Boosted E36 Build: Adding a Wiring Harness
YouTuber Jimmy Oakes’ E36 build is as sick as any out there. Hopefully, we’ll get to see that engine purring soon.
If you’ve been following Jimmy Oakes on YouTube for any length of time then you’ll know all about his boosted E36 build. This soon-to-be monster E36 is looking mean, clean, and ready to rip up some asphalt. But first, Oakes has to figure out the wiring harness.
In the last episode, we saw the E36 come back from getting the engine bay painted. And holy crap did it turn out good. The team also dropped in a pristine engine among other things. In this latest installment, Oakes and his crew tackle potentially the most troublesome project yet.
Chassis Wiring Harness
“Not only are we turboing this thing, with all the supporting mods, we also are fully M3-converting underneath,” starts Oakes “And then, of course, it’s RHD, so that’s all different. We got a list. But to start off, I want to do the thing I’m dreading most right off the rip so it’s smooth sailing from here, and that is deal with the wiring.”
Oakes explains that they have to flip the wiring harness due to the RHD nature of his E36 chassis. The fusebox also has to be re-pinned. This is potentially a huge headache in the making, but there’s no getting around it. Gotta be done.
Oakes tapes off the bay in the area near the fuse box with some padding to preserve the immaculate paint in the engine bay. After doing so, he pulls the spaghetti monster out from the firewall and gets to work.
After a bit of the job is accomplished, Oakes relays a bit of relief. “It’s really not that bad,” begins Oakes “So basically, all we have to do now is take each one of these pieces and click back into this fuse block right here. As you can see, everything is grooved, so it all just clicks into place.”
Engine Wiring Harness
With the chassis wiring finished, up next is the engine wiring harness. Upon inspecting the harness, Oakes shares that the only thing that doesn’t line up is the ECU connector. Diving into the wiring for the engine also revealed a much easier procedure for the crew than originally anticipated.
For one, they can simply run the main positive wire behind the firewall and out of the way. Also, the Datalink connector attached to the harness can be chucked completely since the team is running a standalone ECU. Ultimately, they’re able to slim down the wiring harness a considerable amount and keep things nice and neat in that sparkly little engine bay.
Intake & Cooling Systems
With the wiring done, Oakes pulls out the secret sauce. “So this is supposed to be the best intake manifold out of all the E36 engines,” says Oakes “It just makes the most power, basically because it has some fat, long runners on it… this is the intake to have.” The aforementioned intake manifold comes from an M50.
On top of the added performance, the M50 intake manifold hides the harness quite nicely. Gotta love a good double-dip.
Next, the crew starts to slap on the front-end components. And, no surprise, the chassis radiator mount is brilliantly painted to match the bay. With the radiator and intercooler in place, the E36 build is looking better than ever.
Future Plans for the E36 Build
“The next big thing is the fuel system. Tomorrow we will be doing that…” tells Oakes “I wanna put this thing on ethanol, so we’re gonna have a flex-fuel and everything. We’ll do all that and then, realistically, put some fluids in it and run the vacuum lines, and it could start. Which is crazy to me to think about. Boom. It’s done.”
This E36 build has certainly come a long way. Thankfully for the team, they caught a lucky break with the wiring harness situation. There’s still much more work to do, but this is a damn fine job they’ve done so far.