[Freon]

Originally Posted by cbl117

You're talking out of both sides here a bit. I agree that you need to show specifics for why you bash a specific tune, (i.e. what are they doing wrong?) but the same applies to bashing Dinan. Why are you bashing Dinan? Just saying they are a more pricey option is not enough justification. Why are they a "feel good" tune?

They are selling a very low power tune, well under the capability of the car, and charging a big premium for it. Same goes for most of their products (exhausts, etc) from what I can tell.

I'm not making any empirical claims beyond they cost a lot more than competitive products and produce lower power. I don't think those are statements that are in dispute.

They're slapping a warranty on it to make you "feel good" about it, and producing videos about "heritage" and whatnot that has very little to do with the performance of the product. These are often the "evidence" brought forth when people criticize the company or their products, and in my eyes they're largely irrelevant when examining the products.

Do you have their reliability reports after their stress testing to back that claim up? Do you have any test data from Dinan at all? Do you know what their enigneeirng test procedures entail and what they test for?

The burden of proof is on you or Dinan, not me, for the claims you're not-so-cleverly alluding to here. Referencing the unknown then claiming the fact we don't have the data is supportive of your position is a straight up fallacious argument. I'm sure you know better, too, which is unfortunate.

I'm unsure which "claim" of mine you're even referencing. That mail-in tunes are worse from a usability perspective than a user-controlled system that you can resell? That JB is respected and been around for years? That I don't care for Vishnu (a clearly subjective claim)? That Dinan is a "feel good" product (another subjective claim)? I'm happy to discuss those items if you can specifically point out what it is you think I'm claiming that requires further evidence, or talk about why I hold certain subjective opinions.

Just because their peak WHP is lower than other tunes isn't enough to say its inferior. Area under the curve comes into play and how smooth the power comes on is also important.

I assure you, area under the curve of competitive products like the Cobb or JB will demolish the Dinan tune. Do you dispute that? Is there a particular combination of Dinan parts that produces a better area under the curve than competitors?

I suspect holding back on the tune is just a conscious decision on Dinan's part, possibly in association with their underwriting of the warranty. The question is why you would buy their product rather than just run the most conservative map of a competing product, and save a bunch of money, and in the case of Cobb or JB benefit from a resellable product with map switching, etc. I'm really challenged to see the desire for this.

FWIW, This is coming from an Electrical Engineer/Optical Engineer who is now a program engineering manager for MDA programs. I understand long term reliability and the value of good engineering. I did my research and spoke with their engineers. I went with Dinan.

You could have saved yourself money just buying a Cobb or JB and setting it to a more conservative map if you were worried about long term reliability. There's only so much the tunes really end up doing to the operation of the engine. No magic tune is going to exceed the mechanical abilities of the turbos to spool faster. There's only so much you can do with ignition timing, fueling, cam timing, etc. to find that optimal operation. You seem to think Dinan has some special sauce in that respect, I guess? Unsure exactly...

I'd love for Dinan (or you) to actually publicly make whatever objective claims of reliability you allude to so it can be debated. If they're not making the claims publicly, they cannot be examined or criticized. Everything about my experiences with actually tuning and hacking ECUs, and the (lack of) evidence being presented here says Dinan is in no better position to, nor actually producing, a superior product than another company with a proven history and producing a reflash tune, like Cobb (possibly GIAC or others). (side note, It seems the JB actually does very well as well, and has been extremely successful for many, many years, though I think ultimately a reflash is better engineering due to the power of the factory ECU). Dinan just has a difference marketing angle with a less aggressive tune and warranty, and pretty videos where you see some old guy talking about his love for BMW so you can get the warm and fuzzies.