This E36 came in for a wiring overhaul—it was an absolute mess. The person who swapped in the engine clearly didn’t put much effort into the wiring, so I had to clean things up properly.

Driving this beast in winter, without any modern driving assistance systems, was proving to be quite the challenge. After tidying up the wiring inside the cabin, I tackled the ABS upgrade. The original ABS block was removed, and in its place, I fabricated a custom bracket to mount an E46 ABS unit. This allowed for proper traction control, making the car much more manageable in tricky conditions. However, there was a catch—the E36 without factory traction control uses a single brake line for the rear brakes, which wasn’t compatible with the E46 ABS unit. I had to modify the brake lines accordingly to ensure everything functioned correctly.

The owner also installed an E46 M3 instrument cluster, but it wasn’t working properly. Unlike the E36 cluster, which relies mostly on direct analog signals, the E46 unit communicates through various BUS systems. The tachometer runs on PT-CAN, while signals for the outer lights and other functions rely on K-BUS. Without these inputs, the cluster was essentially useless.

To get everything working, I made a few additional modifications. I implemented a functional cruise control system using a Z3 cruise stalk, along with some ECU flashing to adapt it to the E36’s older-style controls. This was necessary since the E46’s cruise control is typically operated via buttons on the steering wheel.

The biggest challenge was getting the E46 cluster to work seamlessly in the E36. To solve this, I built a K-BUS emulator—a custom module that acts as a bridge between the E36’s original wiring and the E46 cluster, translating signals so that everything functions as it should. This emulator will get its own dedicated post, so stay tuned for that!