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Because of my dissatisfaction with the Generation I Demon Eye results, I opted to buy OEM Schott halos and fiber optics from Levi (in Germany) after seeing a post of his on the Roadfly E38 board in early April 2002. I thought I found my answer. What would be better than installing the BMW factory OEM component in my car? The buying experience was, again, very positive. We can't get these in the US and I don't know what his source is. Levi told me he had a friend who installed them in an E38. He sent me pics of the final results (front view of the outside of the E38 only) but didn't have install procedures or experience stories. So, I was on my own.

After receiving the OEM Schott halos from Levi, I noticed a distinct difference in quality between the OmniTec Generation I and the Schott halos, from two perspectives: 1) the ridges on the back of the halos that give the lighting effect are significantly sharper on the OEM halos and 2) the OEM halos are clearer (more optically pure).

I tore into the OEM Schott fiber optic version of the project with a vengeance. I attached the fiber optics to the back of the headlight housing and routed the fiber cables to the front of the headlight assembly. I routed the fibers around both sides of the headlight housing with one of the low-beam leads being routed through the middle. The E39 uses a 25 watt halogen bulb to fire its halos while the E65 uses a 10 watt halogen bulb. I purchased the bulbs used in the E65 from Circle BMW because it had a reflector already built into the bulb where the E39 bulb does not. As a result, the reflector in the E65 bulb allows it to more efficiently achieve similar light intensity as the E39 bulb. I attached the bulb to a small plastic 3�x2�x1� fabrication box I bought at Radio Shack. I lined the inside of the box and lid with reflective aluminum tape to enhance the reflective properties of the halogen bulb and to act as a simplistic heat sink. Using my Dremel tool, I cut a mounting hole in the Radio Shack box lid to accommodate the E65 bulb and aim it at the fiber optic core end. Turned out to be a pretty slick installation.

Before I proceeded with the installation of the halos, I took a good look at the halos on an E39 (from the outside only - I didn't pop the hood to look at the back of the headlight assembly) and noticed that the halos are actually outside the reflector and lens. This way, there is no halo backwash into the reflector, which was another concern I had with my OmniTec Gen I installation. So I wrapped the back half of the Levi supplied Schott halos (the ridges in back and half way around both sides) of the halos with my aluminum tape, as can be observed in the two pics below. I had to be careful doing this because of the compound/complex radius angles going around the inside and outside of the halo (aluminum tape is real aluminum metal, so I was forming metal to do this). It WORKED LIKE A CHARM and, as an added bonus, you can't see the tape from the outside.

Then I proceeded to destroy my clear plastics lens by cutting holes in them to fit the Schott halos before I discovered that this approach won't work without doing major surgery on the reflectors (which I won't touch for obvious reasons). The point where the halos attach to the fiber optics is too bulky and interferes with the top of the reflector, especially on the high-beam side (I took the brackets off the ends of the fiber optic leads to keep the installation as compact as possible). There just isn�t enough room in the E38 housing to accommodate the halos and fiber optics. As a result, I had to buy new lens covers (clear plastic lens and the lens surround), because you can�t just buy the clear plastic reflector covers, so I opted for the real chromelines (sourced from Germany courtesy of John at Bekkers Import).

John Carey and I have had similar experiences and are separately and collaboratively trying to sort this out. I've now spent too much money on this project, so I better figure out some way to get my money's worth. John suggested that we might be able to modify the halos using a sand pit heated to 350 F degrees to heat the halos and make them pliable. So I examined the headlight assembly more closely and made the following observations concerning the halos:

1) They're too tall for the E38. Even when I installed them on the outside of my plastic lens, I couldn't get them to fit without compressing them. That put a lot of pressure on the halos and resulted in an oval shape and look. It also necessitated cutting big ugly holes in the lens. Even installing it like this resulted in the reflector interference I mention above. The natural position for the halos is halfway through the top outer portion of the headlight assembly (they're a little too tall to fit completely inside the housing). Clearly not optimal.

2) I tried installing them on the inside of the clear plastic lens. This allows even less space for the halos because you're even more constrained due to the shape of the lens and the fact that you're working with the inside dimensions of the lens (the sides aren't the problem, it's the height). Even if this worked it would encroach another one half inch into the reflector.

3) If you were to use a heated sand bed to bend the halos, you would have only two options: bend the upper portion of the halos that includes the fiber optic receptors so they criss-cross and aim to opposite sides of the lens in the space between the clear plastic lens and the reflector. The advantage of this approach is that the light is more directly and straightly aimed into the halo. The downside is that it would result in a bulky installation and there still may not be adequate space. The other option would be to bend the halo back on itself rather dramatically so that it would curve immediately behind the edges of the clear plastic lens. This would be less bulky but I wonder about the quality of light transmission around such a tight bend.

4) The halos are more fragile than I thought, which makes me question whether a heated sand bed would be effective. With very little handling, I noticed that I was getting stress fractures around the halo. I don't know what caused these or how serious they were. They seemed to go only just below the surface, but they were clearly fractures (you could clearly see them and you could actually feel them). Once installed, you can't see the fractures from the outside of the headlight assembly.

5) There is less space between the clear plastic lens and the reflector on the low-beams than on the high-beams, making clearance a bigger issue there. I also noticed that the low-beam clear plastic lens is slightly shorter than the high-beam, if only by a couple of millimeters. This isn't noticeable visually at all, only by measuring. After thinking about it, it does make sense because the hood does slope a little downward toward the outer edges.

I received my new factory chromeline lens from Bekkers Imports in late April, so it was back to the grindstone. I also purchased the highest quality LEDs available (from Nichia America Corp - $5.00 each) and some small reflectors (from Fiber Optic Products - $0.25 each) to focus the LED light beam.

Realizing that I couldn't use the fiber optic approach with the Schott halos, I decided to cut the halos and install them using the LEDs, the same as in the OmniTec Generation I assembly. I cut the halos using my Dremel tool. I drilled into the ends 3/32 of an inch with a 5/32 drill bit to accommodate the tip of the LED (the rest of the LED fit in the LED reflector). I then polished the cut ends using the Novus polishing compounds for plastic (3, 2, and 1) that I bought from TAP Plastics to achieve a highly polished and very transparent look into the ends of the halos using my Dremel tool. I also polished the drilled holes using the Novus polishing compound and running the drill in reverse. I cut down the small LED reflectors to fit the diameter of the halos, then assembled everything the same as with the OmniTec instructions. I used 470ohm resistors rather than the 220ohm resistor supplied by OmniTec.

I installed the halos behind the clear plastic lens for a clean look. Finally, I reinstalled the headlight assembly. Looks pretty good with the new factory chromelines.

The below pictures show the final result. The results are better than the OmniTec Generation I install largely because of the better quality materials and the isolation of the halos (wrapping the back half of the halo with the aluminum tape as described above). Unfortunately, the concerns I had with the OmniTec Generation I halos still exist after completing this install. Even though the halo effect was significantly improved, it still washes out completely in daylight. It looks GREAT at night, but who drives around at night with all the lights off so oncoming drivers can enjoy the halos? Not practical or legal. Need more power. LEDs are great light sources and quite flexible, but there is only so much they can do. They just cannot match the light output of a 25-35 watt halogen bulb - plain and simple.

Recommendations:

I do not recommend that anyone buy the E39 Schott halos from any source for use in the E38. They just plain don't fit. I sent my E65 halogen bulbs to John Carey so he could continue his experimentation. I'm hoping that John can prove me wrong on the above and figure out a way to make this solution work. Even if he can, I fear that the end product will not be a casual DIY installation - IMHO.

UPDATE - May 23, 2002: John Carey has successfully modified a headlight housing to incorporate the OEM E39 halos and fiber optics sourced from Levi (Germany). Check out pages 2 and 3 of John Carey's CarDomain Site to see what he did. I am going to proceed with the OmniTec Gen II solution to determine its feasibility in our E38s. We may have two viable solutions to fitting Angel Eyes to our Ultimate Driving Machines.

So, now it's on to Project Phase III. More to come ... :-)

Page 1: Cool Pic and E38 General Info (for all 1995 E38 models)
Page 2: The "Ultimate Driving Machine" (new interior pics - 22-Jun-2002)
Page 3: The "Ultimate Driving Machine" (Continued)
Page 4: The "Angel Eye" Chronicles Phase I: OmniTec Gen I Demon Eyes (LED)
Page 5: The "Angel Eye" Chronicles Phase II: Schott OEM Fiber Optics
Page 6: The "Angel Eye" Chronicles Phase III: OmniTec Gen II Demon Eyes - FINAL CHAPTER
Page 7: Headlight Removal and Disassembly
Page 8: Curry�s Meet on 13-Jul-2002 and Simeon�s Dyno Run

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