Quote:
Originally Posted by MGM135is
I thought Dinan had to reverse engineer the ECU just like everyone else.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cavpilot2k
No. Back when this tune was developed, Dinan had an exclusive relationship with BMW where they cooperated at an integral level. They got the codes.
That's why a few years ago, most Dinan dealers were located inside BMW dealerships.
That cooperative agreement has ended, which is why you see Dinan basically making piggyback units for the new series cars (they don't have access to the unlocked coding anymore) and why many Dinan dealerships are independent shops now. (Some of us are lucky to have our BMW dealer still be a licensed Dinan dealer, but I understand that isn't all that common anymore).
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Actually Steve Dinan killed that long standing rumor a couple years ago. He was interviewed by Matt Farah, before he left for a short stint with Ganassi Racing. Steve said they spent $600k+ a year cracking ecu's. He had a dedicated 6 person team that spent everyday developing software, including some Caltech engineers. He said on average it took about half a year to crack an ecu.