Beiträge von TallTony

just realised, I have a picture of the opposite effect

love the phonetic description

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to everyone in 8er-land

Moved house yesterday, and had to dig this out to get it to the new place (which has a HEATED garage !!)



The car deserves it

Zitat von Got-One-At-Last!;71748

Thanks for the feedback, has anyone have them in when going for an MOT, were there any problems or did they go through OK?

I've had 3 MOTs with my HID kit from 3 different garages and never got a mention. My bulbs are listed as 6000K but they are not blue, like some I see on the roads. They are more an ice white. The reflectors also seem to work correctly as I get the same beam as before only with a different colour temp and intensity of light. This kit was from the now infamous 'Al' fiasco, but I got mine in before the stock dried up.

I did attempt to fit HIDs in my VW T5 van, but with these headlight housings the beam just scattered and gave a Full Beam effect, hence dazzle, at all times. They have beeen removed.

I think the e31 headlight housing is just curiously HID friendly and I have never once had a problem with the bulbs and their beam (one ballast burned out, but a kind member on here supplied me with a replacement!!).

I always thought they were one and the same effectively

they stop the sea sickness from the stock ones for sure

Also much better round corners, and super stable at speed on the motorway. I cannot recommend them enough.

mine is a 1997 840ci Sport.

Come to think of it, I bet the white wire went into the amp and then out of it to the antenna ??? Then obviously the circuit is broken since the amp is on my shelf here.... !

Well that made no difference. 12v+ IGN feed into the white wire still produces no reception. Must be doing something wrong, but all connections on the radio unit are correct.

Is the Antenna grounded thruogh this loom ? Perhaps that's the problem as the loom is unused now since the stock system, amp and headunit have long since been removed ?

I looked and found that one labelled (WS = weis) and it makes more sense now.

This is the audio loom running backwards through the car from cabin. I assume that the wire held is the one to feed 12v+ .... ? it is white after all

I think this answers my question. I have no reception, and therefore figure that my antenna amp is left unpowered at present. Can anyone tell me which wire is the one that powers the unit, and where to find it (I really dont want to be dismantling the rear c pillar to trace it back if I can avoid it [SIZE=+1] )[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]Antenna system (from antennaworld.com)[/SIZE] All newer BMWs have the in-glass electronic systems by Fuba. The following information applies to these cars as follows: E31 - E32 - E34 - E36 and up

These cars have 2 or 3 antennas in the rear glass, including one which is the defroster wires, all embedded or printed on the inside of the glass. The usual configuration is a small computer/antenna selector/signal amplifier in the left side C-pillar. This small box can be accessed by removing rear seats completely then removing large plastic trim panel.


The "box" gets a signal from the radio via a thin (aprox 1/8") coaxial cable. This is an IF (Intermediate Frequency) signal out of the radio. My best guess is that it comes as a variable voltage level not a data signal. The computer uses this information from the radio to learn how strong the reception is at a given instant. As usual for a computer, antenna or antennas are selected at maybe 30 or 60 times per second. It is possible for the computer to select 1 single antenna or combine 2 and maybe 3.

If the original BMW radio is replaced with an aftermarket radio, the computer defaults to one antenna, probably the largest array. The reception quality will become fairly poor using a single antenna in the rear glass. The best solution apart from re-installing the original radio is to install a single antenna in the rear fender, the old fashioned, old reliable way. Otherwise an aftermarket radio with 2 antenna inputs (diversity system) would be a near remedy: In this case use the default antenna in the rear glass plus an aftermarket small electronic antenna inside the front glass.

Note: No reception on the AM band means the power is somehow disconnected from the antenna box in the C-pillar. Check for voltage at the box itself. Many times when installing an aftermarket radio the power lead to the antenna box is left disconnected. It should go to the power-antenna lead, (blue or green) of the aftermarket radio.

is the antenna amplifer powered seperately ? In that it takes a feed from the ISO plug that would normally fit into the rear of the BMW head unit ?

I only ask as I cannot get a reception on any station, either FM or AM right now, and can only think that the the antenna must be powered seperately ??

I am only using the Large black connector, and not the diversity one.

true, but that wouldnt help me now since the car isnt garaged (will be in new house next year - fingers crossed).

So far I have had no issues with battery drainage as a result of my install, so long as the engine is in regular use. Once it is put to sleep in my (new) garage I will install some sort of conditioner for the batteries, and the CTeK one was on the list as it happens !

Zitat von Argonaut;71151

Hibernation mode might be a simpler solution - basically the PC is then more or less always on and should be available again just a few seconds after being prodded to wake up.

just reread this and see what you are getting at.

I do use the hibernation feature, which takes the 10secs boot stated, but during this time you still see the BIOS self test page (10 secs), an ugly DOS progress bar (5secs) and blank screen for a further 5 secs). Therefore a 30 sec delay on the screen power would be better cause it will only turn on once all these processes have completed their loading.

This is to be done using a second M2 ATX, linked to IGN. After 30 secs it will also send remote feeds to AMP and TV module, as well as the screen.

That is right, only in a car environment you need to be wary of power drainage when not in use. The Power Supply of choice for cars/boats etc is the M2 ATX which has several jumper settings to help with this issue.

The PS (power supply) has 3 input feeds, 12v+ ON, GND, and 12v+ IGN.

On IGN the PS waits 5 secs and then powers ON the main power feed to MB and peripherals. Turn IGN OFF and it sends a signal to HD and shuts the PC down normally, or sends to Hibernate, whilst keeping the low power 5V rail open for a set amount of time (I have this set at 2 hours) before a full hard OFF.

The PS also regulates all the power feeds, to avoid damage caused by engine cranks etc, and has an auto low power shut down to conserve charge - basically so you should have enough juice to start your car before draining the batteries fully (if parked up for example).

When I have it configured perfectly, I'll shoot a proper video (on a tripod) showing it's basic funtions and user friendliness.

All my car pc software is geared towards an XP os, so I will leave that alone.. but does win 7 really boot in under 10 secs, which is where I'm at from restoring from hibernation on my setup (after Bios self test screen).

Also, the first screen to appear from that is the idrive home page, instead of breifly showing and XP desktop and then loading programs from the Startup folder.

All in all I think I'll be stuck with this boot time, an am considering putting the Screen on a 30 sec delay from power source (M2ATX) so that I never see the BIOS and Hibernate screen (unless I bypass that for configuring), and the screen turns on directly into the idrive page. I think that would be a more factory look.

another further tweak to the system brings in PC Hibernation. In that upon IGN the system boots up in about 10 secs and straight into the iDrive program, restoring all previous settings and Apps. Turn IGN off and the system shuts down in 15 secs.

I've had the system in for 18 months, and only now am I spending the time to configure everything properly. The goal is to make the experience seamless so that I dont realise there is a pc in the boot. This is getting closer now

Radron, I have an identical setup to that, Eibachs/Bilsteins/Camber Plates and I can tell you that on my 840 the lowering effect amounts to about 15mm only. I think the difference in height is more pronounced when you replace standard springs rather than the stock Sport ones fitted to mine originally.

Handles much better though

it IS the Messiah, and I should know, I've followed a few....

"this time next year I'm gonna be a millionaire"