X5 lci VS pre lci fenders/bumpers

[RL18]

Originally Posted by Serf27

I think the coupler over pipe with a lip and clamp is more than plenty to hold couplers on. I hope so! Lol. I haven't really looked at any parts, besides the tune.

I never used the kick down either. Unless I was in 6th gear and wanted it to drop to 3rd and feel the instant push. I need to eliminate it too. And in the e90 it is nice not having the trans shift down to 1st. If the x5 behaves like that, I'll most likely do the trans flash soon after it's put together. What did you pay for the xhp licenses?

Yea that shift knob looks sweet! But too pricey for me. Maybe one day I'll find a used one and retrofit it.

What's causing the misalignment? Jist the alignment points are off?
If I could shave 5mm off my e90 front wheel hub, I'd be very happy!

A video I saw also said to push the rivers back into their slot and then use a pry tool to pop them out. I was able to push one in and it was easy. The rest were too hard to push and I didn't want to take the wheel off, so I just pried them out complete and they were able to come out with the panel tool.

The entire reflector would be even harder, plus I don't like the look of reflectors on bumpers. I'm thinking cut the camera mounting point off the reflector and just trace it over the new bumper and cut the hole. So nice of bmw to not make the mounting point separate and deciding not to make it round either

I agree with you on the pricey part! Lol
Definitely too much for me for a set of fog lights.
The ones I got are 3". I'm thinking 5" would look good back there.
7" may be too big?.
Mounting them would also be difficult as you'd have to make a bracket to house it.
I'm thinking the fog lights that come with a single post mounting bracket would the easiest to mount/adjust and be the most sturdy.
Most I'm looking to spend is about $50 on a set.
I did find bigger ones with the halo ring, but no mounting posts.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Universal-5....c100008.m2219

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Inch-Roun...be9ba8fd5b22f0

https://www.ebay.com/itm/4inch-Round...UAAOSwcBpdmqH8


https://www.ebay.com/itm/2X-4inch-Le....c100005.m1851

These look good but no halo, which isn't a big deal breaker.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-5inch-Ro...EAAOSwRXxezxxJ

These have the led bulb built in and are 4" but no mounting bracket.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/4-60W-Cree-...d3fd476742e8f9

And there's hundreds more lol. I'll have to exactly measure the grill to see how big it is and what size light would look best.

Here's ,y idea to mounting the lights that come with a single post mounting bracket.
Photo is of an e90 but x5 looks the same. The bumper bar is right there so you can easily bolt a bracket to it, and there's loads of space behind the grill for whatever light you decide to go with.
I'm thinking a 1" wide piece of steel bent to shape, attached to the bumper then the light mounted on the other end. This gives us the ability to adjust the light, side to side and up and down.

That's what I think, nothing fancy. What tunes are you looking at?

I never used it and I've got pretty good at dropping two gears in m-mode, plus most of the time dropping down one gear is enough to pass just about anyone. Honestly can't remember how much it was But I want to say $150 for stage 3 tune, then another $150 for customization license. Plus you need the obdII cable to hook up to. Takes maybe 30-40mins the first time, since you save the stock file, then after that maybe 10mins to update the tune.

Just me having too much fun in my car . Should be as simple as backing out the four rear subframe bolts pulling the axle back over with a ratchet strap and driving the bolts back in.

Yeah they might of been stuck but that's how I was told to do it. I'll get a picture of the two pry tools I got for prying those bad boys out. Should come in handy when I get the m-sport flares.

That's a shame... hopefully you can get them on and not lose your 360 camera!! Maybe use the old bumper to try and trace where it would go on the new bumper?

I think any of those would do the job. Ultimately it's up to you if you want halo vs no halo. I'm not sure how sturdy that bracket would be, I'd be worried about it flexing and moving around. Have you thought about cutting a hole somewhere in the bumper? That way you could maybe plastic weld a bracket behind the bumper and you'll be able to mount the fog light flush on the bumper, kind of like how our fog lights are now? I know cutting a hole in a brand new bumper isn't the first thing you want to do but it might be an easier location to mount to

[Serf27]

Originally Posted by RL18

That's what I think, nothing fancy. What tunes are you looking at?

I never used it and I've got pretty good at dropping two gears in m-mode, plus most of the time dropping down one gear is enough to pass just about anyone. Honestly can't remember how much it was But I want to say $150 for stage 3 tune, then another $150 for customization license. Plus you need the obdII cable to hook up to. Takes maybe 30-40mins the first time, since you save the stock file, then after that maybe 10mins to update the tune.

Just me having too much fun in my car . Should be as simple as backing out the four rear subframe bolts pulling the axle back over with a ratchet strap and driving the bolts back in.

Yeah they might of been stuck but that's how I was told to do it. I'll get a picture of the two pry tools I got for prying those bad boys out. Should come in handy when I get the m-sport flares.

That's a shame... hopefully you can get them on and not lose your 360 camera!! Maybe use the old bumper to try and trace where it would go on the new bumper?

I think any of those would do the job. Ultimately it's up to you if you want halo vs no halo. I'm not sure how sturdy that bracket would be, I'd be worried about it flexing and moving around. Have you thought about cutting a hole somewhere in the bumper? That way you could maybe plastic weld a bracket behind the bumper and you'll be able to mount the fog light flush on the bumper, kind of like how our fog lights are now? I know cutting a hole in a brand new bumper isn't the first thing you want to do but it might be an easier location to mount to

I was looking at the jb4. That’s what I run on the e90 and it’s very user friendly. But I’ve read the boost box is better. I might start a separate thread when I’m ready for that. All the posts I find now are old, maybe there’s some new info.

150 isn’t bad at all. I was thinking around 250-300 for just stage 3.
If it’s 150, I might just get the stage 2 on the e90. I have the cable already.
Have you thought about running xdelete on your X5?

Dang! Is it that’s off? The 4 subframe mounting points on the car have about a 3/4” tapered pin that center the actual subframe to the car, so you can’t slide it back or forward. Maybe a bent control arm? Or alignment settings could fix it.

I think if you take the wheel off, then you can get the leverage needed to pop out the rivets that are really stuck in there.

That’s a genius idea! Thanks.
My old bumper is trash so I can cut it up for tracing. I’m thinking if I cut the part that slides into the fender off, I can slide that piece perfectly on the inside of the bumper and just trace the hole for it.

I thought 1/4” steel strip would be fine, but I agree with you. It will probably vibrate a lot while driving.
Hmm, I don’t follow your idea. You’re saying cut into the bumper above the fog light? Lol or on the side?

[RL18]

Originally Posted by Serf27

I was looking at the jb4. That's what I run on the e90 and it's very user friendly. But I've read the boost box is better. I might start a separate thread when I'm ready for that. All the posts I find now are old, maybe there's some new info.

150 isn't bad at all. I was thinking around 250-300 for just stage 3.
If it's 150, I might just get the stage 2 on the e90. I have the cable already.
Have you thought about running xdelete on your X5?

Dang! Is it that's off? The 4 subframe mounting points on the car have about a 3/4" tapered pin that center the actual subframe to the car, so you can't slide it back or forward. Maybe a bent control arm? Or alignment settings could fix it.

I think if you take the wheel off, then you can get the leverage needed to pop out the rivets that are really stuck in there.

That's a genius idea! Thanks.
My old bumper is trash so I can cut it up for tracing. I'm thinking if I cut the part that slides into the fender off, I can slide that piece perfectly on the inside of the bumper and just trace the hole for it.

I thought 1/4" steel strip would be fine, but I agree with you. It will probably vibrate a lot while driving.
Hmm, I don't follow your idea. You're saying cut into the bumper above the fog light? Lol or on the side?

What power increase do you see from those tunes? I usually only hear about jb4. Isn't that like a boost fooler? Or is it a full dde tune?

I have my tuned dde waiting for my x5d. I'm just waiting for my def fluid to get empty and I'll rip out the dpf and scr, then install the tune.

I don't remember paying that much. Maybe for the most expensive license which I think was no more than $300 maybe $400. Trans tunes are much needed on these transmissions because they're sloppy and m-mode is not very engaging. Now it drives like a dct, even some people ask if it's a manual. It's been my first mod on both my x5d and 335d.

I do have xdelete already! My x5d is in sport mode most which Is like 20% front and 80% rear bias. Drives so much better. When in regular xdrive it was just so heavy and drove like a tank, now it's lighter feeling in the front. And drove with it all winter and it drove great. It only takes a couple minutes to switch between if needed. Just gotta be careful ripping around in rwd mode because your clutches in your transfer case are still submerged in fluid so if you over heat you could damage the transfer case. That's what I hear, makes sense to me. The nice thing is if your transfer case stops working you can still drive until you get it repaired, while in rwd mode. I also figure it could save my transfer case when it I tune since I'll go from like 385lb-ft to around 550lb-ft of torque to the wheels.

I'm thinking it's a bent bolt. I saw a thread on here about it and it seems to work really good! I'm gonna buy all new bolts for it too. And nope nothing suspension, I have completely refreshed everything and all upgraded to m3 and adjustable toe arms and it's perfectly within alignment. Just the subframe is shifted slightly. Here's the thread on it:

https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1506694


You might be able to find a nice bezel to dress it up too! And body fill it in before you paint. That would look really nice and unique!

If you look at the f15 x5m with fog lights you could put the fog light up on above the outside grille

[Serf27]

Originally Posted by RL18

What power increase do you see from those tunes? I usually only hear about jb4. Isn't that like a boost fooler? Or is it a full dde tune?

I have my tuned dde waiting for my x5d. I'm just waiting for my def fluid to get empty and I'll rip out the dpf and scr, then install the tune.

I don't remember paying that much. Maybe for the most expensive license which I think was no more than $300 maybe $400. Trans tunes are much needed on these transmissions because they're sloppy and m-mode is not very engaging. Now it drives like a dct, even some people ask if it's a manual. It's been my first mod on both my x5d and 335d.

I do have xdelete already! My x5d is in sport mode most which Is like 20% front and 80% rear bias. Drives so much better. When in regular xdrive it was just so heavy and drove like a tank, now it's lighter feeling in the front. And drove with it all winter and it drove great. It only takes a couple minutes to switch between if needed. Just gotta be careful ripping around in rwd mode because your clutches in your transfer case are still submerged in fluid so if you over heat you could damage the transfer case. That's what I hear, makes sense to me. The nice thing is if your transfer case stops working you can still drive until you get it repaired, while in rwd mode. I also figure it could save my transfer case when it I tune since I'll go from like 385lb-ft to around 550lb-ft of torque to the wheels.

I'm thinking it's a bent bolt. I saw a thread on here about it and it seems to work really good! I'm gonna buy all new bolts for it too. And nope nothing suspension, I have completely refreshed everything and all upgraded to m3 and adjustable toe arms and it's perfectly within alignment. Just the subframe is shifted slightly. Here's the thread on it:

https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1506694


You might be able to find a nice bezel to dress it up too! And body fill it in before you paint. That would look really nice and unique!

If you look at the f15 x5m with fog lights you could put the fog light up on above the outside grille

Jb4 says it adds 60whp on a stock engine then 100whp on and fbo. Then I’ve read the mhd bef is still possible to do on the X5.
Yea it’s a piggy back tricking the dme. Not a real dme flash.
That’s what I run on the 335i with the mhd bef flash. The mhd does flash the dme, at which point I’m not sure if the jb4 is still controlling the dme or if the flash is. Haha.

Nice, I have xdelete in the e91 and it makes a huge difference. It’s full rwd mode.
The transfer case is fine, but I don’t want it being used when not needed and wearing out the clutches. I’ve maybe switched it on 5 times in the past year.
That is definitely going to be the first thing my X5 gets. 20% up front sounds good for launches, but I’m afraid that’s when the clutches take the most abuse because they’re barely engaged.

Crazy, I’ve never heard of that, and with how big those alignment pins are, I didn’t think it was possible to more the subframe around. Good luck on it.

That does look clean, but I don’t want to take on that task of cutting exact holes on a new bumper.

[RL18]

Originally Posted by Serf27

Jb4 says it adds 60whp on a stock engine then 100whp on and fbo. Then I've read the mhd bef is still possible to do on the X5.
Yea it's a piggy back tricking the dme. Not a real dme flash.
That's what I run on the 335i with the mhd bef flash. The mhd does flash the dme, at which point I'm not sure if the jb4 is still controlling the dme or if the flash is. Haha.

Nice, I have xdelete in the e91 and it makes a huge difference. It's full rwd mode.
The transfer case is fine, but I don't want it being used when not needed and wearing out the clutches. I've maybe switched it on 5 times in the past year.
That is definitely going to be the first thing my X5 gets. 20% up front sounds good for launches, but I'm afraid that's when the clutches take the most abuse because they're barely engaged.

Crazy, I've never heard of that, and with how big those alignment pins are, I didn't think it was possible to more the subframe around. Good luck on it.

That does look clean, but I don't want to take on that task of cutting exact holes on a new bumper.

I hear good things about jb4, but I definitely like a custom tune better! I had a piggyback tune on my 335d when it was stock and it got the job done, but the custom tune really unleashed that beast! I think you can stack a piggyback with a DME flash, atleast it works with my 335d. I didn't do it though, seems like overkill.

Yeah I'm not really sure exactly how it all works but I figure less torque to the front axle is better than more. I guess time will tell if sport mode does more bad than good for my transfer case. I don't drive my x5d like I do my 335d though

Me neither till I saw that thread. It's worth a shot though!

I hear you on that. I would feel the same. I think you've got the right idea about mounting a foglight though.

[Serf27]

Finally had some real time to actually work on the x5 this weekend.
I was able to get the side view camera area cut out, as well as figure out the inner headlight bulb.

For the side view camera, I cut up my old bumper to make a stencil.(the old bumper was cracked and worthless, so cutting it up was fine.)
I roughly cut around the camera/side marker and cut the top edge off to let it sit in the new bumper as close to stock location as possible.

The camera is mounted to the side marker. I didn’t want to make a cut out for the side marker itself, just the camera. Since they sit flush together(camera and side marker) I had to break the reflective part off the side marker.
I don’t like the look of the side marker and making the cut out for the entire thing would have also taken a long time.

I cut out the design of the camera mount. I’m not sure if the shape of the black area has anything to to with side vide camera. Now that I think of it, it would’ve been much easier and cleaner to remove the camera from the side marker and just drill a hole for the actual camera to pop into! Would’ve looked cleaner too.

Too late now, doesn’t look off either way.
I mounted the piece of the old bumper on the inside of the new bumper and traced it out. I drilled small holes around the marking and went at it with a razor blade. At first I cut out the top half and got the top of the camera mount in there then started cutting down. This took about 45 min each side. It is not as perfect as the original cutout, but the camera sits in there well won’t be noticeable later on, except to me. I will clean up the edges more this week when I prep it for paint.

The cameras work fine with the bumper mounted. My driver side camera is a bit blurry, I might try to clean up its lens. The passenger side camera looks clear, but I can’t figure out how to access the entire radio screen!

Onto the headlights. I figured out what to do with the inner bulb area.
I was originally going to put some color changing LED bulbs in in, but the hole where the bulb goes is about 1/2”. I had some spare e60 read halo bulbs lying around and they just barely fit in there!
Since there no wires in the headlight for this bulb, I’ll have to run the wires to a switch in the car. The clips that hold the bulb in place aren’t the ones that are suppose to go in there, and I’m not sure what style bulb is meant to go in there. I’ll have to girlie out the style of bulb it uses or find a way to mount the e60 bulb in there and make sure it doesn’t come out. The lights are hard to access when installed, so it has to all be perfect, they’re not coming back out once they go in!


Last thing, the adaptive lights are turned on when the light switch is set on auto.
Before, I would get adaptive light errors. This time around, switch set to auto and low beams on, I didn’t get any adaptive warnings. This is good, but I had someone turn the wheel and I couldn’t see the low beams moving side to side.
Any idea on why I get no errors but don’t see them moving.?