Any of you running 100w lamps?

[greentouring]

As the title really......
Cheers............

[AndyTouring]

Two things to take note of here:

1. 100w bulbs are illegal for road use. I know this cuts little ice with some Zone members but they you are.

2. The wiring isn't up to scratch for these. I'm sure someone will contradict me on this but I did lose my Opel Manta in a car fire & the finger was pointed at the 100w bulbs I was running at the time . . .

Best advice is to go for Xenon bulbs which give up to 50% more light without any worries.

Total BMW mag has just done an article on updating E30 lights with a HID setup. Cost was around £100 which seems very reasonable given how crap the originals are.

[greentouring]

Thanks for that, Andy. I was wondering if 100w might cause a fire issue, so thanks for the warning.

Do you know the wattage of the standard E30 lamps?

Cheers

[harry_p]

standard will be 55watt.

tbh, HID kits can be bought for around £70 and will give a huge improvement even over upgrade normal bulbs which might cost you ?£20 a pair (tbh, i've never been able to tell much difference between normal halogen and a variety of the fancy ones sold as upgrades)

it depends what you have the time to do too.

if you dont want to go full hid, on older cars like ours it's often worth updating the wiring loom. use the original feed to trigger a relay to power the bulbs via some nice chunky cable. i know on a lot of cars this alone makes more difference than a set of bulbs, and combined with new bulbs makes even more difference.

on my car i'm thinking about using HID for the dipped beam, and an uprated loom and 100watt bulbs for the main beam. as you shouldnt have main beam on when anything is coming towards you the extra brightness of 100w bulbs shouldnt be an issue, unlike 100w dipped beam bulbs which are usually very obvious and annoying.

from memory, the std outer lamps also usea lot of plastic, and 100w bulbs make a lot of heat, so even if th wiring survives, the light itself doesnt always

[Brianmoooore]

Standard lamps are 55W. There's not really a fire risk with E30s - they are slightly better designed than any GM vehicle (slight understatement!), but there will be a bit more voltage drop than is ideal with the standard wiring.
With xenon discharge (HID) kits available now for around £40, I wouldn't consider using 100W bulbs for the dipped beams, but they can be a worthwhile upgrade for the mains, where xenon lamps aren't suitable.

[Brianmoooore]

(tbh, i've never been able to tell much difference between normal halogen and a variety of the fancy ones sold as upgrades)

Too slow! Must be losing my touch!
I've come across alledgedly 100W bulbs that drew a current of around 4.5 amps each when checked. I.e. Normal 55W lamps!

[daimlerman]

I am using 100 watt bulbs in the main beam only on both cars.No problems and a much improved light.

[AndyTouring]

xenon discharge (HID) kits available now for around £40

£40 ??? Tell me more! That's a helluva drop from the £200 - £300 when the kits first came out.

[paris]

Last weekend I finally did the HID conversion on my facelifted E30. WOW what a difference.

The HID bulb would not go through the headlight opening (HID bulb thicker than halogen) so I had to sand the opening a bit, nothing major.

Here's the link with the HID kit: ebay H1 HID

A friend of mine got the same kit 2 years ago, and it still works fine

[hammoj28]

xenon discharge (HID) kits available now for around £40

£40 ??? Tell me more! That's a helluva drop from the £200 - £300 when the kits first came out.

I got mine from Hong Kong, £40 delivered. Fitted them a few weeks ago and they are bloody awesome. Look dam cool too.

[gazza]

100 watt on my dipped for the last 4 months with no problems whatsoever no melting wires or anything ...i did buy them for the dipped beams but when i needed a bulb in a rush this is all i had ....halfords also do a 130watt bulb but i wont go that far but i will say to anyone if make sure your lights are correctly adjusted or you will atract a lot of unwanted attention and run the risk of blinding oncoming cars

[ric325i]

so with that £40 ebay thing from hong kong, what temp etc did people go for?

or with any HID kit what did people go for?

[mattyb240]

HID are awesome got mine from the same place brain did, nothing but the standard mod to fit them, no sanding etc and that was about £50 delivered, really worth the money!! I went for 6000K anything higher and you lose a significant output, plus no matter what people say 6000K is noted as closer to day light, although supposedly 4300K give a few lumens more.

My 6000K were slight blue tint when reflected off other cars but the beam was a xenon white. HTH

[ric325i]

so 6000k sounds good?

thing is they say they can do 12000k sounds like an opal manta repeat to me

[ric325i]

are those on ebay a universal fit?


what about a fit to our e30's? they must be car specific

[Brianmoooore]

I've fitted ebay ones to two of my E30s now, and one of the second set did need a little attention to the bulb area of the headlamp with a Dremel. The envelope of the lamp was slightly too big to go into the cross shaped slot where the bulb slides in.
Just unscrewed the three screws that hold the projector unit to the front part of the headlamp, and removed a few microns from the corners of the slot. Both lamps would fit into the one headlamp, but neither would fit into the other headlamp.
4300K is the best colour IMHO, as well as being slightly the brightest. I would expect to get pulled if using 12000K for coloured headlamps.
The H1 kits should fit any E30.

[mattyb240]

The higher the colour temp the bluer and eventually gets to UV!!!!! Seem a rover in brum going round with it and the light output is shocking! And is just well UV purple colour.

I would like to try/see 4300K but if you want a slightly modern look 6000K are a bit more suttle then 8000+

[ric325i]

hum. sounds like payday i will be splashing out 4300k or 6000k hum i dont know?

glad the price has come down from the stupid £300 it started as

[greentouring]

Yeah, they're quite affordable right now.........

As a side note, have you ever found that ebay, where you're supposed to pick up bargains, is sometimes more expensive than the highest priced shops!? Well, yesterday I wanted to bid on something and emailed the seller to ask why the postage was so much, and if he could do anything about improving it......It felt a bit cheeky, but he knocked 2 quid off and was prob still making a tidy profit on p&p alone..............

Always ask for a discount and most people will usually negotiate if you're polite.

[markdemon]

what did they mean when they ask what bulb type??????

[Brianmoooore]

Bulb type is H1 for an E30.

[markdemon]

thank u for that bri

[Morat]

Don't forget my guide stickied at the top of the Styling and Ice forum!
(go hid, everyone should)

[d6dph]

I can't see any reason not to go HID. As much a safety feature as anything else.


Morats guide is very helpful too.

[paris]

Got the 4300K version. Lights the road 3x the distance of halogen. Only thing I regret is not doing it earlier.

[markdemon]

can anyone give me a link to a set of these off ebay so i can make sure i get the right one's????????please

[d6dph]

What like the link in this post from this very thread?

Last weekend I finally did the HID conversion on my facelifted E30. WOW what a difference.

The HID bulb would not go through the headlight opening (HID bulb thicker than halogen) so I had to sand the opening a bit, nothing major.

Here's the link with the HID kit: ebay H1 HID

A friend of mine got the same kit 2 years ago, and it still works fine

[markdemon]

ooops yes one just like that will do

[Brianmoooore]

Don't forget my guide stickied at the top of the Styling and Ice forum!

Certainly nothing to do with ICE, and not styling either in my book.
Now promoted to "tech help" where it is more likely to be seen!