E36 coolant temp sensor in LS1

[EKnight]

Thaniel,
from what I understood, they send out universal pins male/female. You just need to carefully cut the very ends of male and it becomes female. Weird, I know.

yeah 20 minutes at the BMW parts counter yesterday yielded a parts guy scratching his head.. that is extremely weird

[Pzary3233]

Do any of you guys have a picture of the ends cut? i just killed both of my pins trying to make it work....

[bimerok]

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the pins. I just used very sharp cutters and then used awl to straighten it up.

[Pzary3233]

Did you cut JUST the tip? I totally killed both of mine trying to make them "look" correct...

[bimerok]

I can't remember at this point. I think I cut it where the male part starts - not the very tip...

LOL does it sound funny...

[Pzary3233]

"c'mon just the tip! "



This is where I am on mine - I cut the smaller portion off because it was not going to physically fit the male portion of the pin.... so now I need to open it up with a small awl and make it work.... Correct?

[bimerok]

Yes. That's what I did.

[EKnight]

"c'mon just the tip! "



This is where I am on mine - I cut the smaller portion off because it was not going to physically fit the male portion of the pin.... so now I need to open it up with a small awl and make it work.... Correct?

hmmm gonna try this tonight.. and still gotta figure out where to wire this

[Pzary3233]

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spre...kD&hl=en&gid=0

Pins 11 and 12....

[EKnight]

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spre...kD&hl=en&gid=0

Pins 11 and 12....

paul your too good to me!

[EKnight]

hmmm gonna try this tonight.. and still gotta figure out where to wire this

So after tinkering with this a bit last night and stabbing my finger with scissors (again). It looks like the "trim the male tip off" concept will probably work.

I have an adjustable power supply that does 1-30v that I use for other stuffs. Gonna apply a volt or 2 to it and check for continuity tonight. Although I have little doubt that this wont work .

Thanks fellas for the tip!

[Pzary3233]

heh, stabbing fingers, sitting in the med for 18 hours, bike wrecks, and over all awesome misadventures sure are a theme this week.

[twinscrewed]

What did I get myself into?!? I am addicted to reading these threads and
am finding that it all makes sense ...at least right up the gauges / sensors / wiring......now my head is spinning. I think that sums it up

2000 Mz3- doing Ls2 ( keeping emissions)

- So I need the 1 96+ 4 prong BMW temp sensor for the Cluster FUAX gauge and 1 GM temp sensor for the PCM.
- I need a separate temp sensor for the VDO water temp gauge that U can tap into upper rad hose.

Next is Oil Pressure- BMW oil temp gauge and adapter fitting from JTR- then oil temperature , EFI Sensor and Air Sensor..

[jakermac]

BMW incorporated some form of buffer within the instrument cluster itself that holds the temp needle straight up, middle of the gauge when the engine is between 140-230ish degrees F. If the coolant temp breaches 230-ish then the gauge will swing from the middle up to HOT, not an incremental climb as one would expect or hope for as the engine gets warmer. The sender itself is analog like any other sender for a temp gauge, this buffering is done in the instrument cluster. Some feel the Euro cluster has less of a buffer but I was not able to find any evidence to support or deny that claim.

Can anyone here confirm or deny this claim? I recently installed a Euro cluster in my car, and I have since noticed that any time I load the motor down (long-ish climb on the highway in 5th gear, steep climbs in 4th gear, etc...) the temp starts climbing above the "normal" range. I have not seen it reach 3/4s yet. As soon as I back off, within a short period of time, the temp returns to the normal spot (just a needle width above 1/2). I can idle for quite a long time, and the aux fan cycles on and off, and the temps remains in the normal zone. Ambient temps locally have been climbing higher than they've been for the last little while.

I certainly hope I don't have a headgasket problem. It's a 93 325is with some bolt on mods (CAI, headers, 3" single exhaust, etc...).

[Thaniel]

I did try that in my car, no joy.
Using a 0-10k Linear taper POT, (variable resistor) across the two wires from X20, Brn/Yellow pin #11, Brn/Vio pin #12, connected my battery, turned the key to ON, the instrument cluster light up with the bulb check including the overtemp light then went out, but could not get the gauge to budge or the over temp light to light up with the POT. All other wires in X20, X69 and X6031 are currently disconnected. Possibly the instrument cluster may need one or more of those other wires connected before it will read the water temp signal? Haven't got that far with the wiring yet.
Maybe someone else would be willing to try a 0-10k POT on their car, in-place of the gauge water temp sender? How bout it Thaniel?... (If anyone else tries this and is not familiar with electronics, probably a good idea to use a 100 or 200 ohm fixed resistor in series with the POT as protection when testing the hotter range of the gauge.).

Ps. My wife has taken interest in your EV-36 project.

Well i'm a little slow but I finally got to do the testing. Lot has happened in the 2 years. Built a garage, Spent a year in sweden, you know the usual. So during my few week vacation at my house I pulled my EV36 into the Now year old but still unused garage and made some tests.

First thigk I found was there i definately more going on than just a simple gauge. For one. If the readings weren't in a reasonable range the gauge would just freeze on full hot or full off. To get it to come back to life i'd have to remove and replace fuse 26 (cut power batty power to the cluster). Once doing some playing Actually blew fuse 26. After confusing then reseting the instruement cluster there was NO temp reading with zero RPM. Took a few seconds of RPM to get values to show again on the gauge. Think this was due to having confused the cluster and reset it. Also found if I let the RPM go to zero during the testing I could no longer control the guage. During real use neither of these are important. But mention incase someone else would like to do testing on the gauge. Oh also if I didn't start with some reasonable ohms and move to lower didn't read anything. again probably due confusing the cluster with the wild readings then reseting it. Hitting zero or nearly zero ohms during the teasting seemed to make it stick on full hot. 100 ohms worked fine. but 22 ohms made it stick.

Results of the test:
-The needle moves sluggish but no "digital" zone in the middle that is talked about. The needle tracked the potentiometer just followed slow.
-The needle begins to move at about 5.2 ohms.
-100 ohms was close to full hot. 22 ohms made it stick to full hot.
-This cars over temp light is burnt out so I have no information on when that comes on.

I did a test between 6.1 ohms and 100 ohms and made video showing the results. Will post when i get a PC on the internet (working on an IPAD at the library) maybe monday.

[Thaniel]

Test 1. Varing the Potentiomenter and making the needle swing around
[ame]http://youtu.be/m2rnoP0Lvuo[/ame]

Test 2. Tried to show the Pot movement along with the needle movement. Then let the RPM's go to zero and show loss of control.
[ame]http://youtu.be/octzac6Ejuk[/ame]

[BRAAP]

Great info, thank you Thaniel. For us tech geeks, if you get the chance could you plot the measured resistance with specific needle positions?

[Thaniel]

Great info, thank you Thaniel. For us tech geeks, if you get the chance could you plot the measured resistance with specific needle positions?

Yah. should be able to get that. i leave for Sweden again Next week so will be a while until I get to post the results. Hopefully not more than a week or so this time :-)

[hefftone]

Having dabbled with the cluster test functions, the needle stays in he center position for a range of hex coded tempeture values. Eventually at 240°F the red warning light comes on. The sensor would be analog voltage and the needle is controlled by a microprocessor for a range of values.

http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/BMW_do...1driverino.pdf

Android/Tapatalk

[Thaniel]

For us tech geeks, if you get the chance could you plot the measured resistance with specific needle positions?

Here are the values I measured and a plot.

Guage Ohms
Far left 5540
blue edge 1320
Left tick 1020
Middle 319
Right tick 240
Red edge 172

Not surprisingly the sensitivity is higher to the right of middle since the temperature sensors response is less in the hotter ranges.

[BillyDee36]

Has anyone figure out the temp sensor and gauge to allow the gauge and it’s ranges to match a LS? I’m running into an issue similar to post 71 where if the engine is around or below 198-ish, the gauge is in the middle, but if it creeps up a few degrees, it’ll jump 3/4 to hot.

I’d love to be able to use the gauge but right now it triggers the red overheating light but is actually well below the LS overheating.

[smr87]

Has anyone figure out the temp sensor and gauge to allow the gauge and it’s ranges to match a LS? I’m running into an issue similar to post 71 where if the engine is around or below 198-ish, the gauge is in the middle, but if it creeps up a few degrees, it’ll jump 3/4 to hot.

I’d love to be able to use the gauge but right now it triggers the red overheating light but is actually well below the LS overheating.

My factory gauge also settles at the 3/4 line but has never gone high enough to trigger the light. I may be paranoid but I notice my gauge sweeps as if it is reading temperature, not just stepping through temperature windows. I have verified like you via OBDII that the actual coolant temp is within normal operating range, and I also have a separate gauge with a coolant sensor on the radiator which isn't ideal but was easy to add and gives me piece of mind when I start to doubt the factory gauge.

I'm using the 2 prong sensor, part number 0280130026, because that is what works with the Wiring Specialties harness. I am tempted to just remove this sensor and move my aftermarket gauge sensor to this spot in the head, and just leave the gauge cluster sensor non-op.

Based on this thread it seems only a few of us have the factory gauge stabilizing at 3/4 instead of half, my swap car is a 99 M3 with a Camaro LS1, and the aforementioned Wiring Specialties harness. What is your set up BillyDee36?

[BillyDee36]

I have 98 328i with a LQ4