Christopher Rollins – 1988 BMW 535IS

Christopher Rollins has worked pretty hard on his 1988 BMW 535IS. Running a naturally aspirated M30 that has been bored and stroked from 3.4 to 3.6 liters with a 290 degree overhead cam, oversized valves, and port work. Christopher was looking for a multi-function gauge, but he didn’t want five or more gauges on top of his dash with his primarily stock interior. 

Everything that he was coming up with was either too huge or extremely ugly, in his opinion, until he found the Banks iDash SuperGauge. “I came across the Banks iDash in my search for a multi-function gauge that would fit in a standard pod,” explained Christopher, “I didn’t want five gauges or so messing with the look of my fairly stock interior. “The iDash SuperGauge fit that bill and then some. It connects to the CanBus on my Megasquirt ECU, and I can currently read seven parameters at once on the screen, as well as set alerts for oil pressure, RPM, coolant, etc. I also have a Banks 4-channel analog sensor module tucked under my dash reading fuel pressure, oil pressure, and oil temperature.”

To Christopher, information is key to the life of his custom car, and with the iDash, all the necessary information can be on one screen. “After having had multiple issues in the past that proved to be very difficult to diagnose without proper monitoring, the iDash SuperGauge has been a complete game-changer to me. I know it wasn’t designed with vintage BMWs in mind, but it’s truly an amazing piece of technology, and my BMW wears it with pride.”

As for future plans on his BMW… he doesn’t really know, as it’s a project that has a lot of potential. He’s getting set to have the car dyno-tune again after just completing some additional modifications. After that… we’ll have to wait and see. Since Christopher is an avid autocrosser, we’ll be seeing him carve up the mountain roads.