A purists nightmare - E46 drift build

Tkuhn

Made an exciting discovery that I can't believe I never thought of before. I've been wanting to get projectors in the low beams on my headlights, after doing some research i found that the OEM stuff can be transferred between housings and all the housings are the same with the same slots and markings for holes whether it was a halogen housing or not.

It just so happens I still have both of the xenon headlights from my 330i along with one of the ones with a broken housing.

I started by taking apart the broken one for investigative purposes. Things looked good like they would work!

Stock halogen coupe headlight before:

Took this existing light completely apart and deep cleaned it (it came with my car so it had 200k plus of road shit that I couldn't completely scrub put before). I dont have a before photo but here it is all cleaned up.

I cleaned up the rest of the parts then drilled a hole for the igniter wires to come our of the housing which then connect to the ballast.

The ballast slid right into the coupe housing just like on the original pre-facelift sedan headlights. (No photo but you get the point).

Once the igniter was secured in and all the wires were ran I cleaned up the projectors and the reflective housings. Installed them into the coupe housing and put the shroud into the housing.

Now that I know it works I have to do the other headlight but I was extremely happy to find I had basically all the parts to do this.

Next up is to order some new lenses to get rid of the nasty faded ones, I tried to polish them out but new ones are cheap enough.

Jdesign

Thats good to know, and it looks great!

Boris3

Looks good! I don't have the expertise to ask the question correctly but is there any need to reflash the LCM/ECU, or will the changed setup just plug and play?

Tkuhn

Boris3 said:

Looks good! I don't have the expertise to ask the question correctly but is there any need to reflash the LCM/ECU, or will the changed setup just plug and play?

That has crossed my mind lol. I believe the my will still work for sure. Just not sure how the car will react, like it might think that the headlights are burnt our or something since the data being sent back would be different. It might just say theres a headlight burnt out or something. I need to do the end of that research yet. Either way I know it can be coded in if that is a problem, just need to do the research to get that knowledge. I was going to try and plug it in but the battery is not in the car since my garage isnt heated and I didnt want the battery to freeze up haha

Boris3

Hope it works, it'll mean that bits from the burnt bowl ZKW bixenons I pulled from my car might actually be worth something.

Tkuhn

Boris3 said:

Hope it works, it'll mean that bits from the burnt bowl ZKW bixenons I pulled from my car might actually be worth something.

So a quick search said multiple things. I have AL headlights so not sure how it applys to ZKWs but some said pre 03 (chassis) you dont need to code because the newer chassis have some sort of difference. Others said you have to code the light module for a xenon low beam and some other procedure to make the halogen high beams work. Apparently it can all be done using a NCSexpert. Which I have ZERO experience with lol and I am on the lower end of computer savvy in that sense.

wasnt m3

I swapped in oem xenon headlights in a prefacelift e46, which were a direct plug in. Everything functioned perfectly, just had a headlight error until I turned them on. Didn't bother me enough to recode.

Tkuhn

wasnt m3 said:

I swapped in oem xenon headlights in a prefacelift e46, which were a direct plug in. Everything functioned perfectly, just had a headlight error until I turned them on. Didn't bother me enough to recode.

Good to know! I'd like to learn to code either way honestly. Have you dabbled it it at all?

suspenceful

I swapped some OEM Xenon headlights into my girlfriend's 2002 E46 sedan that came with halogens. Just unplugged halogens and plugged in the Xenons. Everything functioned as it should, no errors lights either.

Tkuhn

suspenceful said:

I swapped some OEM Xenon headlights into my girlfriend's 2002 E46 sedan that came with halogens. Just unplugged halogens and plugged in the Xenons. Everything functioned as it should, no errors lights either.

Bitchin' hopefully I have the same results. Although it would be cool to learn to code so I could add some features. I also would like to get my key matched to my car since i swapped everything from my 330i and the fob wont unlock the car with the power locks. But not sure that you can fix that with coding

wasnt m3

I've got a laptop with all the coding software but never even really bothered giving it a shot. You're welcome to play with it if you want.

Tkuhn

wasnt m3 said:

I've got a laptop with all the coding software but never even really bothered giving it a shot. You're welcome to play with it if you want.

I'll keep that in mind, theres a really good video tutorial I found on YouTube that a guy talks you through getting the software all the way to coding some things.

Tkuhn

Decided to make some room in the rear today. While I'm not hammered low and my fenders aren't super rolled there was a few rubbing issues due to some of the factory bump castings I suppose you could call them inside the rear wheel wells. Hacked out some metal and made some relief cuts.

Forgot to take a before of the passenger side.

While realistically the best thing to do would be to weld them, I dont have a welder at the house. I was able to get the ends very close the the outside panel and they are much higher than before creating alot more room. I seam sealed the passenger side and need to do the driver side still. So I'll post photos when that is done!

Tkuhn

Finished up disassembly, cleaning and swapping in all the xenon stuff on the other headlight yesterday. Also got my new lenses! Super hyped on how good these look all cleaned up with new lenses.

Tkuhn

And it has begun

Tkuhn

Got a few part in the mail recently. No photos but nothing extremely exciting. The new clutch came in, intake manifold gaskets, a cv boot rebuild kit and a rear plastic thing (idk what the proper name is haha) and then the covers for the low beam side of my headlights.

Also got my abs plastic in to finish the rear bulkhead too. Used my CAD (cardboard aided design) template traced it out and started cutting.

Got everything trimmed right then drilled some holes. Used M5 nutzerts and some stainless M5 hardware to secure it.

Tkuhn

UPDATE

Finished up sealing the rear inner quarters that I cut to make some room. Only got a photo of the right side but you get the idea. Sealed the cuts with 3M seam sealer and then sprayed undercoat over everything.

Also finished up the evap delete. Looped the vent and installed an inline filter to keep dirt out. Found a great write up on the evap delete for e46 on another page.

Vented from the filter up as high as I could since there is alot of debris whipped up from drifting. Not sure if I shared a photo before but I also removed all of the evap lines from the back to the front of the car along with the canister from the rear.

Also wrapped the roof, and this color is so hard to show in photos but I'm hyped.