zedevan

if headphones are illegal, then what about bluetooth headsets? and if bluetooth headsets are legal then what about normal headsets? then whats the difference between normal headsets and headphones? are deaf people allowed to drive? you see alot of people driving around now with ipod headphones in, one of my chick friends lost her licence for wearing her's, but only because she "couldn't hear the engine revving so high so i didn't realise i was speeding" and was caught by a camera, HAHA there's some statistic about silver cars being in more accidents because they are so reflective and blinding, i watched some show about some famousish guy who was driving his old silver convertable and was killed, and they did a reinactment on it, and it sure was glarey! but then i think silver is the most popular car colour atm so i dont know if the statistic was taking that into account and another one about dark grey cars as they blend into the road, which i can understand specially in the rain when the nobs dont turn on their lights!

i'm wanting to get a pair of black ones for my car, looked into the price of getting some off yahoo japan and it was going to end up being just under AU$500 (brand new) which makes US$250 pretty cheap, guess i should look around on ebay america more for a set!

toecutter has done this in his 260z, and i believe he said it only took a couple of hours! i on the other hand am wanting to put in some r33 skyline series 2 lights off the 4 door ones...basically r32 lights but not as common, so something different http://viczcar.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=306 just need to stick them together properally and fibreglass it or something, and cut out the bit of metal between the reverse and brake lights bit

yeah no idea at all, i'm happy enough with my lights and if i'm gonna upgrade anything it'd be to make them bi-xenon and then if the bulbs go just get 6000k ones

true, and i guess the dispersion of light though it being foggy or something isn't that important if the projector itself is made accurately enough, and your light pattern sure is sexy how come you didn't go for 6000k bulbs? one popular bmw upgrade seems to be running 55watt projectors instead of the stock 35watt ones, but they are illegal for on road use...but then our lights probably are anyway

hmmm magnets hey, my dad was saying we should hook a solinoid up to the metal bit on mine to remove it but i dont see that being an easy thing to do at all! wouldn't most of the bmw stuff be made in germany? i know mine say they are, just wondering what the differences actully are between like the US bmw stuff and the stuff over here in Aus/europe, guess thats something for the e46 forums... just outta curiosity how much did your lights set you back? is the whole assembly one offs? if so how did they make it all, as it looks pretty dam nice! have you got any pics of it open so i can have a peak at the bi-xenon controller magnetic bit?

well mine are working again so i'm happy, the only thing i can think of is i put a screw back into the controller box to mount them back on the car, as i thought i'd go back to the setup where they last worked in a way i'm kinda disapointed now as i dont have an excuse to go and buy bi-xenons, but i'll just get my driving lights working and have them pointing beyond the xenons for when i'm going down a dip i reakon you should paint your whole bucket black 280ZForce, the connector for my lights do sit out behind the normal holder thing but there is still plenty of room before it's in trouble of hitting the wheel, but i do need to make up an inner fender thing to stop them getting wet and stuff, dont want to risk it! do your bi-xenons take awhile to flash on? i'm interested to know how fast the motor removes the bit in the bmw ones since they still have their normal high beams for when they wanna flash someone mine are DOT spec too since i'm in australia, i didn't know there was a difference, but i did notice when looking on ebay america they plugs between the controller and ignitor are different to mine

just incase anyones interested, i got quotes on electronics for the lights from the local bmw dealer, so didn't even bother trying to get trade ones as even they would be $$$, the main boxes, the controller i belive its called your looking at AU$936, then the igniter depending on which yr its from ranges from AU$328-$906...so i'll be buying bi-xenons if i can't get them to work, sure its all been a waste of money but the end result is worth it as they will do me atleast 1500 days or so, so all in all its not that much per drive...yep thats how i'm justifying it...

ok i've hit my first major problem, the lights are no longer working! :'( at one point they didnt turn on at all but now they flash, i'm working on it slowly, hopefully they work once more! my advice is never turn them on without globes plugged in and seal them up really well so there is no chance of water getting near them i'm thinking one of these has stuffed them but i'm sitting here hoping they work again, as in the mean time i can't drive at night, which isn't a prob the next few days so... if i really have blown them up i'll be buying some bi-xenon ones (delaying comfy seat purchase), when i bought these i was ignorant about the differences but now i think its worth the extra easily, and i could never go back to normal sealed beams thats for sure, even h4's in my parents vx (recentish commodore) suck in comparison and i used to think "if only my lights were like this" i miss them already...

nice man, i was thinking they were exactly what i bought but without the bit i dont need, but then saw some motor and read what they were, thats going to be good as, i was just driving around on roads with no lights and when your going down a dip its kinda bad coz i have no idea whats up ahead really as the cut off means there is such a blinding contrast! i just put the other one in last night and the sections where you can only see the light from one headlight looks dull compared to where light from both is shinning! its nuts and we dont get angel eyes as the bmw's we got them off dont have them, although they are availible for them as an aftermarket option... hopefully one day i can find a wrecked e46 that had the bi-xenons and pull that motor bit off it, or i could ask bmw how much it is but :S just so you know the only hard/annoying bit about installing them is mounting the electonics for them, and i cut the back of the 240z metal light holding bit and thanks to my primative tools it took quite awhile. to mount the lense and globe holder bit i just took off the lense section and put longer ones of those 4 screws though it so the screw head was on the inside of the relector to hold it on (drilled holes though the reflector for them) but i dont know how the bi-xenon motor would effect that, i'm guessing it'd be easy to get around, but you'd be able to see why i couldn't just make some motor/solinoid bit to move it away easily. well since my discription makes little sense i can take some pics if you like, but i'm sure you could work it out and i'd be interested to see if someone can come up with a better way...

i'm wanting to get some 3 peice rims in the same sort of size toecutter just did (17", 8.5 inch -6 for the front and 9.5 inch -19 on the back) i like the rs8 style watanbes like http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k30054025 but finding some in that offset and width is going to an issue, so i'm wondering what the deal would be with changing the width of them. as they are (17 X 7 +38 and 17 X 8 +38) and from reading up on offset and backspacing and doing some searches, i'm guessing if i got the front section of these wheels widened by 1.5"'s the offset would go to around +19 as its a measurement from the centre of the wheel and as 1.5" is about 38mm...is this correct thinking? i'm guessing you can also get the inside width changed? but after paying for all that i guess i may as wheel just go and find some i like and get them made, such as with a black centre

yeah i went with beema stuff coz its bound to be good quality, was thinking of buying some of those projector 7" lights too but there's a huge chance they are so crap its not funny. i looked through the auctions on ebay america first and saw what people were after for the lights which is why i was happy paying the price i did for mine, but i guess how common they are effects it too, there should be more crashes in america (and not just coz ur on the wrong side of hte road, haha) so it should be easier to find them in wreckers, igor told me he only paid like $300US for the parts for his lights from a wrecker but yeah, i had very little luck with wreckers in australia, prob due to the fact that not many bmw's have HID's also and it is only the euro cars that have them. the latest commodores have them but they dont seem to be as bright or a cool colour, so after calling up a few holden wreckers and finding out hte price of non HID commodore lights i decided the price i was going to pay for mine was good

when i picked up my lights i thought it woudl be cool to get new buckets and mold them half way down them, so the highbeam lgihts would sit just behind the front grill (and hence wouldnt' wreck the apearance) and when using headlight covers would look more modern like something off a mazerati (spelling) etc, but then after looking it though the hinges get in the way, but u could alwyas make the bonnet open normally... my other thought was to put the lights vertically (seems to be the modern trend anyway) and just rotate the projector lense so it was still the right way around, which would work but the bumpers get in the way, so i went for the easy alternative which was to just use the low beams i reakon mounting bmw lights into cars with normal lights would work out well and not be that hard, i'm trying to convince some of my mates to do it, one has a 96 accord and the other has a 92 pintara trx, and it would be rather i reakon after playing with putting r33 series 2 4 door rear lights into my car - will start a thread on that when its done, but lets just say making them thin enough is hard, but with headlights there is HEAPS of room

the lights have cost me about AU$700, i know i could of done it cheaper but i spent a day ringing up wreckers and none of them were anyhelp and to far to drive to just to check it out and probably piss them off, as i have all of the bmw bits except for the actual HID stuff i'm hoping i can sell them to someone who's stacked or something... yeah bi-xenon would be the ultimate thing to have, but i dont know how hard it woudl be to incorporate the motor for removing the metal sheilding bit would be (might be just as easy to make the sort i have bi xenon with your own servos etc which i might look into, but this is that much of an upgrade i'm not that fussed, but it is annoying sometimes when its like, if only they were pointed up a bit more hehe), it would also probably be good to have the autoleveling in there too as atm i just have them pointed down a fair bit too, so i don't blind everyone and get any bad attention, when i have both lights in i'll point them up more as then it isn't as obvious that its not stock mounting them really was basically as simple as cutting the back out of the reflectors and the metal 260z hold bit so it would all fit, drilling holes and putting screws through to secure it and then making up some brakets to hole the ballasts, i'll post pics of the other side being made fwiw the people on e46 sites complain about their HID's and say that x5 ones have a better cut off and are brighter and are bi-xenon...and lots of them upgrade to 55w lights, but they are illegally bright for on road useage! edit: and yeah there is glare off the reflector, going to fix that up when i do the other side, and also need to point them up a bit more so the adjustments on the cars mounts are of better useage, but the glare isn't that bad unless u were in a truck or something as its that high up, and the glare off the sides looks cool i reakon, kinda angle eyeish hehe and you'd be surprised at how wide the lights light up, sure the headlight buckets limit it in the inwards direction,but i've never had such good lighting of the things i'm driving past on the side of the road

As we all know the stock Zed lights aren't bright enough at all, i initially bought some h4 reflectors off ebay and was going to upgrade the wiring and run some of those "xenon lookalike" bulbs or just high wattage ones, and eventually putting in a HID conversion kit, but after looking at my mates cars with all of the above i realised it wasn't really worth the effort. i was impressed/inspired by igor's (007max) retrofitting of 5 series projectors and lexus is300 ballasts into some 7" reflectors so i set out to getting some real HID's and a good quality projector lense for myself, either wanting a matching pair off a bmw or honda accord euros, and ended up with some off an e46 3 series, so now need to sell all the bits i dont need! http://www.viczcar.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/download.php?id=248 i eventually made one side fit and did the wiring (they are only 35w so the stock wiring works fine) after getting up the nerves to do so and here are the results, the comparison to the stock lights is unbelievable, which is what i wanted http://www.viczcar.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/download.php?id=253 http://www.viczcar.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/download.php?id=254 now to fix it up and do the other side...

http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=14509&sort=1&cat=500&page=1 the db9r photoshoping really inspired me, i'm planning on doing another with the back being more similar to a ferrari 550 as this ones to plain and wrecks the angles of the zed a bit to much (from side on i think it'd b way to high at the back)...and also get a front view happening...