E30 Zone

I use my 325 for road rallying, and am looking to upgrade the headlights a little. At the moment, dipped beam isn't great, but the main problem is full beam. While there's plenty of light, it's focussed in too much of a straight line - going round bends on country roads I often want to see a bit more round the corner.

I'm thinking about changing the headlight units, replacing the outer dipped units with combined side/dipped/full units and putting something that can essentially be used as spotlights in place of the old full beam lights.

Has anyone done anything like this to theirs, and if so, could you recommend anything? I've been told that the headlight units are a nice standard size, so I should be able to get a combined unit easy enough, but I'm not sure what I'd put in place of the full beam units.

You probably have a couple of options that are easier/cheaper than replacing the standard H1's with combined H4's or whatever:

1) Headlight bulb technology has come along a bit since these lights were manufactured, I also think that bulb effectiveness can deteriorate over time - so you could simply replace your existing (main and dipped) bulbs with something like Osram Siverstars or similar to get improved lighting performance.
2) Strictly for "off-road" use you can buy 80w or 100w H1 bulbs to replace your existing main beam 55w items - Phillips have a line called "Rallye". These are EXTREMEY bright - you will get away with them when you are rallying, but the police will have a different attitude if you are caught using them on public roads. I have read on a couple of US sites that the standard E30 wiring is capable of handling the extra wattage of these bulbs without increased gauge connections, but as a precaution, if you fit them I would run them with the car stationary for a few minutes, then feel all the way along the harness to the fuse box and back - if it is heating up you might need to replace the relay and wiring with highter capacity stock. You will also need to replace the main beam fuse with a 20amp one or it will blow as soon as you switch the lights on.

Hope this helps

I've considered the 100w bulbs, but road rallying uses the public roads so I have to be able to get them past the police & the scrutineers! I think I probably will just try different bulbs to start with, but that is reliant on me being able to open the light covers - they were siezed when I tried before

You could try uprated bulbs from Osram or Philips, such as Philips Vision Plus. They will give you better illumination and they are 55W so will be legal and won't melt your wires. I saw a definite improvement in my main beams when I fitted the Philips Vision Plus.

Was the improvement just brightness, or was it where the light shone? I'm not unhappy with the amount of light being put out, I just wish that it wasn't so central!

kevin316i wrote:You could try uprated bulbs from Osram or Philips, such as Philips Vision Plus.

From my experience Osram Silverstars are better, and cheaper!

http://www.powerbulbs.co.uk

You get more light over a slightly wider area, it brightens up the edges of where the beam aims if you see what I mean.

It probably won't help your aiming problem though

Ive used these before (in a Pug405) and couldnt really see much of an improvement unfortunately. They didnt seem any brighter so maybe their pattern was better??

As they were H4 fitment I couldnt swap them onto the 320 so maybe H1 types would work better?

Got mine mail order from a place in Romsey- about Ԛ£18 pair

They made a huge difference in the E30, well worth the Ԛ£18.49 (IIRC) for the pair from Powerbulbs.

Maybe you already had "high performance" bulbs in the 405 before changing them and didn't realise?

Compared to the Philips Bluevision the Osrams seem to give a tiny bit less light directly in front and a bit more in the distance, so I think they're the better bulb.

Hardly noticeable though, I mostly recommend the Osrams as they're a bit cheaper!

Ok, I shall try changing the bulbs before doing anything more drastic (once I've managed to remove the covers from the back of the lights!). Thanks for the suggestions.