M42club.com - Home of the BMW E30/E36 318i/iS
DISCUSSION => Engine management => Topic started by: Darky on January 31, 2014, 06:23:20 PM
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Anybody seen anything like this before? A e30 gauge cluster with 9k rpm and 300 km/h.
Custom made? Or special model?
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Never seen one of those - I'd bet it's a custom job. That's a cool little setup. The gauges are 'clocked' too...but they're the wrong direction. Porsche guys (in particular) used to do that in the 70s & 80s - when all the needles are pointing up, you have nothing to worry about.
If I had to guess, I'd say the stock six-cyl tach & speedo are under new overlay labels. I'm not sure if the gauges were flipped 180 degrees, or if the the needle was moved to a different location.
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What do mean by wrong direction? Clocked?
I thought the needles have been rotated but how did they get 9k and 300 km/h? Gearing change?
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In a lot of older sports cars, there were individual gauges. They copied an old aviation trick - they'd twist the gauges in the dash so that the needles would point straight up when everything was OK. That way when you're racing, you just glance at the gauges. If everything is pointing straight up, you're OK. Otherwise something needs attention.
You could change the gauge gears, I guess, but I'd do a custom coding chip. That's what determines the needle sweep, based on the speed signal and rev signal from the DME. Then the only other thing you'd have to do is print a custom label for the gauge face.
The standard rev limit for the six-cyl E30 is 6500 RPM, but it barely fills half the available sweep. I'd leave the chip alone and just print a new gauge face...basically just add a few numbers. There's enough space to fit a few thousand more RPMs.
As for the speedo, I'd bet the code chip processes the speed signal from the DME. There's probably a multiplier ratio, written in a look-up table, based on the original diff and recommended tire circumference. The diff senders are all the same regardless of ratio, so the chip modifies the signal for the speedo to report the proper speed.
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That's makes sense looking at the guage angles ie 180 deg equals 6k and 270 deg equals 240 km I'd say it was from a 318i guage with extra labels printed on new the new face and twisted needles.
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so.. where'd you find this? is someone selling it?
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so.. where'd you find this? is someone selling it?
Yes I saw it on eBay. It caught my eye because it just looked different with the vertical indicator and 9000 rpm.
It looked like it got replaced by an alpina set of gauges!
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You can always find an old BMPD gauge cluster ...
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You can always find an old BMPD gauge cluster ...
Bmpd cluster?
What's that from?
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You can always find an old BMPD gauge cluster ...
Bmpd cluster?
What's that from?
At one time BMP Design (http://www.bmpdesign.com/) made and sold a custom gauge cluster for the E30. It was called BMP design Carbon Fiber Instrument Cluster. They were really proud of it so it was very expensive.
http://www.bmpdesign.com/catalog/modern/BMP_Instrumentation.pdf
https://splitsec.com/wp-content/uploads/articles/ec0200.pdf