135i and Dinan?

[02finatic]

Anybody have any thoughts on dinan parts for BMW's 135i?

[Rook24V]

I work at a BMW shop that sells a significant amount of Dinan parts and my experiences tell me that you should watch what they do for the 335i over the next year or so to gauge what they plan on doing for the 135i. Dinan does not take R&D lightly and will take a LOT longer to produce a part than most other companies.

[02finatic]

Awesome, thank you.

[LazyT]

Rook is right. Look at Dinan's Supension upgrade for the 335i to get a general idea of what they will do for the 135i's suspension. Also, I spoke with a customer rep at Dinan around a month ago, and he believes that Dinan will release its ECU Tuning software for the 335i by this year's end. It will increase hp around 40 hp and torque too (i forgot how much?). That's great news for 135i owners who don't mind paying a little more since it comes warrantied. Since Dinan has already completed alot of R&D on the Inline 6, it will have similar software out for the 135i sometime next year.

[atr_hugo]

On the subject power upgrades for the 135i, a read of the white paper on Dinan's site entitled, "Dispelling Performance Software Myths", may be worth the effort.

Here's the URL again: http://www.dinancars.com/WhitePapers.asp

[Jeff_DML]

Originally Posted by atr_hugo

On the subject power upgrades for the 135i, a read of the white paper on Dinan's site entitled, "Dispelling Performance Software Myths", may be worth the effort.

Here's the URL again: http://www.dinancars.com/WhitePapers.asp

that seems to be written before bmw offered a turbocharged engine...

[atr_hugo]

Yes - he spends a lot of time talking about NA engines, but then there's this gem plunked into page 3 of the paper:

“Piggy-back” control units will also become more popular as access to the ECUs and the software inside becomes more difficult. The naturally aspirated engines will produce more modest power gains, just as with software. However, with turbos in particular, significant gains can be achieved with piggy-back control units. Having said that, piggy-back units simply cannot make as much power as properly tuned software, regardless of the claims being made by companies selling control units for the 335. Additional important features such as rev-limit increases and speed governor removal are very difficult and usually not offered with a piggy-back control unit. More faults and frankly compromised reliability will also result from these control units when compared to good software. This is because it is more difficult to obtain correct sensor, fuel mixtures and ignition timing values without getting a fault. In addition, computer controlled turbos have safety features that lower boost and re-tune the mixture and timing based on heat exchanger efficiency, engine temperature and detonation. Often piggy-back control units will compromise these safety programs because they “fight” these corrections rather than implement them as would be the case with properly engineered software.

[Jeff_DML]

Originally Posted by atr_hugo

Yes - he spends a lot of time talking about NA engines, but then there's this gem plunked into page 3 of the paper:

“Piggy-back” control units will also become more popular as access to the ECUs and the software inside becomes more difficult. The naturally aspirated engines will produce more modest power gains, just as with software. However, with turbos in particular, significant gains can be achieved with piggy-back control units. Having said that, piggy-back units simply cannot make as much power as properly tuned software, regardless of the claims being made by companies selling control units for the 335. Additional important features such as rev-limit increases and speed governor removal are very difficult and usually not offered with a piggy-back control unit. More faults and frankly compromised reliability will also result from these control units when compared to good software. This is because it is more difficult to obtain correct sensor, fuel mixtures and ignition timing values without getting a fault. In addition, computer controlled turbos have safety features that lower boost and re-tune the mixture and timing based on heat exchanger efficiency, engine temperature and detonation. Often piggy-back control units will compromise these safety programs because they “fight” these corrections rather than implement them as would be the case with properly engineered software.

yeah I just skimmed through the first couple page:smile:.

I prefer the ECU firmware to be rewritten/tweaked over a piggyback and it sounds like Dinan does too, thanks for the quote.