One major quality-of-life improvement when performing a valve adjustment on an E30 is the ability to use the starter instead of a wrench and socket on the crankshaft to rotate each cam lobe away from the rocker for adjustment.

Luckily, the diagnostic port on an E30 can trigger the starter by simply bridging pins 11 and 14. With the ignition off in the cabin, the engine will rotate but not start—exactly what we need for adjusting the valves.

All you need is a remote starter switch from Amazon and two “Circular contact 2.5mm” connectors.

These can be purchased as PN 61130007444 (cable and connector in one) or 61131376193 (just the connector, crimped onto your own cable).

The two alligator clips of the remote starter switch attach to the stripped back wire.

This entry was posted on September 23, 2024 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Do it Yourself. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.