Re: E36 Low and High Beam Headlights

[Jim Bassett <jimbassett@xxxxxxxx>]

>af about $450.  The units took about an hour an a half to install.  The
>lamps come stock with 55w bulbs, but these can be upgraded to higher
>wattage, if of course the wiring and relays are upgraded.

All that's need to be upgraded is one of the internal wires (Josh @
Eurosport has some high-temp wiring you can splice in), and the *fuses*,
not relays. You'll need 10A fuses, replacing the 7.5A stock ones. Not so
much for the extra current protection, but to also reduce the resistance.
This was recommended by Jim Conforti in another forum:

>   Sure.. go do this.. pull out a few of those 7.5's and look
>   at them with a magnifier.. you'll see they wires have "split"
>   apart into multi strands and are oxidizing.. then put 10A's
>   in and REVEL at the new brightness..
>
>   The FUSES become RESISTORS and drop the brightness a bit, and
>   I'm quite sure have been killing my bulbs also.. they don't
>   get to their target temp as often, hence the tungsten doesn't
>   recirculate as good as it should.

and

>  Actually (and I'm only hypothesizing) I think it's that the 7.5A fuse has
>  a slightly higher resistance than a 10A (it has to) and as such, the
temp the
>  bulb attains a bit lower... the filament regeneration isn't working as well
>  at the lower temp and the bulb goes poof.

Hope that helps,
Jim Bassett
previous 1996 328is w/Euro ellipsoids
current 1998 M3/4 w/Euro ellipsoids
(yes, I think they're better than stock :-))

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