The Cluster Thread

[ian332isport]

Ignore the coding plugs. Fit the E30 M3 gauges (or any others for that matter) and use the Dakota Digital calibration unit get it reading correctly. This unit has enough adjustment to use a 4 cylinder tacho with a 6 cylinder engine. There's no point changing the coding plug if it's still not going to read correctly.

http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.c...rod/prd127.htm

Ian.

[gazellebeigem3]

Yours is a 1991. So was Hall's and his did not have a pin... Another guy I spoke with did not either... I am lost, then again BMW was never very consistant.

Kyle

Could it be the difference between a Motometer cluster and a VDO?

[Ball325]

Any updates on this I have an E30 m3 Cluster and if it reads wrong i might get that calibrating unit. or see if there is a way to swap parts from the 325 cluster to the m3 one to make it read right. Since i track this car i want them to read correctly. I wonder if you can swap out teh tach of the clutsre and put an E36 M3 tach into the E30 cluster. not just a face like the whole thing. I wonder.

[DanGillan]

if you track it and want it to read correctly, either use a 325i/is cluster with a i/is coding plug.


when i put an m3 cluster in my 1990 325i, the only gauges that read correctly were the temp gauge and the speedo.
fuel was off by a lot, and the tach was off by a lot, i guess the fix would be to retrofit a 325i fuel gauge and a 325i tach face into the m3 cluster in my case.

[Ball325]

well swapping the face would only make it look different. And the 325is tach only goes to 7000. cant the s50 rev over that?

[X2theZ3]

well swapping the face would only make it look different. And the 325is tach only goes to 7000. cant the s50 rev over that?

it can, but it doesn't stock. so no.

[Ball325]

oh ok. Makes things easier.

Im gonna have to search for the wiring to the dash and stuff. I havent really looked at how to do that yet. only seen the wiring harness diagram.

any good sources for wiring these things? I have a bunch of places book marked but havent been able to look through all of them yet

[FredK]

I have a 2/90 318is, and I just finished installing a coding plug from a 325 super eta. I believe the donor was a 4/87 325 super eta.

The speedo / tach is accurate, I verified it using a few datapoints of engine speed and road speed, and plugging in my setup on a gear calculator. Much better than trying to shift by sound / guesstimating a correction factor of 2/3. :mrgreen:

[Jean]

It's the early clusters that don't have a front coding plug, think 84-86.

[FredK]

Cool. Yeah I was afraid it was going to read wrong because the eta cluster doesn't have a 7k rpm range, if I recall correctly. But then I remembered, I pulled the coding plug from an 88 supereta.

[Drew325is]

fuel was off by a lot, and the tach was off by a lot, i guess the fix would be to retrofit a 325i fuel gauge and a 325i tach face into the m3 cluster in my case.

Dan, I have an E30 M3 cluster in my 325is (still M20 for now, but eventually M52B28 8))...I don't recall a problem with the fuel gauge, but I did exactly what you're saying for the tacho. I removed the tach face from the 325i cluster and simply laid it over the M3 8k tach face. It worked a treat and is 100% reversible for the day the M52 can rev to 8k :p.

It was ages ago that I did the cluster swap, but I'm sure I also had to use the 325i coding plug, otherwise the tach was really whack!

There's two minor side effects to the tach face swap, 1) you just see the difference in cut out between the econo gauge and oil temp gauges, 2) because there's one tach face laid over the other, the dash illumination is just slightly dimmer for the tach than the speedo.

[mazur]

I have a problem with my cluster since I did the swap. The battery and parking brake light are always on.

The more electronics I turn on (i.e. headlights, electric fan) the brighter the lights get.

[Kerrath]

Old thread, I know, but most relevant.

Besides
http://r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=92187&highlight=e34+cluster, has anyone else put an E34 cluster into their E30? Or at least tried?

Any documentation?

[moatilliatta]

Is there an easier way to get and oil temp gauge is where the mpg is without swapping out for a m cluster?

[nmlss2006]

I believe a certain gentleman who is doing OBC temp sensors had that going on for a while. I do not know where it went to though.