Engine Management

Engine management is pretty much what is says in the tin. It is a system that controls the running of the engine.

Overview

Engine management in its simplest form controls the engine via fuelling and Ignition timing. The entire E30 range has some form of engine management system, from the most basic carburetted M10, through the various guises on the M20 to the most modern on the M42 with seperate coil packs. Aftermarket systems are also available for those running highly tuned engines allowing the user manual control over multiple settings.

All systems employ a number of sensors placed in the engine and Drivetrain, which fed data via the Loom to an ECU. While early systems were analogue based, later systems were digital and offered better control over the engine in all driving environments.

Jetronic

Main artice: L-Jetronic

Jetronic was the first form of engine management fitted to the E30. It comprised of a rudimentary ECU and a variety of analogue sensors dotted around the Drivetrain, and provided the most basic of fuel injection management.

Motronic

Main article: Motronic

Motronic is the trade name given to a range of digital engine-management systems developed by Bosch. This superseded the more primitive L-Jetronic system in 1987.

All Motronic ECUs contain a fuel map with an injector opening time for basic conditions of speed and load. Information is then gathered from engine sensors such as the AFM, CPS, CTS, and TPS. As a result of this information, the ECU will look-up the correct injector pulse duration right across the engine rpm, load and temperature range.

Motronic 1.0

This is the first version of Motronic engine management used on fuel injected E30s, this is what is fitted to pre-facelift cars. The obvious things to spot to tell this from M1.1 & M1.3 are the fact this has an ECU with a number ending 073 and that is has 2 pickup sensor attached to the bellhousing instead of a single one on the front of the block.

Motronic 1.1/1.3

Motronic M1.1 and then M1.3 were the most advanced versions used on the E30 8v and 12v engines. This can be found on all facelift cars with M40 and M20. M1.1 and M1.3 can be differentiated by their ECUs.

Main article: Motronic Engine Management Upgrades & Functions

Motronic 1.7

This is the most modern management system that an E30 left the factory with. It was only fitted to the M42 engined 318iS. This did away with a distributor and coil, the use of individual coilpacks was introduced.

Motronic Fault Codes

Main article: Motronic Fault Codes

List of ECUs

The following list shows which ECUs were fitted to which vehicles:

Table Title

ECU Number	System	Models	From/To
0260 200 005	Carburettor	316	1982-
0280 000 318	L-Jetronic	318i	1983 - 84
0280 000 330	L-Jetronic	318i	1984 - 87
0280 001 301	L-Jetronic	320i and 323i	1982 - 84
0280 001 309	L-Jetronic	Later 320i
0280 001 308	L-Jetronic	Later 323i
0280 000 310	L-Jetronic	Late 323i
0261 200 174	Motronic	316i	1988 Onwards
0261 200 157	Motronic	318i	1987 - 88
0261 200 175	Motronic	318iS	1989 onwards
0261 200 164	Motronic	325i Auto	9/87 onwards
0261 200 381	Motronic	320i	1987 onwards
0261 200 172	Motronic	320i	1987
0261 200 073	Motronic	325i Chrome bumper	1985 - 87
0261 200 173	Motronic	325i Plastic bumper	9/87 onwards
0261 200 380	Motronic	325i	8/88 onwards
0261 200 071	Motronic	Early 195/200bhp M3 and Evo 1
0261 200 090	Motronic	Evo II
0261 200 091	Motronic	M3 with 215bhp
0261 200 092	Motronic	Sport Evo
0261 200 042	Motronic	325e	until 9/85
0261 200087	Motronic	320iS
0261 200 074	Motronic	325e	9/85 onwards (Low compression)