My NEW (to me) E91 320d

[EATYOURVITAMIN5]

Big news.

I recently took my car to ABS in Midrand as they've received generally favourable reviews by members of this forum. I'm overall impressed with the job but I do have a remark for those considering taking their car to get worked on.



Remark
It doesn't take an aeronautical engineer to notice that the bonnet alignment I had requested in my job card, wasn't done properly. This is particularly annoying as I was quoted an additional R850 in labour to align the bonnet.

Something to note is that if you look very closely, there might seem to be a variation in shade of Alpine White between the fenders and the bumper - I'd like to make it clear that I believe this is not a reflection of the job ABS did and more so the fact that I believe there was work done to this car prior to my ownership as there are visible signs of repair on the fenders. Given that this car was bought during a rainy evening with no service history whatsoever, that's the bed I made and it was time I sleep in it, I guess.

 

[EATYOURVITAMIN5]

As I got home - I, as the youth of today might say, "locked in twin"(?) and with some odd half an hour, I managed to get it to the point where I was more or less happy with the result.




To say that I'm pleased with the end result would be an understatement.

There is not much left to do on the exterior but the next big move is a nice set of wheels - which I already have! I won't spoil too much but they are OEM.

I am waiting for stock of runflat tires and the look will finally be complete...

..until I find an LCI rear hatch that is..

 

[///M Individual]

Looking really good well done bud!

 

[Benji]

Car is looking fantastic! Cant wait to see the wheels

The unfortunate reality in SA is that you would rather go home and fix their job after having paid them to do it, rather than letting them have another go at getting it right. Because you just know they wont get it right and they will f$#k something else up while at it... I am doing the exact same thing after getting some PPF done at a "reputable" place

 

[M3boi]

So TL;DR, what all is needed to fit xenons into a non-xenon car? Xenon car footwell module and coding it to the car? Is the wiring for the xenons different too?

 

[EATYOURVITAMIN5]

Car is looking fantastic! Cant wait to see the wheels

The unfortunate reality in SA is that you would rather go home and fix their job after having paid them to do it, rather than letting them have another go at getting it right. Because you just know they wont get it right and they will f$#k something else up while at it... I am doing the exact same thing after getting some PPF done at a "reputable" place

Absolutely.

Clean, professional work in SA is so hard to find.. you don’t know who to trust anymore.

I was encouraged to go back and ask for a refund on the R850 since they didn’t at all do what I asked but I guess what’s done is done.

 

[EATYOURVITAMIN5]

So TL;DR, what all is needed to fit xenons into a non-xenon car? Xenon car footwell module and coding it to the car? Is the wiring for the xenons different too?

This car was actually a factory xenon car, the swap was far more straightforward.

Only real coding was letting the car know it now has LED turn signals.

I can’t speak on halogen -> xenon as I’m yet to experience that on the E9x platform. I’ve only done that on the e46 which was extremely simple.

NFRM is compulsory if you want the daytime running coronas as the FRM1 is not compatible with the higher load H8 bulb.

Also, the NFRM is responsible for the welcome lights and I’m a sucker for the eyes to light up when greeting.

 

[EATYOURVITAMIN5]

Wheel reveal update​

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It's been some time since I've updated this thread but life gets busy sometimes. In any case, I had picked up a set of wheels already some time last year. I had to drive some distance away to PTA but it was well worth it. I got them in late December last year and kept them under wraps until I was able to get a good set of tires.

Let me present my 19" style 313s​

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The car is in a really good place right now - in the interim I did a hunch of boring grownup stuff like a fuel filter and other general maintenance but overall I am reaching the 'end' of this project.

Things that I would like to do but seemingly is just a matter of the waiting game is the M Sport rear bumper and the LCI hatch. Both being hens teeth - if anyone has a lead on either, that would be appreciated.

I'd also like to extend a huge thank you to @FISAACS as he messaged me privately offering to loan me a set of 313s not knowing I had a set waiting. Although I didn't take him up on the offer, I do immensely appreciate it. Thank you is not enough.

 

[EATYOURVITAMIN5]

WARNING - Long post ahead.​

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As a side excursion - wanted to undertake the (unbeknownst to me) herculean task of swapping my cluster. I had a pre LCI, kombi low, base of the base model, and I wanted the same cluster setup as I do in my E92 335i.

I love the look of the extra channel that houses more ambient lighting and of course the cruise control ring, not to mention the full length white needles.

Now, it goes without saying that I couldn't just chuck in a 335i cluster and call it a day. Diesel having a lower redline and lacking the oil temp gauge, it was a massive difference to what I currently have, so, I needed to source a diesel version of kombi high - easier said than done.

All the diesel clusters I was looking at, either lacked the white needles and were mostly black like my current ones, or were missing the extra cruise control wheel channel. After rigorous research, I discovered that I needed to be searching exclusively for a 330d cluster as these would not only have the white needles but also the fine scale little lines between rev and speed numbers.

To say I did a lot of searching would be an understatement - if I found a cluster with the fine scale lines, it had no cruise/light channel.



When looking for a 330d cluster, I found the cruise/lighting channel but it had no micro scale..



Eventually, after digging through 50+ clusters in a dodgy building in Malvern being watched by three different guys.. I found it.. the dream cluster - Micro scale, cruise control ring, ambient lighting, diesel, kombi high!

Sourcing this cluster was only the start. Now that I had the cluster, I needed to tools to make it work in my car - had I just plugged it in, if the mileage on the cluster was higher than that of my own vehicle, my vehicle's current mileage will jump to the higher value carried by the cluster - to top that all off, I would also be served a fresh tamper dot as dessert.

Doing things by the book - I needed to order this, an R270+ Programmer - straight from the heart of China. Alongside that, I ordered a thing called a test clip that would allow me to connect my R270 to the EEPROM on the cluster motherboard and that would eliminate the need for me (someone who has never touched a soldering iron in his life) to desolder the EEPROM chip from the motherboard.

R270 Programmer


SOIC 8 Test clip

I ordered both items (which happened to be from separate stores) and they both came separately and in their own time - I had to pay a combined ±R200 odd on customs above and beyond the combined ±R700 price of the goods themselves- at this point it was the sunken cost fallacy, I was in it.

 

[EATYOURVITAMIN5]

With my stuff arriving I then came to terms with something I had been omitting from my story up until now even though I 100% knew I was going to have to do it.. this test clip came with it's own board that itself needed to be soldered onto the R270 - I needed to man up and learn how to solder


I went on Takealot and ordered a cheap (±R300) soldering kit that had an adjustable temp iron - it came with all the goodies including solder, what could go wrong? [subtle foreshadowing]

While waiting for my Takealot stuff to come, as with any specialised software, it certainly wasn't going to run on Windows 11. In lieu of this, I decided to try to setup a virtual machine running Windows XP, not too difficult to find abandonware from 25 years ago. I quickly learnt that finding the software was not the problem - after more than two hours of waiting and loading in a virtual machine I had not even yet installed Windows XP. I eventually grew tired of waiting in this and found a VHD which for those who don't know is a virtual hard drive that virtual machines (VMs) are able to load. I found one with Windows XP already installed on it and was running within 15 minutes.

With my new found fossil machine, I installed the R270 software (Which in of itself was a mission to find as they provide a disc with the hardware but I have not had a disc drive in my computer for the last 10+ years) I was prepared to start the process.

I tried soldering the test clip board onto the R270 with my finest Takealot special and let me tell you guys - the boogers I left behind on this board... It looked like someone had soldered this with their feet - though it looked like it was making.. okay contact with the board.

Excited to get going, I set everything up, and try to read the EEPROM - shock horror - there's a pin error.. this could be absolutely anything and this task being so niche, there is essentially no information about this online - I was doing research and the BMW 080D0WQ chip is actually write protected, meaning that the hardware on the chip forbids the information to be altered - the way that the R270 bypasses this, is essentially blasting the chip with voltage to disable the write protection - equipped with this new information, I took a look at my power adapter for the programmer. Now, the adapter included in the box happened to be a 1A 12V adapter. However this flippen thing happens to have an AMERICAN PLUG POINT. Having thrown that e-waste away, I starved the whole house of internet as I went to loot the adapter from the router - these had the same 'barrel' plug and it fit perfectly. Plugging it in, the machine beeped into life and I thought I was in the clear - still an error.

I tried finding a 2A 12V adapter as I thought the machine was asking for more power than my router adapter (after checking was 0.8A) could supply... Takealot had one but I was a little gatvol of waiting on orders - so I hunted locally and managed to find a 2A adapter. I plugged it in, it beeped into life and.. nothing.. pin error...

I think it was high time that I faced the music. Obviously my nutsack solder job wasn't making proper connection to the board and I was not about to desolder the chip off this super illusive cluster motherboard. I needed to go back and address my work. After hours and hours of struggling, adding solder, removing solder, successfully soldering my finger, soldering some more, I had a marginally better result than before. Let's try this again. I plugged everything back in, and.. unknown pin error.


At this point, I thought it was possibly the software? I tried digging and found sweet fanny Adams. I decided perhaps maybe upgrading my VM to Windows 7 would've done the trick. I spend another few hours sourcing an ISO and setting up a virtual machine. In my struggles of troubleshooting my work I had even found another link to the software that I was so desperately trying to find a few days prior with little success! Murphy's Law I guess.. I downloaded that as it seemed a little bit newer and got the exact same setup but now on the Windows 7 machine.

I run the process... unknown pin error.
My disappointment was immeasurable. However, as you guys may have put together by now, my spirit simply could not be broken. I decided to educate myself more on soldering as I believe it was possibly my solder job that was letting me down. I went out and got actual good solder and some stuff called Flux apparently it makes soldering a dream for beginners. I would be the judge of that.

I got home and started from ground zero - I desoldered the snollos I had left on the board and took my time, used plenty of flux with GOOD solder and these solder joints..


Gentlemen - these solder joints looked like they were laid by an oom that had been welding in the aeronautical industry for 45 years.

With this new found confidence that there was no chance this board was not correctly soldered - set everything back up and tried again. I hit read on the software and was greeted with... unknown pin error.

I was at my breaking point - I had no idea what else I could do.. I did everything perfectly and by the book.. I had an adaptor that could supply more than enough power to the programmer with solder fit for the Louvre and my test clip securely fastened to my EEPROM.. I had nowhere else to turn and nothing else to blame..

In a feat of desperation, after clicking read on the software I firmly applied pressure onto the test clip forcing it down more onto the EEPROM.. to my absolute shock - it ran right past the point it was getting stuck and proceeded to read everything off of this chip..

For this brief moment I shared with this dodgy Chinese programmer at my desk.. after huffing enough solder fumes to kill a Victorian child and my fingers looking like something you'd find on a braai during a long weekend.. there was no war.. there was no suffering... there was no pain.. it was just me and this poor cluster from whatever poor oak crashed it at 140 000km (my condolences)

I quickly saved the bin file and did the relevant alterations to the code using a HEX editor (very nerdy so I will spare you the details as this post is already getting long in the tooth) I reset the mileage to 0 and cleared the vin from the previous car.

I wrote the file back onto the chip. I assembled everything and went straight to the car. I stripped everything down and did the swap.. and gentlemen.. I have an E90 330d LCI cluster!

Just so that you guys don't think I'm completely insane and arrange someone to come and take me back from the ward of which I escaped from, I will show you my old cluster:

Followed by my current 330d kombi high cluster:

As much as it was an absolute headache to do - I must say, I really did enjoy the ride along the way. I picked up a new skill and above all else, I am absolutely blown away by the end result. I am more than happy with the way it looks and makes the car feel 10 years younger. I cannot stress the importance of making the things that you use everyday nice - it has such a large impact on your daily life.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

 

[Mytfine]

I have alot of respect for you brother. Alot of guys would have just gave up and moved on. Good to see she is now in good shape.