“EXTERIOR LIGHTING MODS”
HID SETUP FOR HEADLIGHTS
I have built lights for cars from over 6 years now. I have a personal collection of some old school exotic hid projectors likes of s2k, rx330,rx350 etc to modern led tech likes of Koito bi beam to Acura jewel eye setups and I always thought will retrofit these to my future cars. Now, I am that kind of person who would love to upgrade vehicle, but keeping its soul intact. So the thought of adding projector setup to w124 was instantly overruled after seeing the OE headlight shape, design and glass. The aftermarket clear lens headlights look out of place, at least to me (no offense here) so that was a no go, as well.
The previous owner was running 100/90w halogen setup with relay. But ever since I moved to hid/led world, the regular halogen just don’t cut it for me (my daily i10 is running a retrofit for 5 years now and I have nothing but happy with the setup and night drives are breeze). So for the headlights, I removed the halogen setup, made a custom casper shield and installed hid setup in reflector. This custom shield is designed, after various trails on w124 headlight setup, to kill the glare that a hid bulb can cause in a reflector housing. The downside is you lose something on high beam output. But since, my night drive on w124 is never going to happen to highways, its perfect for city use.
CUSTOM LED TAILLIGHT SETUP
Recently my team has been doing wonders with custom made LED taillight setup. So it was clear we will be doing something to w124 setup, again soul is important so the glass will be original and no aftermarket clear lens.
Now I always wanted it to have Mercedes feel. Something Mercedes would design. It should look subtle, yet have a modern touch to it.
I have always been a fan of CLA butterfly style tail light.
![Prince Vegeta - My 1995 Mercedes E300D W124 with 500 BHP-sl400.jpg](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/2075601d1687443833t-prince-vegeta-my-1995-mercedes-e300d-w124-500-bhp-sl400.jpg)
Those optics lines of light flow so well. So we started building something similar in our head. Now, we were concerned as to how the optics lines would flow under the OE glass texture.
Well, guess only one way to find out.
The design look promising, the line of light was flowingly & glowingly evenly.
But we have to check around every curve. So we made a complete test optic line.
And voila, the flow was smooth, there was no distortion when viewed from any angle. Now, we knew design can look properly blend in and not out of place.
Now in stock form, the upper half portion of tail lamp is used for reverse and turn signal. Keeping the lines only at the bottom half of the tail light was looking somewhat incomplete. But we also did not want to compromise on any functionality of any signal. Things like sequential, switchback were ruled out mainly because they do not do justice to the image of w124.
We did a trial mock up on the upper portion as well
![Prince Vegeta - My 1995 Mercedes E300D W124 with 500 BHP-photo20190523143251.jpg](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/2075600d1687443833t-prince-vegeta-my-1995-mercedes-e300d-w124-500-bhp-photo20190523143251.jpg)
and then checked the working of the turn signal and reverse. What we noticed that, there was no such compromising effect on the light output of the turn signal and reverse, which meant a green signal for us.
And it was decided we would make a complete setup on all 4 grooves and would merge on the side.
After years of searching and attempts, we have also found the right drop in plug n play led bulbs for turn signal, reverse, stop light, etc. They are very bright and works in almost all of the reflector housings. The best part is they work well on modern Canbus setups as well, without any need of coding or error cancelling resistors and give no hyperflash as well.
Almost all the work was sought, although we had to do little more than expected trimming and fabrication of optics, as it has to be spot on. But the end result was worth it
These can be checked in action on Youtube
Turn Signal as DRL
The aura of w124 is that it kept on giving me new ideas.
Having DRL is functionally important and mainly it looks cool. Right?
But the aftermarket DRL on W124 is a big No. Now, I have seen on many classic cars and some U.S vehicles were turn signal act as a DRL. In modern vehicles, the computer controls the function of turn signal as both DRL as well turn signal. Also, they either use a dual filament halogen bulb or a dedicated led chip designed reflector setup.
Finding a switchback is pretty easy, but finding a good amber-amber switchback is not easy now. Earlier also only V-leds used to make amber-amber switchbacks, they were very bright and used real Philips chips with adjustable optics but they discontinued.
White-amber switchback on W124 looks cheap.
Which left me to use a good high power amber/orange plug n play led bulb with an integrated heat sink so it can emit high output continuously (without heat sink either led will blow in high output or will dim).
Now to make it function as both DRL as well turn signal, we needed to use a drl module and rewire it as per our use and it worked flawlessly for us.
Here are some of the pics of output comparison of LED setup vs halogen turn signal.
Working of these can also be checked on Youtube.
No reason to hate these, until you are purist
![LOL](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/LOL.png)