upgrade.

 

Looking good!

 

From what I can tell looks like one of the best non-Wade cover jobs I've seen (ie your corner lights dont stick out, the lights are about as good as they'll get lined up with the hood and bumper and grille, etc). Good job, although get some better/more pics up!

Did you upgrade your wiring? Or are those bulbs stock wattage?

I'm gonna have a month or two layover between HID setups since I have to sell my current one to pay tuition (), and I'm thinking in the meantime I may just upgrade all my wiring to some nice fat wiring and run ricer bulbs, because the stock halogen yellow is uber icky

What exact bulbs did you end up using? SilverStars? I wonder what the wattage on em is

 

you will quickly learn not to wear white working on cars

 

doesnt really matter when the sweatshirt is old and you dont care about it.


thanks to everybody for your comments, its cool when everybody appreciates hard work.

 

Thanks alot on the compliment!!!
Im gonna take more pics today since it was raining all day yesterday i couldnt get any good shots of the lights.

original wiring in the car, i just added the 9005 and 9006 to the unit. i havent really looked into upgrading the wiring. I will today to see how hard/long it will be.

yes they are silver star. and im very pleased with them. i dont know the wattage off hand, id have to look.

 

looks great...
has anyone installed the aftermarket e36's with the projector lens and cat eye's...?
im deffinitly looking into getting them and im wondering how much more wiring there is

 

yeah id like to do that mod too when i get some spare $$$, from what i've read im gonna need about $300 for a decent conversion, and i saw newer e36 headlights on ebay, i think they look much better....
here are some i found ::droool::
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...category=33710
i think those would look a lot better on the max

 

also... u said you followed skymax's write up, is that on this forum? i've been trying to find out what exactly i need to do that conversion, and i just get random bits and pieces of information... please help me out and tell me what i would need to do that conversion, and what kinds of modifications are needed

 

i used this
http://www.angelfire.com/trek/tko/bmw_conversion/

and http://www.geocities.com/bmwconversion/

this is everything youll need to get this done, you can pm me with any questions.

Gregg

 

http://www.angelfire.com/trek/tko/bmw_conversion/
^skymax e36 write up

 

i beat you by 1 minute. moohoohahaha

 

I did some research..

The wattage on em is 55 watts, and stock is 45. So I'd highly doubt there'd be any of those burning up wiring harness problems with that. Maybe I'll pick me up a pair

 

yeah, silverstars uses stock wattage. burning up wiring harnesses shouldn't be an issue

 

triple g those look great...you should PM mike (awsm66) and look into getting your clears tinted, they look great with the e36s

 

yeah i like what he has done, and i see you did the same thing as him, but i think i want to paint the black part of my e36s silver to match my corners rather than try to match the e36s, because i will eventually get them flush mounted with the maxima headlight covers, justlike awsm66 did. both of yours look sweet too.

 

James ... you heart my feelings here
just kidding :

BTW, cost for me was $85 including everything AND angle eyes

 

that's a good alternative too, but, please! whatever you do paint the inside silver and NOT CHROME...chrome e36s are very tacky IMO

 

i concur DMad8724!

 

Good job on the install. I dont think painting the inside of the lights will look very good. Part of what makes the E36s is the fact that they are dark with the round lights inside.

It would be different and as long as you will like thats all that matters but I just dont see it turning out that good. You never know until you try though and you could always paint it back black.

 

thats true i could paint them back to black if i didnt like it. i just think it might look cool since nobody else has that look.

I dont think im gonna worry about it too much now, since its getting cold out and i dont have a garage at my place. I think ill just save some dough and get a new suspension since my current struts are shot to hell, plus i need new wheels, i hate my sawblades!

ps your car is tight. what color do you plan on finally painting it?

 

Thanks I am going to go ahead and finish it up and paint it the blue color that my engine bay is. It will be a little different though since I am going to finish it to sell (getting a VE 5spd this weekend). I am going to take my springs, leather, wheels, stillen kit and smoothed door handle doors off and just put stock stuff back on it. I am almost finished with and hope to paint it in a couple of weeks if the weather holds up (I dont have a temp controlled booth to use).

 

Didnt SeaMax paint his red inside?

I think I recall his looking pretty darn good, but then again I dont think a non-red 3rd gen could pull it off. For instance it'd just look dopey on a tan or a maroon 3rd gen

 

yeah...it wasnt my taste but it wasnt bad either.

 

whats the difference between the 2dr and 4dr headlights? which one do we need? and also would a projector one like this work? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...957351991&rd=1
THANKS!

 

I bought SeaMax's E36 setup from him. One of the reasons I did was because my Max is aslo the much sought after Aztec Red. I will post a few pics once I get them installed (I am also upgrading the wiring as well for 80W/100W bulbs).

Hopefully they will look as good as his did.

 

first off those things wont work becaues of the side things.
these below will work
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...category=33710

these here will be eaisier to fit, b/c not as big as euro spec.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...category=33710
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...category=33710