[lens]

Originally Posted by toxik

did some minor DIY work to fix the rear splitters. added some rubber washers as spacers for the fin next to the exhaust, they previously weren’t perfectly level and parallel to diffuser (can see in my old pictures), also added some stainless steel washers to better distribute the weight of the screws holding the splitters to the car. end result looks significantly better and way more OEM. sometimes the smallest things make the biggest difference.

Would you be able to show how many washers and thickness of them and location where you added them?

I have the same issue, just wondering.

[toxik]

Originally Posted by lens

Would you be able to show how many washers and thickness of them and location where you added them?

I have the same issue, just wondering.

it's hard to get a picture of it simply because they're wedged between 2 black plastic pieces and are black rubber themselves.

basically I needed some rubber washers just in general so I bought a big pack of them (you can get something else that's similar):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000H5RQ14

the diameters are all different but they are all same thickness of 3mm. My extensions weren't even on left and right side, I believe I added 2 washers on left side and only 1 on right side. But I'm only telling you this, because I'm sure it will be different set of adjustments on your car, I don't think it's universal.

The actual washers were placed right between the bottom of the car and the rear bumper extension piece, basically they are sandwiched in with a screw going through them. Also I only placed a washer on the screw that's closest to tail pipe, the other 3 screws don't have rubber washers, all the adjustment to level them is done through that 1 screw that's closes to exhaust. hope that helps.

[lens]

Originally Posted by toxik

it's hard to get a picture of it simply because they're wedged between 2 black plastic pieces and are black rubber themselves.

basically I needed some rubber washers just in general so I bought a big pack of them (you can get something else that's similar):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000H5RQ14

the diameters are all different but they are all same thickness of 3mm. My extensions weren't even on left and right side, I believe I added 2 washers on left side and only 1 on right side. But I'm only telling you this, because I'm sure it will be different set of adjustments on your car, I don't think it's universal.

The actual washers were placed right between the bottom of the car and the rear bumper extension piece, basically they are sandwiched in with a screw going through them. Also I only placed a washer on the screw that's closest to tail pipe, the other 3 screws don't have rubber washers, all the adjustment to level them is done through that 1 screw that's closes to exhaust. hope that helps.

Big help!

Thanks a bunch, I just got mine today after like 5 months of waiting lol.

[Ceros15]

Wow I love the build man. I also have a 6spd xdrive same interior color. It’s crazy how different our builds are. Only a few hundred xdrive manuals out there. This is mine

[toxik]

Originally Posted by Ceros15

Wow I love the build man. I also have a 6spd xdrive same interior color. It’s crazy how different our builds are. Only a few hundred xdrive manuals out there. This is mine

appreciate it bro, and yours looks good man! i know F30s can be pretty common in general, so i love that us xdrive 6MTs cars can have our own little exclusive club within the community haha.

[Ceros15]

Originally Posted by toxik

appreciate it bro, and yours looks good man! i know F30s can be pretty common in general, so i love that us xdrive 6MTs cars can have our own little exclusive club within the community haha.

Yeah it would be nice to have a fb group of our own actually. My car was supposed to be a fun car for a year with minimal mods but I completely changed the car. I just made a post on this same forum with my car. Just Dynoed it a couple of days ago and got 727/640 so definitely not stock now. I love that there’s so many different routes we can take with the build

[lens]

Originally Posted by Ceros15

Yeah it would be nice to have a fb group of our own actually. My car was supposed to be a fun car for a year with minimal mods but I completely changed the car. I just made a post on this same forum with my car. Just Dynoed it a couple of days ago and got 727/640 so definitely not stock now. I love that there’s so many different routes we can take with the build

Everyone says they'll keep it stock, or do minimal mods like tune and dp, until they get tune and dp and say "well I'm already here" and install hpfp as well, then run E30-E50, from there they go "I mean, it's only a turbo"

And then you end up with a 6-7-800whp car

[Ceros15]

Originally Posted by lens

Everyone says they'll keep it stock, or do minimal mods like tune and dp, until they get tune and dp and say "well I'm already here" and install hpfp as well, then run E30-E50, from there they go "I mean, it's only a turbo"

And then you end up with a 6-7-800whp car

We’ll it’s only a full frame turbo, intake manifold, upgraded clutch, high and low pressure fuel pump, new stainless fuel lines, stainless steel brake lines, f8x brake conversion, coilovers.. can’t be that bad right 😅😅

[toxik]

Well yesterday I tackled another quality of life improvement mod in my endless quest to make this the best Daily Driver it can be. A couple of months ago, after another grocery trip, I really started to desire an auto trunk button with soft close feature. I knew about the bimmertech kit, which I always found to be quite expensive. Recently found some old car parts laying around unused, and I sold them to fund this mod... at least that's how I justified purchasing this mod in my head.

Overall, I'm very happy with the OEM+ look and function of this feature. It's standard on the G generation 3 series, and I did get jealous of my friend's G80 M3's auto-close feature.

As far as the actual bimmertech kit itself, it seems they improved a bunch of things in the newest revision of it. Still, I had a bunch of issues with the installation. Right at the start, one of the brackets provided for the new hydraulic spring called for using hardware that was way too big for the mounting hole in my car. Not sure if it's an LCI thing, but there was no room to drill/bore out the hole so I had to go find my own 10mm nut and bolt. The rest of the issues were more with frustration with the difficult parts of this installation, and working in the 90 degree sun for 4 hours. I felt quite beat up by the time I was done.

On to the pics:

Opening up the carpeting to reveal the OEM spring and workspace:



New spring and spring mounting brackets installed:



Trimming the trunk liner to fit the new button in. This part was not easy:



New latch, motor, and all the wiring complete ready for the lining to be installed again, tried to make it as little of a mess as possible with zip-ties:





Finally after installing junction box, grounding the system, and running the cables under all the floor carpeting I was able to use the provided tap-fuses to power the system. After plugging the battery back on, the system worked perfectly as it should!




bonus pic at night, the buttons light up just like OEM!

[Quahman]

Originally Posted by toxik

Well yesterday I tackled another quality of life improvement mod in my endless quest to make this the best Daily Driver it can be. A couple of months ago, after another grocery trip, I really started to desire an auto trunk button with soft close feature. I knew about the bimmertech kit, which I always found to be quite expensive. Recently found some old car parts laying around unused, and I sold them to fund this mod... at least that's how I justified purchasing this mod in my head.

Overall, I'm very happy with the OEM+ look and function of this feature. It's standard on the G generation 3 series, and I did get jealous of my friend's G80 M3's auto-close feature.

As far as the actual bimmertech kit itself, it seems they improved a bunch of things in the newest revision of it. Still, I had a bunch of issues with the installation. Right at the start, one of the brackets provided for the new hydraulic spring called for using hardware that was way too big for the mounting hole in my car. Not sure if it's an LCI thing, but there was no room to drill/bore out the hole so I had to go find my own 10mm nut and bolt. The rest of the issues were more with frustration with the difficult parts of this installation, and working in the 90 degree sun for 4 hours. I felt quite beat up by the time I was done.

On to the pics:

Opening up the carpeting to reveal the OEM spring and workspace:



New spring and spring mounting brackets [...]

Love the build man! Might want to do this next 👀

[charlie fairmont]

Originally Posted by toxik

Well yesterday I tackled another quality of life improvement mod in my endless quest to make this the best Daily Driver it can be. A couple of months ago, after another grocery trip, I really started to desire an auto trunk button with soft close feature. I knew about the bimmertech kit, which I always found to be quite expensive. Recently found some old car parts laying around unused, and I sold them to fund this mod... at least that's how I justified purchasing this mod in my head.

Overall, I'm very happy with the OEM+ look and function of this feature. It's standard on the G generation 3 series, and I did get jealous of my friend's G80 M3's auto-close feature.

As far as the actual bimmertech kit itself, it seems they improved a bunch of things in the newest revision of it. Still, I had a bunch of issues with the installation. Right at the start, one of the brackets provided for the new hydraulic spring called for using hardware that was way too big for the mounting hole in my car. Not sure if it's an LCI thing, but there was no room to drill/bore out the hole so I had to go find my own 10mm nut and bolt. The rest of the issues were more with frustration with the difficult parts of this installation, and working in the 90 degree sun for 4 hours. I felt quite beat up by the time I was done.

Nice work as always! Can you also retrofit the kick to open and have it integrate with the bimmertech system?

[toxik]

Originally Posted by charlie fairmont

Nice work as always! Can you also retrofit the kick to open and have it integrate with the bimmertech system?

kick to open works to open the trunk, but i don’t think kick to close would work. haven’t tried it but i assumed it wouldn’t work.

[Cytoplasm0671]

Dude, this is so great. Nice work!

[Cpark14]

awesome build, definitely has inspired me to do somethings to my ride!

[toxik]

Originally Posted by Cpark14

awesome build, definitely has inspired me to do somethings to my ride!

thanks man, it's honestly why i post the stuff I do to my car here. I either want to inspire, or help someone out if they see a mod I did to my car that they want to do.

[HM-2]

Got to say, the combination of rear bumper, corner diffusers and rear spoiler on this car are IMO the absolute best combination I've seen on a non-M F30. Perfect balance of a sportier look whilst keeping things looking very OEM.

[toxik]

Adaptive LED Headlight upgrade:

While shopping for my car, I was glad to find the interior/exterior and drivetrain combo spec that I was looking for, but an added bonus were all the options the car had. The only 2 options missing were the rear sunshades and the adaptive LED headlights. My car even had the KAFAS2 camera system that the adaptive lights use for features like high beam assist. Being so close to a fully loaded car was a bit of a tease but unfortunately a used pair of upgraded Adaptive lights are not cheap and almost never come up for sale on forums. I generally have a fear of buying used headlights on ebay as they 99.9% of the time come from junkyards and wrecking yards, from totalled cars. Usually the lights have been damaged and had their lenses replaced, which both opens up a can worms when it comes to having a perfect seal that will prevent fogged up lights from moisture, AND with adaptive lights an impact can always damage the adaptive motors which cannot be repaired as far as I know.

About 3 months ago or so, I was doing a deep-dive research on LED lights, I read a ton of old threads where I learned that not only are our OEM LED lights very poorly rated in terms of light output, but the Adaptive lights have a much brighter output, a much better safety rating, and a ton of features such as HBA Anti Dazzle and VLD (variable light distribution). I decided to pull the trigger and buy a used set to swap mine out.

After buying the driver's side light, then finding a good deal on a passenger side light, I've had these sitting for last 2 months or so. Yesterday I finally found out and confirmed they work good and relieved my anxiety about the DIY.

First step was to swap out the SZL Clock Spring unit. I needed an additional High Beam assist button on the left stalk, I was able to find one in really good shape used, as they are about $900 new from BMW. From my initial research, you can install this SZL unit and take advantage of the High Beam assist even without adaptive headlights, but the functionality is a lot more primitive

Part Number 9351146:




On to the headlight install, the headlights align the F30 front bumper and determine both your bumper gaps and your hood gap, it is very important to align them after installation. To access all the mounting bolts for headlights, both the front bumper and the fender liners/wheels have to come off. It's also a good idea to tape off the fender edges, as the bumper can easily chip your paint:




Once the new headlights are mounted, you can start aligning the front bumper, easy to do from top down and have to keep an eye out on the radiator splash shield below, mine kept wedging between the bumper and the lip preventing a flush fitment. It was honestly a lot harder to put the bumper back on than I anticipated:





I had to re-align both headlights about 5 times, in order to make the hood gap as close to OEM as possible. very good idea to both use a paint marker on the bottom bolts for the headlight mounts and also to take pictures of all OEM gaps prior to removing your bumper. I did both and it still needed a ton of adjustment. I don't think I got the gaps 100% perfect but they're more than good enough in my eyes, and the pictures show that any imperfections wouldn't be noticeable to anyone looking at my car:




The following day was my coding session with Steve @ codemybimmer. Highly recommend him, very helpful and this is the 2nd coding project I've done with him. I initially wanted to transfer the headlight modules (computers) from my standard LED lights to adaptive units since most of them are sold without modules. They do share same part numbers. Steve informed me he did have a case where someone did that and had Adaptive light errors, so I opted to be on the safe side of things and bought 2 complete units with all original modules that belonged to the lights. That meant that they needed to be coded to my VIN before working. I anxiously anticipated the results of coding and can happily report everything works well! I'm one happy camper after this DIY:

[jnj2455]

I wish I was as hands on and abled + availability of time to do all these mods like you! Always have loved the adaptive reflectors and more specifically the LED DRLs but am pleased with the lighting ability of the projector LEDs specific to the 4 series line. great job.

[toxik]

Originally Posted by jnj2455

I wish I was as hands on and abled + availability of time to do all these mods like you! Always have loved the adaptive reflectors and more specifically the LED DRLs but am pleased with the lighting ability of the projector LEDs specific to the 4 series line. great job.

thanks man, comments like these are making the pain I'm in today a little better. I can barely walk from the soreness of being in weird physical positions for 4 hours haha.

[Cytoplasm0671]

This is so great. Thanks for the writeup. How did you go about buying the used set considering your worries about leaks and damage? Can I ask the price you paid for this upgrade all-in?

[toxik]

Originally Posted by Cytoplasm0671

This is so great. Thanks for the writeup. How did you go about buying the used set considering your worries about leaks and damage? Can I ask the price you paid for this upgrade all-in?

unfortunately i had to accept the risks I outlined, I was hoping someone would put up a used matching set on here but of course that almost never happens. my search was a bit narrowed as I opted to buy complete sets with all modules, they're rarer to find and go for more money. in turn I can re-sell my OEM units for more since they'll be complete as well. initially I got the driver side headlight for $900, I could tell it had its lens replaced, as long as it passes the water leak test it can be a good thing since the headlight looks much better when its brand new with no road wear. the second light was all original from a F31 I believe, that one was more expensive due to that $1400. It had some wear that I did polish/buff out, but overall also in almost new shape. none of the tabs were broken or missing. the other misc costs were $150 for the clockspring unit, and $120 for the coding session. gonna put my standard LED lights for sale to offset the cost.

[F30_320D_UK]

Excellent write up and mad skill as always.
New lights look awesome.
Completely agree that re-aligning the bumper and the gaps is a pain. Swapped out light modules on mine last week too.
Your car is specc’d to the max, now!