S50 swapped e30 (poorly wired)

[BuffratE30]

I'm new to e30's and just picked up my first one a week ago. I have a background in old school Toyota 86's and mostly 240's. All cars that I drifted. Pretty mechanically inclined but no expert......

Here's the dilemma. I picked up a '85 coupe with an s50 swap. Good price IMO. However it looks like it was wired by a blindfolded monkey. Car runs and drives but no cluster no gauges... nothing. Just an rpm tac mounted on the steering wheel.

Here's the question: would it be easier to replace both harness' on my current car? Or pick up an 87' coupe, pull that engine and swap the s50 into the complete chassis? I've done some research and seen they make adapters for the e36 to e30 swap. It should be plug and play pulling a running s50 and putting it into the 87' right? What would you do? Opinions on the matter are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[AndrewBird]

I'd fix the wiring. There are only 15 wires connecting the engine to the body harness. It really isn't that difficult to do. Here are wiring diagrams:

http://www.wedophones.com/BMWManualsLead.htm

[nando]

assuming they didn't hack up the S50 harness you could use an adapter. Myself and a couple other people here make them.

another option is to do it yourself using the wiring diagrams posted above. you're looking for pins labeled "C101" in the E30 diagrams, and "X20" in the E36. there's lots of guides for what you're looking for here.

pretty sure the '85 has a square C101 so whatever wiring it has won't work directly in the '87, which has a round C101. the square C101s are NLA so fixing up that wiring may be difficult.

[DtfwithE30s]

where in socal are you? i just race wired my whole e30 with an m50 (same wiring) i can swap and wire it for you, your going to want to rewire it because when you hit a bump and get a short in the wiring it can bring bigger problems, i can send you pics of my e30, heres my email stefsmadd@gmail.com