Kamold's R36

[Passat R36]

I have done the outer ring change and the LED inner ring mod, courtesy of Buckets, who is the user you're talking about. He did a fantastic job and the look is amazing. Unfortunately I only have a really bad photo but believe me in real life the look is striking, I love it. Side effect, people mistake you for an R35 GT-R from a distance at night.

looking good!

any wiring needed for the inner rings(apart from the mod on the inners)?

[Jakeys]

looking good!

any wiring needed for the inner rings(apart from the mod on the inners)?

Yep but dead simple, just run them to your license plate lights as parkers are never on without those and if you ever do the side of the road lighting thing only your outer ring illuminates this way which I think looks better. Running to your original parkers is unnecessary pain for no gain. Very easy to detach the tailgate plastic (A few easily found screws and then just pull it off from the edges to unclip) and then a couple bolts and you have very easy access to your license plate light wiring. Solder two wires per light (I connected left inner to left license plate light and right to right so if one stops working I know which wiring to fix) and you are laughing. An hour's worth of work if you've never done it before.

Definitely recommend, especially if you've gone to the lengths of the factory fit DRL's (Hoping to get those done this weekend maybe if schedule permits!) and all the rest as I feel it completes the car. But this is Kamold's thread, I don't want to derail too much from his outstanding car!

[kamold]

Jakeys, what are you doing to me??
Now I'll need to get them done too....eventually

Yeah they definitely look good and does make you wonder why this wasn't the factory look...

Colour cluster should be the next upgrade for me, followed by new steering wheel.

[Jakeys]

Jakeys, what are you doing to me??
Now I'll need to get them done too....eventually

Yeah they definitely look good and does make you wonder why this wasn't the factory look...

Colour cluster should be the next upgrade for me, followed by new steering wheel.

I recommend it, Buckets is a champ to deal with and did a terrific job. If you look closely at your inners you will see factory holes for the LED's, at one time they definitely did plan to do this from factory. I assume they cut it either for weird regulations, budget reasons, or simply because they didn't want to be associated with the Skylines. Because, at night when you can't see the body, it is identical to a GT-R. I feel like it just puts it to how the VW designers originally intended them.

How hard/expensive is colour cluster? That'd be a cool mod but I don't mind it how it is. Is it just screen or are there more functions with the colour cluster, eg. needle sweeping which can't be enabled in VCDS for white MFD.

[kamold]

Cluster is an easy swap and recode, but not cheap. And with some clusters on older Rs like mine you lose lighting and convenience options from the MFD (which you can still control with VCDS).
It's a colour screen, I'd imagine you can do staging (needle sweep) but I won't know until I install it.

[snerlo]

About time we saw a photo Jake. Looks great mate!! Got me bloody thinking again now!!

[Jakeys]

Cluster is an easy swap and recode, but not cheap. And with some clusters on older Rs like mine you lose lighting and convenience options from the MFD (which you can still control with VCDS).
It's a colour screen, I'd imagine you can do staging (needle sweep) but I won't know until I install it.

Yeah, right. You're right about losing the convenience menu for me as well. I might leave it... On staging, probably. I have the option in VCDS to do the staging but you are not able to enable it. Did the research, this is common to all R36's I believe, they just don't support the feature even though it is visible. It should be cluster based though so in theory you would be able to switch it on once you have the newer one I guess as an additional bonus upgrade!

About time we saw a photo Jake. Looks great mate!! Got me bloody thinking again now!!

I posted that in EuroSA, I was actually waiting for a chance to do it at dusk for R Club so I could get a proper shot because I hate that photo, they look striking in real life, and that photo looks a bit lame. But meh

[kamold]

It's the ecm/ccm rev that means you lose those menus, not the cluster. Mine is white also.

[Jakeys]

It's the ecm/ccm rev that means you lose those menus, not the cluster. Mine is white also.

I edited but you beat me to it apparently haha. Cheers for the info. I didn't realise white MFD was an 09 thing, I thought it was MY10! Depends on cost actually, I may still copy you!

[Passat R36]

Yep but dead simple, just run them to your license plate lights as parkers are never on without those and if you ever do the side of the road lighting thing only your outer ring illuminates this way which I think looks better. Running to your original parkers is unnecessary pain for no gain. Very easy to detach the tailgate plastic (A few easily found screws and then just pull it off from the edges to unclip) and then a couple bolts and you have very easy access to your license plate light wiring. Solder two wires per light (I connected left inner to left license plate light and right to right so if one stops working I know which wiring to fix) and you are laughing. An hour's worth of work if you've never done it before.

Definitely recommend, especially if you've gone to the lengths of the factory fit DRL's (Hoping to get those done this weekend maybe if schedule permits!) and all the rest as I feel it completes the car. But this is Kamold's thread, I don't want to derail too much from his outstanding car!

Oh, the licence plate light, too easy, as long as the wire does not need to go through the tailgate hinge thing. Great info, thanks.

Regarding the DRL installation, one quick tip is you can extend the wire between left and right using the existing wire. This way you can easily run the wiring loom over the radiator.