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      07-06-2010, 10:20 PM   #1
ronnyek
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Ok, been 2yrs, where are the PNP tuners

So I bought the 135i thinking it'd be the story of the wrx and sti all over again with an actual enthusiast community, with open or reasonably priced software flashers.. like the accessport etc.

Are we still trying the whole ream the crap out of bmw community because we're rich bastards?

I'm a huge fan of the jb3 and jb+, but the reality is we should not need this. Given I am not an ECU engineer or anything, but I would like to know exactly what it is about the bmw ecu that requires this special battery charger... etc.

Sorry for my mindless rant but I am ready to move back... subaru definitely builds a much more RELIABLE car... and definately much better for the tuner...

Its a shame about what sort of potential the car has
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      07-06-2010, 11:04 PM   #2
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whats your point your trying to make.......clarify yourself
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      07-06-2010, 11:05 PM   #3
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then maybe someone will post a reply to you.....
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      07-06-2010, 11:09 PM   #4
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Im confused
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      07-06-2010, 11:19 PM   #5
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He is asking why there are no possibilites for people to TUNE their cars themselves/ get dyno tuning like almost every other car.
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      07-07-2010, 12:11 AM   #6
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yes that was the point I had in my head, but anger prevented it from coming out in a coherent manner. GIAC and several other companies, shark tuner, Terry, a bunch of other people made it sound like... "...yes we will research that when the hardware piggies etc run out of steam.."

I realize that shouldnt be a quote, as terry never came out and said that... hes a genuinely cool guy... just frustrated.
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      07-07-2010, 12:53 AM   #7
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You mean like the cpe standback? Just gotta look around. Still a small volume market, so you get reamed on the price. Subies cant hang.
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      07-07-2010, 01:16 AM   #8
ronnyek
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cpe standback is precisely what I am not looking for... full stand alone ecu thats out there in price.

I am talking about something like shark injector or accessport... plug little thing into a odb2 port, flash a custom ecu tune... then switch maps on the fly... you know like all the options on subarus, mazdas, and then in the diesel world like bully dog etc.

It can be done, its just not.
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      07-07-2010, 01:45 AM   #9
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O i see buddy...

Yeah your right my brother owned an 06' sti, and he was saying the same thing to me that the 135i is harder to tune.


sorry.
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      07-07-2010, 01:50 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ronnyek View Post
cpe standback is precisely what I am not looking for... full stand alone ecu thats out there in price.

I am talking about something like shark injector or accessport... plug little thing into a odb2 port, flash a custom ecu tune... then switch maps on the fly... you know like all the options on subarus, mazdas, and then in the diesel world like bully dog etc.

It can be done, its just not.
Your right man, but I'm really worried what about the n55 the n54 is already hard to tune friendly what do you guys think it's going to be like with the n55. Do you think after a couple of months ill be right with you guys or no it will never get to the same level.
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      07-07-2010, 07:03 AM   #11
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There is something like that out there and is $600

Why would you want this? Less performance and more costly?
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      07-07-2010, 07:46 AM   #12
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There are a few options from the uk of which i have one. You can google it, they are evolve automotive and DMS. Both very respectable and both produce approx 370bhp at the crank. I have the dms but am moving to jb3 as i am down that path of wanting more power. From germany you have ac schnitzer also producing roughly the same bhp. I don't know if these guys have offer it for the american market though. Ecu flashes are more common in the uk and Europe. Evolve automotive are close to marketing a flash at home solution for the 135, they already have products for diesel engines.
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      07-07-2010, 08:12 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ronnyek View Post
cpe standback is precisely what I am not looking for... full stand alone ecu thats out there in price.

I am talking about something like shark injector or accessport... plug little thing into a odb2 port, flash a custom ecu tune... then switch maps on the fly... you know like all the options on subarus, mazdas, and then in the diesel world like bully dog etc.

It can be done, its just not.

It's probably not being done because BMW has made it difficult to do.

Lets face the facts here. Tunes absolutely increase their warranty costs. They are perfectly capable of locking down an ECU to the point where no one can get into it without making hardware modifications. It seems to me that they've gone about half way to that point, probably because completely locking it down would make life rough for the service departments to do software upgrades.

If this were easily done, the aftermarket would be doing it. Companies like GAIC don't have a foothold in this market at all, and this kind of thing is their bread and butter. The bottom line here is that you don't have a flash tuner solution because BMW doesn't want you to.

There are two extremes when it comes to ECU tuning. GM is on one end, where their ECUs are intentionally easy to crack and have damn near the functionality of a standalone, and BMW is at the other end of the scale. GM's performance engines have traditionally been NA, simple, reliable, and pretty damn bulletproof even when tuned so warranty cost wasn't so much of a concern.

BMW is selling a high tech turbo engine with a thousand things that could go wrong if you screw the tuning up, and a bunch of expensive parts to replace when it happens. It makes perfect sense that they don't want to make it easy to alter the ECU tune. The piggybacks are popular because there's not much they can do about them other than try and detect them.
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      07-07-2010, 01:28 PM   #14
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The way I see it, it is like the OP want a flash tune just because it is a flash tune.
point #1. Piggy seems to be making a lot more power than flash at the moment, GIAC stage 2 sounds promising but still not ready for order yet. Smoothness is one thing people rave about with their flash tune, but JB3 2.0 seems smooth enough. I'm dying to try GIAC Stage 2... just to see the differences..
#2. Flashing the BMW ECU is requires a long time, hence, a battery or charger solution is necessary, which not everyone would want to spend the extra $.
#3. Can the tune manufacturer actually make $$ off of a take home flash? or can they make more by making a piggy back?
#4. more of a question than a point.. Do we even know what a flash can do on a BMW ECU that a piggy can't? Maybe this engine is better off tuned with a piggy than a flash?
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      07-07-2010, 01:36 PM   #15
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The piggybacks in this market are PnP and well developed over the past few years. So much so that nation wide flash tunes have a hard time competing in my opinion. In theory to really be competitive the flash tunes would need to offer at home install/removal, map switching, and be less expensive than piggybacks to make up for the lack of resale value. Maybe some day.

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      07-07-2010, 01:39 PM   #16
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I'm pretty sure the OP is talking about free open source files that are posted all over the internet for Suburus and EVOs.
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      07-07-2010, 02:34 PM   #17
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Does OP have knowledge it takes to tune any engine with standalone? Let alone N54.

Does he even know what that entails?

The complaint is moot, only a handful of people actually know how to tune an engine properly via standalone. And out of that handful, only a small percent know how the N54 works, and those people are vendors. So whats the point of getting a standalone for the N54? All the tools to unlock lots of power, but no knowledge on how to do it; will get you nowhere.

Just PnP and have fun!
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      07-07-2010, 02:40 PM   #18
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Does OP have knowledge it takes to tune any engine with standalone? Let alone N54.

!

He's not talking about a standalone ECU. He's talking about a flash tune that can be done at home, without having to send the ECU off or go to a dealer. Like Dinan, but mailorder.
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      07-07-2010, 06:00 PM   #19
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I feel your pain...to a degree. I came out of a TD05H 20G equipped 2003 WRX with all the fix'ns (UTEC) to the 135i. I was done with the fear of never knowing when/if my car was going to blow-up, even though the car was running strong to the day I sold it (62,000 miles, 35,000 of which I was running ~400hp). I figured the 135i would keep me happy in the stock power department, in addition to giving me the refinement that I wanted in a car now that I'm getting older. Well, it did not take long before curiosity got the better of me and I started to look to see what the aftermarket scene had to offer. Wish I never looked because it just left me angered. It's CLEAR that the tuners are taking advantage of the demographic of the BMW market. Absolute fucking bullshit in my opinion. But whatever, I'm over that stuff now. I was pleasantly surprised however to see that almost all the ECU tuning solutions were very effective (powerwise) and cheaper compared to what was offered in the Subaru community (my UTEC was $1200 when I bought it). After a bit of research I realized that's probably because they are much less flexible/user defined than what I was used to in the Subaru community. But I think that is just the tuning community adapting to where the market is at right now. The N54 just does not have the aftermarket turbo options like Subaru has hence the need for an ultra-powerful tuning solution, let it be piggy or flash, is not needed. It's also important to note these BMW ECUs are much more "adaptive" than our Subaru ECUs. All the tuning solutions that are floating around right now, coupled with the adaptability of the stock ECU, is more than enough capable to deal with where the current "modification level" is at with the N54.

Cliffnotes: BMW owners take it in the can by the tuners, the current level of modifications in the N54 market do not justify an all powerful tuning solution. fin

Last edited by BimmerSchnitzel; 07-07-2010 at 06:12 PM..
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      07-08-2010, 09:57 AM   #20
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Is it clear? Does anyone here actually know how much time it takes to develop not only the software but the hardware that's required in order to build all this stuff, how much the parts cost to have fabricated and then assembled, and what it costs to be able to store and distribute these products? Do you really think the 1-series market is anywhere near as big as the WRX market?
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      07-08-2010, 10:18 AM   #21
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Is it clear? Does anyone here actually know how much time it takes to develop not only the software but the hardware that's required in order to build all this stuff, how much the parts cost to have fabricated and then assembled, and what it costs to be able to store and distribute these products? Do you really think the 1-series market is anywhere near as big as the WRX market?
It wouldn't just be the 1 Series market. It would work on all N54 cars, and that's a TON of vehicles.
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      07-08-2010, 10:40 AM   #22
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There may be a ton of vehicles then but are there a ton of customers? I imagine for every 10 WRX cars sold there's at least half as many customer's looking to tune or mod their cars. For every 10 N54s sold I'd be surprised if there was even 1 customer looking to tune. Of course I could be wrong but in the last few months I've only seen one 335 on the street that wasn't completely stock. And that's out of the countless BMWs I see driving around SoCal on a daily basis.
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