BMW E46 Gallery

[LightWerkz]

TFX

[LightWerkz]

TFX Output

[LightWerkz]

[LightWerkz]

TFX

[LightWerkz]

TFX - Titanium Silver shrouds

[2black2box]

Be. A. Utiful!

[LightWerkz]

TSX mounted into E46 Depo Housings..

[LightWerkz]

TSX mounted into E36 Depo Housings

[dorkylaosguy]

those are hella nice caesar! are those from your car?

[LightWerkz]

yes the TFX is mine

[LightWerkz]

Originally Posted by ///Malicious

I've had some requests asking to show off the retrofit xenons and my 3000K Prolumen fogs. Man, I am in love with my lights :bow:
I cannot imagine driving with the stock M3 xenon lights - they truly are horrible compared to the TFX setup. I love driving at night because I feel like I'm the King of the road. I've had numerous compliments on the lights from S2000 owners themselves, which says a lot.

Note that the bulbs are NOT 6000K, like some may think. They are OEM Philips D2S 4300K bulbs, so no light output was lost, only gained.

on to the photos:







DRL on...


DRL on with 3000K Prolumen fogs






Car on an incline to show the cutoff...


again...


Wow, look at that color...


Cutoff line like no other...


Check out the side cutoff...

...........

[2black2box]

Absolutely gorgeous and talent in its own. Very nice cutoff.

[thejabba]

That looks incredible...

[LightWerkz]

S2k projectors in a single xenon housing..

[LightWerkz]

Specs:

2 TFX Bi-Xenon Projectors
e2 Aurora 60 LED Angel Eye from EAS
E46 Bixenon Shrouds Painted Black W/ Titanium Silver Trim
4 Philips 85122+ D2S Bulbs
1 Set DIGITAL HID 55w Ballasts For Inner TFX Projectors

**I will get some better pics when I have a chance!

A sample of what all the parts look like before modifications begin:


trimmed projectors:


Both sets of projectors bolted up and everything sprayed black:


Test fitting shrouds after trimming and painting:


Angel eyes test fitted, Projector shrouds masked off, sprayed black, left trim around projectors titanium silver:


Wow, finally coming together! Its fits




Installed:











35w's only:


35w's and 55w's:


e2 Aurora Angel Eyes:









Im sure there will be many questions, so let me fill in the blanks for the people not familiar with this type modification.

Whats the point of this?

This modification enhances both the looks and the performance of the factory lighting setup to the best that can found on the market today.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, geez that’s pretty cool, I haven’t seen something like it, but why did he go through all this trouble? Yes it’s true, it’s a lot of work, I spent 3 days total completing this project. I mainly did this because I was looking for even more performance out of my setup; well that and its just raising the bar for me. No one has ever done a quad retrofit with any spectacular projectors that I know of, and most did it purely for looks. With the TFX projectors mounted in the inside with a 55w bulb and ballast setup, the output becomes twice as bright as I originally had it. However, if you’re starting with the piss poor oem factory lighting the M3 came with, the new performance that this setup gives is like comparing night and day, literally.

What are the parts you used?

I started with some OEM m3 inner headlight brackets. This way I can work on the whole retrofit without removing the lights off my car first. I gathered two sets of Infiniti FX35 projectors, two sets of Acura TSX clear lenses and that’s how the “TFX” is made. It’s a hybrid projector that we have made to what we regard as the best compact Bi-Xenon projector out on the market today. The Infiniti FX35 projectors are pretty good how they are from the factory, however once the TSX lenses are installed, they come alive. The output is more intense, colorful, & sharp. All the nice characteristics finally come out, and that’s how it got the name TFX. The shrouds I used are not the OEM shrouds; they are the replica E46 Bi-xenon shrouds. You will notice they don’t have the word Xenon on them, and the ridges go around the whole shroud, instead of only part of it. Once I put everything together I painted the shrouds black with a silver trim around the projector. I think this goes with the theme of my car really well, however these can be painted in any color for a customized look, or even left in chrome for an OEM look. I finished the lights off with EAS’s new e2 Aurora 60 LED angel eyes. The inner set of TFX projectors will be powered with a 55w ballast and bulb setup, which is 25% brighter then the standard 35w our cars come with.

Why is this the first time I am hearing about such a thing?

The truth is not many people offer these HID retrofitting services. Most online vendors sell lighting products such as new bulbs, HID kits, and angel eyes, but that’s the extent of it. It really isn’t a profitable business unless you have really made a name for your products and services, and you can offer customers the best quality on the market with the assurance it will come out as originally planned. What makes this type of conversion special is the fact that only OEM projectors are used. We know these projectors are the best since factory automotive engineers spent countless hours developing these units to perform the best they can. Now they didn’t care so much for sharpness and color flicker, but that’s where people like myself and others in the business come in and start modifying the projectors to get even better “performance” from them.

Another reason why you don’t see many people doing this is because how labor intensive these types of conversion can be. Ive spent about 3 days on this one, that’s about how long my first retrofit took a few years ago! Now that ive done a few hundred conversions, 3 days is a very long time to be spending on something. Sure it was the first time I had done it, but the time won’t get cut down much more at this point. You won’t be able to just buy this type of custom setup off a shelf.


Whats it run to do something like this?

If you are starting out with the factory M3 bixenon lights, it will run you about about $1000 plus a minimum of about 20 hours of your life to properly complete something like this.

[NYCJ04]

damn thats badass... i love bmw lighting

[LightWerkz]

Ians testimonial from M3 Forum

[QUOTE=Obioban;3231043]I've been wanting to do this basically since I got the car... and in no way am I disappointed

If you spend any time driving dark roads at night (which I do LOTS of), this is by far one of the best mods for the car. I just got the basic TFX projector upgrades (no quad bixenons or 55w ballasts... yet :shifty, but the difference is already huge. I was driving last night from 11pm to 2am, through rain and dry, and was amazing by the light output the entire time.

Also, due to proper aiming, not even one person flashed me on the way home

Originally I planned to DIY this but Caesar really knows what he's talking about, so I went the pro route. In no way was I disappointed, he knows his stuff :thumbsup2:

The output is constant, brighter, and the cutoff is insanely sharp. And yes, the flicker looks cool :roll:

I took pics, but they're all iPhone (for now), and light is already hard to take pictures of.


Stock projectors:



TFX projectors:



^Notice how EVERYTHING left right is lit, the light is constant and consistant.
(both of these pictures are low beams, btw)

Cutoff close up:




Some pics of my projectors, in glorious imola/black









My car mid process:




And finally, a little preview into the inner workings of Lightwerkz. His shop is pretty awesome








EDIT, updated pics (also posted later in the thread):

What the projectors look like during the day:

[LightWerkz]

This pic was taken at the exact time of day as the pic below it. The difference is the result of the camera auto adjusting from moving it 2" down, below the cutoff







Quad highs, with xenon fogs on at the same time:
















Light output. Low beams, from inside the car (sorry it's fuzzy, tripod in a running car):




high beams (the highbeams are actually brighter-- it's misleading because the camera decreases the exposure time with more light. That said, the low beam lightout put is there regardless if I'm in highs or lows, so ... really the highs are like daytime in front of me):




Lowbeams from outside the car:




high beams from outside the car:




flicker (which happens when you position the camera in the cutoff) from various angles










Cutoff from ~40 feet
















edit:

Took some cool pics in the fog the other day.

[LightWerkz]

Low beams:







High beams:





[/QUOTE]

[LightWerkz]

All the way from hawaii!

Originally Posted by m3 guy

Over the past few months I have been working on my lighting for my 01 M3. I want to give a big thank you to both Tom @ EAS and Lightwerkz for all of their help in getting this put together. The light output is amazing and everything looks very oem. My set up consists of eagle eye smoked led tails, smoked depo front and side lights, and depo front housing with cf inserts and the TSX retrofit done by Lightwerkz. Tom also included the aurora 60 led angel eyes preinstalled in the housings, which look like they are supposed to be there. All of these were obtained from EAS. For bulbs I chose the invisilite silver for the side and corner lights. HID lighting consists of DDM 55w ballasts and 5000k bulbs for both the low beams and fogs.

I know what you guys are thinking, 55w ballasts for the fogs, is he crazy, going to blind everyone? Well, I decided to turn them into driving lights, an extra set of low beams if you will. I purchased the projector fogs from Khoalty and I put them into the stock housing to protect them from debris. I also had to modify the projector to accept the hid bulbs. I did this with 2 DIY's I found on here. The high beams, since this an 01 and there is no such thing as bi-xenon, are H7 osram night breakers, which I sorced from england, but there is now an u.s distributor at http://store02.prostores.com/servlet...riginal/Detail

Since I am running 4 55w ballasts I contacted Lightwerkz for an appropriate wiring harness. What he made was the mother of all wiring harnesses that allowed me to run the ballasts off my battery. I mounted the ballasts on the brake ducts.

The end result is incredible, I feel like I am driving with the power of daylight in front of me, it really is that good. Plus the other drivers are not blinded as the lows and fogs are projectors and once aimed properly don't interfere with oncoming drivers.

Here are pics of the finished product:thumbsup:

Yes, I know i need some Dr. Colorchip :banghead:









Angel Eyes:



Converted Fogs, notice the cut off:





Lows and Converted Fogs, notice the cut off again:





Outside Pics with Lows and Converted Fogs :thumbsup:





This one is a little blurry but it shows the intensity of the 55w:



My favorite shot:



My poor attempt at capturing the flicker:



This was definitely a worthwhile mod, anyone who is on the fence about this should just do it impin: