so i went to a dyno event in my MARB on saturday night. it was $25 for two pulls so i figured i might aswell go. when i went up the dyno operator he might have trouble getting a tach signal and as it turns out he did so he couldn't get me a torque reading. does anyone know how and where exactly to get a tach signal for our cars. we took off the valve cover but everything is protected and no matter where he tried he couldn't get a signal. i know that when i dynoed at agile they didn't seem to have a problem so i didn't pay attention to how they did it. i searched the E36 section and found this

"one thing though, the shop I took my car to hadn't done an M in quite awhile.. and they had trouble getting a tach signal.. but the owner came up an idea.. he took a coil to distributor wire from a standard type ignition and put it inline with the #1 coil and the spark plug.. and put the pick up clamp around the wire. Just an idea in case they don't know where to get the tach signal."

is that how most people do it?

anybody? 24 views and no one knows?

That's the only way I know of, unless they can get it from the diagnostic port, which they obviously couldn't.

Matt

thanks

At our dyno day they had the same problem...the shop we did it at last time ordered a new tool which is an optical sensor. They hook it up and it counts the revs on the crank pulley or some place thats easy to get to, thats the other way I know how to do it.

You have to pull the engine cover off, and take apart the coil harnes. There need to place the clamp around 1 of the 3 wires going to coil #1.

thanks for the responses guys.

Tach signal is available on the instrument cluster connector X16 pin 20 black wire. X16 is on the passenger side facing the unit.