Performance One: Dinan Turbo Replacement for N54

[darkrom]

Originally Posted by cbl117

What technical details are you talking about? Be more specific.

I'm very clearly asking besides warranty, what does dinan do better with their flash tune than any other flash tune on the market? Or how about compared to the piggyback JB4? There are those saying the others are basically hacky shitty tunes, I'm asking what magical formula does dinan have that no one else does, that justify the lower power and higher price?

Quite frankly if it was better it wouldn't be so god damn hard to get ONE dinan fan to answer what is better without it being the warranty.

[cbl117]

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

Nothing to be "butt hurt" over. Your claims and inferences are near entirely unsubstantiated, please try to be objective. You overshared earlier and said you are an engineer so that should be simple for you.

Shock, I apologize. I misread the intent of your post, 87. I think what you concluded in the list of things we don't know due to lack of available info is true, albeit something may be missing we aren't thinking of at the moment.

I took your last line originally as accusation that I believed Dinan to be better than other tunes. After rereading your last line, I agree, Dinan has a matching warranty that other options do not.

[cbl117]

Originally Posted by darkrom

I'm very clearly asking besides warranty, what does dinan do better with their flash tune than any other flash tune on the market? Or how about compared to the piggyback JB4? There are those saying the others are basically hacky shitty tunes, I'm asking what magical formula does dinan have that no one else does, that justify the lower power and higher price?

Quite frankly if it was better it wouldn't be so god damn hard to get ONE dinan fan to answer what is better without it being the warranty.

Dude, you have a hard time with reading comprehension, and this is case in point.

First off, I never said Dinan was better and I never said any other tune was shit. Go back and spend a few minutes reading my posts (which i regret opening my mouth). Secondly, Its SUBJECTIVE why I chose Dinan. I can tell you the pros and cons of why I chose Dinan but do you really care? You obviously hate Dinan for your own personal reasons and feel the need to shit on them in forums.

[darkrom]

I really care what pros there are besides the warranty yes.

I care because no one is able to tell me why people keep choosing to pay infinitely more for a flash tune vs other flash tunes, including the free option.

[cbl117]

Originally Posted by darkrom

I really care what pros there are besides the warranty yes.

I care because no one is able to tell me why people keep choosing to pay infinitely more for a flash tune vs other flash tunes, including the free option.

ok, I can tell you. Remember though, this is subjective.

I have an N54, and there is a big price difference between N54 and N55 Dinan Flashes. IF I had an N55 I don't know if I would have chose Dinan. That said, I paid $1100 for stage 2.

Pros: (in no particular order)
- Flash Tune
- Affiliation with BMW to me means dealer friendly
- Matching OEM warranty
- Conservative tune
- Smooth power delivery

Cons:
- Greater cost compared to other tune options
- Less WHP/WTQ compared to other tune options
- Marriage into Dinan if looking to progress to stage 3
- No options for pro tunes or tweaks when adding DPs, meth, etc.

IN MY CASE, I thought the pros outweighed the cons because I wanted the following:
- I still owe some money on my car and its a DD that I want to keep for at least 5 more years.
- I have a CPO warranty and I didn't want to rock the boat with my dealership. I understand this is a grey area and Dinan does not offer a matching warranty to my CPO, but I felt more comfortable going this route nevertheless.
- My HP/TQ expectations were in line with the Dinan tune. I never want to do downpipes, meth, or anything to that level. I'm not looking for 400+ WHP. Again, I understand Cobb and JB have conservative maps, but I didn't want them.

I hope this helps. I never claimed Dinan to be better than the other options. I just do not like seeing the uninstantiated hate for Dinan when really picking a tune is a personal choice. I just hope others do their homework and don't just select Dinan for the name.

[Freon]

Originally Posted by cbl117

But where is your data that the reliablity has not been compromised using JB or Cobb? Are you basing your data on the fact that the motors haven't blown up yet in the forums? Not exactly compelling evidence that I'm willing to put 50k on the line for.

Yes, absolutely, it's based on the cumulative millions of miles, or even plenty of individuals running for many years (such as myself now). It's information available for scrutiny and reference. It's not perfect data, perhaps not what we want in a perfect world, not double blinded clinical trial level stuff, but in some respects it's better than what any one company could do during a limited development cycle. They can only put so many miles on so many cars in real world situations with varying weather conditions, loads, inclinations, etc.

Also, Cobb's previous success on other platforms is very reassuring. They have a wonderful reputation in the Subaru world, and I've personally dealt with their products there, analyzed log files, etc. For me, that was enough to be a fairly early adopter of the product for BMW N54, but I can understand why it wouldn't for someone else when the product was release several years ago. Now a few years down the line I don't think it's much of a concern.

Burger's JB has a lot of respect here as well, and again, and I'd infer many hundreds and possibly thousands of JB's running on cars across the US and world.

While it's self reported and observational at best, if there was a real problem with reliability after all these years I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume we'd know about it. Yes, I do assert that this is a valid way for us as consumers to analyze the risk of purchasing a tuning product and weigh that against the cost and benefit. I would encourage everyone to do research on public forums on products for car tuning (or perhaps other consumer goods).

I have no doubts pushing the car harder costs maintenance, but probably not any significant risk in terms of a major failure if I keep up on maintenance.

As far as the warranty, I take a different approach. I do not buy insurance on small items (i.e. anything but life, health, home, and my car but comprehensive only if it's valuable). Dinan is underwriting an insurance policy on the reliability of your car (that's what third party "warranties" are, it's an insurance policy). I don't want to pay their insurance overhead as I don't think it makes sense from a financial perspective to do so for things I should be able to cover myself with emergency savings. If it's only matching the original, that's a pretty short warranty to start. I put all the money someone else might spend on extended warranties for home appliances, cars, etc. and just save that myself and self insure. Now, health, life, my home, the entire value of the car if I wreck it, that's too much for me absorb. I also deem the risk of popping my engine leading to a $10k repair bill (which would *really* suck) to be incredibly low despite the more aggressive nature of the tune I got.

I can understand that some will want the warranty, but personally if I was super concerned with reliability or popping an engine I'd just not modify the car or roll the dice on my own. If Dinan's warranty stops after 4 years, 48k or whatever, then that's not exactly that risk mitigating anyway. You're still leaving whatever risk you think was there on the table in terms of long term reliability once that warranty runs out.

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by cbl117

Shock, I apologize. I misread the intent of your post, 87. I think what you concluded in the list of things we don't know due to lack of available info is true, albeit something may be missing we aren't thinking of at the moment.

I took your last line originally as accusation that I believed Dinan to be better than other tunes. After rereading your last line, I agree, Dinan has a matching warranty that other options do not.

It's OK man!

[darkrom]

Originally Posted by cbl117

ok, I can tell you. Remember though, this is subjective.

I have an N54, and there is a big price difference between N54 and N55 Dinan Flashes. IF I had an N55 I don't know if I would have chose Dinan. That said, I paid $1100 for stage 2.

Pros: (in no particular order)
- Flash Tune
- Affiliation with BMW to me means dealer friendly
- Matching OEM warranty
- Conservative tune
- Smooth power delivery

Cons:
- Greater cost compared to other tune options
- Less WHP/WTQ compared to other tune options
- Marriage into Dinan if looking to progress to stage 3
- No options for pro tunes or tweaks when adding DPs, meth, etc.

IN MY CASE, I thought the pros outweighed the cons because I wanted the following:
- I still owe some money on my car and its a DD that I want to keep for at least 5 more years.
- I have a CPO warranty and I didn't want to rock the boat with my dealership. I understand this is a grey area and Dinan does not offer a matching warranty to my CPO, but I felt more comfortable going this route nevertheless.
- My HP/TQ expectations were in line with the Dinan tune. I never want to do downpipes, meth, or anything to that level. I'm not looking for 400+ WHP. Again, I understand Cobb and JB have conservative maps, but I didn't want them.

I hope this helps. I never claimed Dinan to be better than the other options. I just do not like seeing the uninstantiated hate for Dinan when really picking a tune is a personal choice. I just hope others do their homework and don't just select Dinan for the name.

Thanks for being the first reasonable Dinan fan I've ever met in my life! You gave valid points nice and calm without spewing commercial sales piches!


Since all those points are subjective besides the honest facts, I am left with only the question why did you not want to go with the cobb or jb4 with conservative tunes? I actually call map 1 on my N54 JB4 "dinan mode" because it is pretty similar IME.

The rest of what you said was calm and collected and I appreciate you taking the time to post. I'm not totally unreasonable. Until you posted this not one person could justify their OWN use of their flash, which is pretty sad if you ask me. You at least decided to go with Dinan for reasons, and thought some stuff out. Seems like most of the others just hop on the money train so they can "buy the best".

[edisapimp]

"We arrrreee the worrrrllllld.."

[w3rkn]

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

There are plenty of JB4 and Cobb users on these boards who outright own their vehicles. Myself included. Please present some data to back up this claim because I'm just not seeing it.

No one modifies their car to increase power and torque output in order to safeguard the engine. Increasing power and torque places additional strain on all moving components, and by its very definition reduces overall reliability. They can however choose a tuner that does have built in failsafes. The JB4 does this. I do not know how Cobb approaches this. I know Dinans flash does not.

How can one use up an engine exactly? Your lack of mechanical and electrical knowledge is showing here a little.

What does sponsorship of racing events have to do with quality of engineering, product success, or marketing transparency? I appreciate the straw man though, I needed one for my corn field.

lol^


Get on ebay, craigs, or the market place and ask why all those people are selling the piggy backs.. because their lease is up..! Just because you own your car, means nothing as TYPICALLY the people who choose a cheap and easy solution is because they really don't car about the consequences to their car. Because it is a lease and gone in 4 years.



Secondly, you have no idea what safeguards are on BMW ECUs, or what an actual tune is/does, by claiming Terry Burger does. (and/or that he can manipulate them.) I laugh in your face.

If you do not understand my racing comments, then I guess you fail to understand DURABILITY.. go on now... throw you best juice piggy tune in and race for 3 hours. You'll be ordering a new engine in a year.... & terry burger will not cover it, even though his Juice gave you pozer power for burning down the straits..

[e36addict]

Originally Posted by w3rkn

lol^


Get on ebay, craigs, or the market place and ask why all those people are selling the piggy backs.. because their lease is up..! Just because you own your car, means nothing as TYPICALLY the people who choose a cheap and easy solution is because they really don't car about the consequences to their car. Because it is a lease and gone in 4 years.



Secondly, you have no idea what safeguards are on BMW ECUs, or what an actual tune is/does, by claiming Terry Burger does. (and/or that he can manipulate them.) I laugh in your face.

If you do not understand my racing comments, then I guess you fail to understand DURABILITY.. go on now... throw you best juice piggy tune in and race for 3 hours. You'll be ordering a new engine in a year.... & terry burger will not cover it, even though his Juice gave you pozer power for burning down the straits..

Guess I'm lucky with my juice piggy tune.. been over 20k and almost two years with lots of abuse.. Need to order an engine soon!

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by w3rkn

lol^


Get on ebay, craigs, or the market place and ask why all those people are selling the piggy backs.. because their lease is up..! Just because you own your car, means nothing as TYPICALLY the people who choose a cheap and easy solution is because they really don't car about the consequences to their car. Because it is a lease and gone in 4 years.



Secondly, you have no idea what safeguards are on BMW ECUs, or what an actual tune is/does, by claiming Terry Burger does. (and/or that he can manipulate them.) I laugh in your face.

If you do not understand my racing comments, then I guess you fail to understand DURABILITY.. go on now... throw you best juice piggy tune in and race for 3 hours. You'll be ordering a new engine in a year.... & terry burger will not cover it, even though his Juice gave you pozer power for burning down the straits..

Oh so you're being deliberately inflammatory. Got it.

[Acheron83]

Originally Posted by w3rkn

lol^


Get on ebay, craigs, or the market place and ask why all those people are selling the piggy backs.. because their lease is up..! Just because you own your car, means nothing as TYPICALLY the people who choose a cheap and easy solution is because they really don't car about the consequences to their car. Because it is a lease and gone in 4 years.



Secondly, you have no idea what safeguards are on BMW ECUs, or what an actual tune is/does, by claiming Terry Burger does. (and/or that he can manipulate them.) I laugh in your face.

If you do not understand my racing comments, then I guess you fail to understand DURABILITY.. go on now... throw you best juice piggy tune in and race for 3 hours. You'll be ordering a new engine in a year.... & terry burger will not cover it, even though his Juice gave you pozer power for burning down the straits..

Nice straw man argument.

The fact that you seem to have no idea that the JB unit is a far cry from the simple MAF fooling resistor chips that are a couple bucks from eBay is extremely telling. Hell it even has additional safety functions built into it that rubbish your entire attempt at a dig at the concept.

I suggest you go do some reading up on the abundant technical literature on the motor and various tuning solutions before you claim others have no clue. Your ignorance shines through like someone who quite obviously is out of their depth, i.e. the type that the Dinan "all-in-one" package solutions are aimed at.

[w3rkn]

Originally Posted by Acheron83

Nice straw man argument.

The fact that you seem to have no idea that the JB unit is a far cry from the simple MAF fooling resistor chips that are a couple bucks from eBay is extremely telling. Hell it even has additional safety functions built into it that rubbish your entire attempt at a dig at the concept.

I suggest you go do some reading up on the abundant technical literature on the motor and various tuning solutions before you claim others have no clue. Your ignorance shines through like someone who quite obviously is out of their depth, i.e. the type that the Dinan "all-in-one" package solutions are aimed at.

Tell you what, I can re-direct you to a thread in which Vishnu (& Terry Burger) got handed too, by John Conforti. Old, but still poignant.

I know what is present inside a ECU... and what piggy's tries to control. There about 50 missing hooks in a piggy. When you don't have all the hooks in the engine, you can only play with a few... and lie about them to the actual ECU. There are actual books written about this...




Now, what you are trying to say is "SO what" it works. And I tend to agree with you, but not without harm and unseen issues. If you were to race in a 24h endurance race, would you want a Juice Box piggy.. or an actual engine-dynometered prepped tune..?

You answer will illustrate your education level.

[w3rkn]

Originally Posted by e36addict

Guess I'm lucky with my juice piggy tune.. been over 20k and almost two years with lots of abuse.. Need to order an engine soon!

Just about time to get ride of it.... isn't it..?

[Freon]

We're digressing, but... I've always been wary of piggybacks for the issues outlined above, and I'm amazed the JB seemingly works so well.

There's only so much you can do simply intercepting and adjusting a small handful of signals even with the most advanced processing and engineering in your blackbox piggyback device. It's ignorant of a lot of information since it simply doesn't intercept the signals, and unable to affect as much for the same reason. It's simply limited in terms of I/O, and that's definitely a concern with something that comes from the factory already highly optimized. The factory ECUs that come with your car have tens or hundreds of million (cumulatively over the years and iterations) in R&D and far more ability to tailor operation according to a wider set of variables.

The biggest detractors are to producing the first viable product. They can be nearly impossibly to actually hack into to enable third party reflashing, and often the tuning tables are very hard to tweak by hand (I suspect these days they're tuned by computers or complex math, and dozens or hundreds of hours on engine dynos, especially things like closed loop control PID values and whatnot, but it's not insurmountable, go hit Youtube for PID control loop tuning and enjoy the wall of calculus, things like root locus controller design). But that is typically the issue of the company who first hacks it (i.e. Cobb, Dinan, GIAC, APR, etc) and produces a tune.

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by w3rkn

If you were to race in a 24h endurance race, would you want a Juice Box piggy.. or an actual engine-dynometered prepped tune..?

You answer will illustrate your education level.

OK, I'll bite.

If I was participating in a 24h endurance race I would tune my engine to work as efficiently as possible while maintaining stock performance numbers or I wouldn't tune it at all. Using more fuel during an endurance race at the expense of any internal component only leads to more break downs and more time spent refueling, which equates to less time on the track making laps. I would instead spend time and money on durable brakes, suspension components and then on aerodynamics, all things that will contribute to more time on the track.

Since an endurance race is won by number of laps completed and not fastest lap time, this is the way to go with an already quick car.

I enjoyed your straw man argument again. Thank you.

[w3rkn]

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

OK, I'll bite.

If I was participating in a 24h endurance race I would tune my engine to work as efficiently as possible while maintaining stock performance numbers or I wouldn't tune it at all. Using more fuel during an endurance race at the expense of any internal component only leads to more break downs and more time spent refueling, which equates to less time on the track making laps. I would instead spend time and money on durable brakes, suspension components and then on aerodynamics, all things that will contribute to more time on the track.

Since an endurance race is won by number of laps completed and not fastest lap time, this is the way to go with an already quick car.

I enjoyed your straw man argument again. Thank you.

Sorry, but you failed to answer the question, but instead threw straw up..!

The point being is that you are unaware of what Juice Box is unable to do.. and you think it is the same as what ECU tuners can do. So again... I laugh at you.

Secondly, Terry Burger doesn't have an engine dyno.. nor does he have the facilities, or the ability to race his tunes in events.. Do you see Turner Racing using a Juice Box..? Call them and ask why they don't...

Again, a JB is great for pozers who want free HP on their leases. If that offends, then must be close to the truth.



I should juice the hell out of my 135is... but I have integrity.

[Grinchxvx]

Originally Posted by w3rkn

Sorry, but you failed to answer the question, but instead threw straw up..!

The point being is that you are unaware of what Juice Box is unable to do.. and you think it is the same as what ECU tuners can do. So again... I laugh at you.

Secondly, Terry Burger doesn't have an engine dyno.. nor does he have the facilities, or the ability to race his tunes in events.. Do you see Turner Racing using a Juice Box..? Call them and ask why they don't...

Again, a JB is great for pozers who want free HP on their leases. If that offends, then must be close to the truth.



I should juice the hell out of my 135is... but I have integrity.

A lot of terrys cars hold or held 1/4 mile records and he is one of the only tuners that seems to be really good and cares to dyno before and after mods to see gains or losses. He also goes out to a lot of airstrip events and other races with 70-80k miles on his car and does great. There's some people who have had jb4's on there cars for 100k plus miles with no major issues. Maybe piggys aren't reliable on other platforms but they seem to be doing good with these cars.

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by Grinchxvx

A lot of terrys cars hold or held 1/4 mile records and he is one of the only tuners that seems to be really good and cares to dyno before and after mods to see gains or losses. He also goes out to a lot of airstrip events and other races with 70-80k miles on his car and does great. There's some people who have had jb4's on there cars for 100k plus miles with no major issues. Maybe piggys aren't reliable on other platforms but they seem to be doing good with these cars.

Yup, all well documented. Dunno what this guy is smoking.

At this point I honestly think he's just a troll.

[Curare86]

I am amused by this whole argument over the evils of piggyback tuning compared to dinan products, given that dinans latest offering for m235i is a piggy

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by Curare86

I am amused by this whole argument over the evils of piggyback tuning compared to dinan products, given that dinans latest offering for m235i is a piggy

I was waiting for someone to mention that. Fun fact of the day huh?