Retrofitting a 10.25" iDrive Screen
Most people retrofitting 10.25" screens into their F3x use F15 X5 screens. I saw one who had a G30 5-series screen retrofitted for him and decided to look into that further. The G30 screen looks better to me than the F15 one since it doesn't have a thick silver trim around it. Additionally, since my vehicle is LCI, it has NBT EVO. Finding F15 NBT EVO touch screens isn't nearly as easy as finding older NBT ones, and they were all pretty expensive. I knew that whatever G30 screens I found would work with NBT EVO and decided to check out that route.
Part Numbers
To my surprise I found a decent amount of G30 NBT EVO screens at decent prices, and ended up snagging one off eBay for $325. The PN I got was 65506810511, which came out with the initial G30s, but has since been discontinued and superseded by 65508781408 and 65508715339.
Fitting
When I took out my existing 8.8" screen and test fit the 10.25" screen I saw that the main mounts (where screws go) generally lined up with those of the 8.8" screen, but the rear mounts that snap into clips on the dash were significantly off. Additionally, if the screen were tilted back at the angle required to use the rear clips it would lean way too far back. Instead, I tried tilting the screen all the way forward to see how that looked, and that actually looked just right. That also had another a good effect, it allowed the screen and rear cover to clear the dash! No cutting of either was required!
The mounts with screw holes on the 10.25" screen are a bit wider than that of the 8.8" one. They won't fit all the way in the dash cut outs, but with the screen tilted all the way forward they won't align with the screw mounts in the dash anyways. I wasn't sure how to mount the screen at this point, but decided to try using zip ties. Beside the holes in the dash where the screen's mounts go I drilled two more holes, one on each side to route the zip ties to after going through the screen's screw holes. These would be hidden since they sit under the screen and within the dash. Surprisingly these held pretty well and didn't let the screen rock forward at all. The rear cover of the screen leaves a large gap behind it and the dash though, and allowed the screen to rock back a bit. In the meantime I used some dark foam to support the rear, and will probably end up taking some thermo-formable plastic (like kydex) and make a rear cover extension to cover the gap and add rear support. The foam's worked well in preventing the screen from rocking back during driving.
Zip Ties Securing Mount
Gap Behind Screen and Temporary Foam Support
Coding
When I initially plugged the 10.25" screen and turned on the car it stayed blank. I hadn't coded it, so I went about that next. In the HU_NBT_EVO file the only two options I needed to change were the CID resolution and CID screen size. These are located in "3005 DISPLAY_PIP_CONFIG>CID_DISPLAY_RES," and "3005 DISPLAY_PIP_CONFIG>CID_DISPLAY_SIZE." The screen size was changed from 8.8 to 10.25" and the resolution from 1280x480 to 1440x540. After those two changes were made the screen fired right up and displayed my ID6 Lite without issue. These screens are touch capable, and if I'm sure if I code ID6 vs ID6 lite that function will work too.
End Result
Even with my somewhat on the fly rigging, everything seemed to work out alright. The screen worked, and stayed secure in driving without any noticeable shaking or movement. I'll need to work on cleaning up the gap left by the rear cover and the dash though. You can see the difference between the 8.8" and 10.25" screens below.
Stock 8.8" Screen
G30 10.25" Screen
