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m52 to e30 wiring connection

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:36 pm
by eddiewilsonzim
Hie, I recently put a m52 engine into a e30 323i body, but i cant seem to find where to plug the x20 connector on the body, do I have to cut some wires on the fuse box to modify a connector to it

Re: m52 to e30 wiring connection

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 9:37 am
by joeyb
Hi Eddie,

I guess you haven't read through the Wiki pages on the subject?

Start here: https://www.e30zone.net/e30wiki/index.p ... Swap_-_M5x

And in the Loom section you'll find the loom table info you will need to modify your existing loom (yes the X20 plug needs to go)

https://www.e30zone.net/e30wiki/index.p ... =M5x_Looms

Re: m52 to e30 wiring connection

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 1:57 pm
by Brianmoooore
eddiewilsonzim wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:36 pm
Hie, I recently put a m52 engine into a e30 323i body, but i cant seem to find where to plug the x20 connector on the body, do I have to cut some wires on the fuse box to modify a connector to it
If your E30 was born as a 323i it's going to be a fairly early model, which may have a different engine loom socket to the majority of E30s.
Do you have a 20 pin round socket next to the fusebox, where the old engine loom was plugged in, or the older rectangular version.

Re: m52 to e30 wiring connection

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 12:23 pm
by eddiewilsonzim
i have a rectangular connection within the car under the glove compartment , but its connected to another socket which i havent traced

Re: m52 to e30 wiring connection

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2019 11:57 pm
by Brianmoooore
Using this link, you can see which wires in the rectangular plug are the equivalents of those in the newer round plug: /www.e30zone.net/e30wiki/index.php?title=C101 and then by using the second link in joeyb's post, you can go on to see where they connect to in the M52 loom.
You will notice that some of the wires in the round plug are missing from the rectangular plug. These are found in the three pin C104 connector, which you will find somewhere behind the instrument cluster area, between your old engine loom, near the ECU, and the body loom near to the instrument cluster.
Don't over think the problem - there's only three wires that are actually involved with making your new engine run (green, green/purple and black/yellow), plus the battery connections - red to positive, brown or brown/orange to negative. Others are instrumentation, etc.

Re: m52 to e30 wiring connection

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:01 am
by eddiewilsonzim
thanx alot mate, let me work on those connections and give you feedback once im done,

really appreciated