Here's how mine turned out:
I didn't take any pics of hacking up the coil to make the connector at the bottom of the screen, but all it involved was exposing the solid copper leads on the inside with a hacksaw and a dremel.
The wire color to cylinder correlation (for my car) was
white - cyl #1
blue - cyl #2
red - cyl #3
yellow - cyl #4
My findings were contrary to the information found here:
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum....php?t=1103482 Perhaps different cars had different wire colors??
As far as a performance improvement goes, it seems to idle better (but I also put new plugs in at the same time - old one's didn't look bad, though). It also cleans up the engine bay a little and is cheaper than replacing the coil and spark plug wires.
I bought 6 coils and the E46 wiring harness off ebay for ~$130. A buddy of mine used to be in the e30 M42 COP plate making business had a couple left, so I got one from him.
Let me know if you have more questions.