BMW E36 Blog

Before I start this post. There’s one thing that is really confusing me? Why I’m not getting any response for these articles from you guys? Don’t you like to make your car headlights turn on automatically like the 200X cars? Isn’t that cool? Come on people, let me hear what you think good or bad 😈 .

I wrote four articles until now about how you can make your BMW lights turn on automatically at night. In the first post, I proved that this should be something easy to implement inside a BMW E36 car. In the second post, I presented a circuit diagram that will help you create the electronic circuit that is supposed to control your lights and turn them on automatically when it gets dark. In the third post, I wrote about my first attempt to implement this circuit and told you that it’s partially working but it needed some enhancements. In the fourth post, I created a video with the circuit implemented on breadboard and connected directly to my brother’s car lights. The video showed how the car lights turned on when I covered the light sensor with my hand (tricking the sensor to "think" it’s dark). So, the circuit is working correctly as intended.

In this new post, I soldered the circuit on permanent board and the end result looks like this:

I made sure that this circuit has the following:

1. Two wires for power (positive and negative).
2. Two long wires that are connected to the external light sensor. I made them long because I’m still not sure where I’m going to place that sensor. Take a look at this:

3. Three wires connected to an external variable resistor, this will allow us to adjust how sensitive the unit will be for light. Take a look at this:

4. Three wires that will deliver current from the battery directly to the headlights when it becomes dark.

With this circuit implemented, I think I’m ready to integrate this into my car. I hope in the next week, I will post a video here while I’m driving my car under a tunnel and show you how everything will work. :-). But please let me know what do you think of all this? Also, if you have any ideas about where I should put the light sensor, please let me know.

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate E36 Information Source.

Take a look at this thread on bimmerfest. It has a list of the most common mods/upgrades that can be made for your BMW E36 and best of all, the list is ordered by what you should do first. The list includes decent petrol to use for your car, good spark plugs like the NGK IRIDIUM IX, Good tires like Pirelli, Bridgestone and Yokohama, CAI (Cold Air Intake) but I’m not sure about the 10BHP gain as I read many posts about BMW owners not feeling any difference after that upgrade. To continue with the list Good brakes, Performance chip like (Dinan or Turner although I hear that Turner performance chip will make you feel the difference more in performance). These are the basic upgrades for your BMW.

If you’re interested in doing more advanced upgrades, follow the link above as it will provide you with more details and more procedures to give your BMW E36 stronger muscles 😉

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate E36 information source.

I wrote three articles until now about how you can make your BMW lights turn on automatically at night. In the first post, I proved that this should be something easy to implement inside a BMW E36 car. In the second post, I presented a circuit diagram that will help you create the electronic circuit that is supposed to control your lights and to turn them on automatically at night. In the third post, I wrote about my first attempt to implement this circuit and told you that it’s partially working but it needed some enhancements.

Today, I had the time to re-implement the circuit that I’ve been talking about and I connected it to the car. Then, I shot this video for the circuit in action. In the video, I tried to put my hands closer to the light sensor to make it "think" it’s night. Take a look at the video and let me know what you all think.

Note: this car is not mine, it’s my brother’s car and it’s dirty as usual 😆 .

Enjoy :-

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate E36 Information Source.

If you open your trunk, you will notice that there are some wires that are running from you car into your trunk and these wires are covered with with a black coat. The problem with these wires is that they move whenever you open or close your trunk and if you add the time factor to this, you will end up with a wiring disaster that may affect the entire car. I’ve checked my wires and found that some of them are cut and the cover of the wires is removed. Luckily these wires didn’t make a contact to each other. Otherwise, I’m sure a disaster will occur. I’ve heard about a guy who faced this same situation and the entire car went crazy. The dash lights, the headlights, the OBC and a bunch of fuses burned trying to keep the car alive. So I thought you all need to know about this. Besides, the job is very simple, all you need to do is to open your trunk, remove the black coat that’s covering the wires (take a look at the photo below) and make sure they’re in a good shape. If they’re not, which I think it will be the common case, I suggest your replace them right away to avoid some serious problems in your car’s wiring.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate E36 information source.

It seems that I have a weakness towards head units that will look and act great inside a BMW E36. I’m sure that by now, every BMW E36 owner here knows that if you don’t like the original BMW head unit or you just need a little bit more options inside your head unit, that you will have to sacrifice the look of the car to get these options. In my "quest" to find the best head unit for the BMW E36, I wrote about the Bluetooth Ready Headunits For Your BMW and the Bluetooth Ready Headunits For Your BMW . . . Revisited! which were very good choices indeed. The problem with all these great head units was that they will not fit into your dashboard 100%. It will always look a little bit different than its surroundings.

Today, I’ve found a new head unit which is the Blaupunkt Bahamas MP46. This unit is great and will blend nicely inside your BMW E36. Take a look at these photos of the head unit:

Now for the best part. This head unit can be set to illuminate amber which will match your BMW dash 100%. I saw a picture of this head unit with the Amber color somewhere, but now, I can’t find it. Sorry about this guys, if you saw that photo, you would know what I’m talking about.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate E36 information source.