Which tune has proven to be best for N54 cars so far?

[UsualSuspect]

Originally Posted by 808_m

Sorry, forgot about this thread... I honestly don't know the difference between (dyno #'s) stock and the Dinan stage 3. I do have the oil cooler, intercooler, CAI, exhaust. I got lucky and picked this car up from a guy that had great taste in parts. I can say though the cost is $$$. The tune alone is $2200 and the parts add up to ~$7600...



This is my first 135i. My previous cars were track a dedicated S2000 and EvoX. The S2000 was no doubt faster on the track, but this is much more refined.

Back on topic, if I hadn't picked this car up "as is", I probably would have picked up the Dinan tune anyway. As I intend to track the car, peak power is fine for everyday, occasionally "spirited" driving, but I think there's an additional level of comfort for the "conservative" Dinan tune while still making power. Having not experienced the competition, I can't and won't say anything bad about their tunes, but do like the added Dinan background and experience. Kind of like preferring a babysitter who's been in the business for a long time and with lots of references. It doesn't mean they're better than all the rest, just an additional level of comfort.

How did you like the EVO X?

[BrokenVert]

The N54 platform has been around for 5 years. If somebody wanted to do these things they wouldve already. I can only think of a handful of people who have changed hardware (other than BOVs and FMICs)

Once you get above 500WHPish on the N54 you become limited by the stock turbos and the fueling system. People want more power than this, a lot of people. But people dont want to upgrade these two highly important systems?

and im not talking about modifying the turbine in the housing either, because we all know how that has turned out for people. (cough asr cough)



and if there is no place to tap the ecu or the computer system to run a meth system then where do the chips like JB4 and Procede plug in?

I guess my main issue with this community is that nobody thinks out of the box with tuning to get big numbers, and I dont understand why.

Originally Posted by Freon

Nothing wrong with wanting big power for $600 if the drivetrain has that much headroom.

Subaru/Mitsu tuning is much more mature. There are so many excellent tuning tools to choose from and a huge base of tuners out there with experience tuning the engines. Most of those cars require injectors, fuel pumps, turbos, and MAF upgrades to push too much more power. These factors become a real pain and add up quickly. They're hard to tune for in pre-fab tunes, and once you add up so many mods then every car ends up being a bit different. The N54 just has a ton of headroom bone stock and there are less worries about dozens of different injectors and MAF/intake systems that people could have. The fact that the N54 is speed density is quite a boon, also.

For every Subaru/Mitsu owner who understands he needs injectors, fuel pump, turbo, downpipe, catback, etc. to hit 400hp, there is an ARMY of owners who immediately slap a blow off valve and an intake on their car with no tuning, then complain that it runs poorly. They just don't survive on the forums as long after the ridicule...
Yeah, you could program a look up table to drive a PWM output for something like meth, but if you don't have a pin to drive it won't do you much good. One of the limits of an ECU flash in that regard is they aren't going to have extra input and output pins just sitting there waiting to be programmed. You may have to take some other feature away to do it. It could also be extremely hard to figure out how to schedule your code in a reverse-engineered code base. This is hard work, and good luck getting Dinan, GIAC, or Cobb to give you a raw ROM file so you can disassemble it yourself, or good luck convincing them to produce feature X that you want. It's very hard work... It took many, many years for Cobb to finally spit out end user self-tuning and things like flatfoot shifting and launch control, and all of that was timed after OpenECU started to poach their business as engineers started programming these features in themselves and the tools quickly caught up with or surpassed what Cobb offered.

[808_m]

Originally Posted by UsualSuspect

How did you like the EVO X?

It wasn't too bad. It was pretty comfy and, after an ECU tune, it had some pretty decent power. The one thing that pissed me off the most was the crappy paint... It came to point where I'd get rock chips down to the metal EVERY time I drove the car! It was fast in a straight line but the trans didn't have a good "feel" and I just felt so disconnected. Granted, I was probably spoiled coming from my S2000 with JRZ double adjustables and $$$ in other parts.

All that said; I like the 135i MUCH better.... It can't compare to the S2000 (as a track car) but intend to have a 20% track / 80% street car, so this is looking to be great so far!

[moveswiftly]

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

The N54 platform has been around for 5 years. If somebody wanted to do these things they wouldve already. I can only think of a handful of people who have changed hardware (other than BOVs and FMICs)

Once you get above 500WHPish on the N54 you become limited by the stock turbos and the fueling system. People want more power than this, a lot of people. But people dont want to upgrade these two highly important systems?

and im not talking about modifying the turbine in the housing either, because we all know how that has turned out for people. (cough asr cough)



and if there is no place to tap the ecu or the computer system to run a meth system then where do the chips like JB4 and Procede plug in?

I guess my main issue with this community is that nobody thinks out of the box with tuning to get big numbers, and I dont understand why.

Matt,

1. N54's max potential ATM without nitrous or upgraded turbos is around 450whp.
2. There are almost no fueling upgrades at the moment.
3. There are a few turbo upgrades, Helix, RB and another company. They put people around 500whp.
4. Given its ONLY been 5 years we are doing fine for the life cycle for the car. Give it another 2 years and you'll see a dramatic difference in this community.
5. I wouldn't expect you to understand how the meth system runs with JB4 / Procede. But Basically, you don't need any inputs from the meth system to your tune. You only need it for your fail safe or if your tune is controlling your meth.
These tunes actually have a 0-5v line in their harness that connects to the chip. They have separate maps which then react to the 0-5v current and work based on that.
6. As far as thinking out of the box, Piggyback tunes are very advanced. They are not simply boost controllers which up the boost. They retain factory smoothness and in fact IMPROVE smoothness of throttle response etc. The reason many people run piggybacks is also because they are a bit more advanced than flashes because of their capabilites (CAN Clear, O2 modifiers, guage hijacking, on the fly map switching, meth integration, nitrous integration.)
7. Most people I know, would be pretty darn happy with 400-450 whp like myself =).

[1speedbike]

Originally Posted by chesterfan1230

Matt,
4. Given its ONLY been 5 years we are doing fine for the life cycle for the car. Give it another 2 years and you'll see a dramatic difference in this community.
7. Most people I know, would be pretty darn happy with 400-450 whp like myself =).

4. Hope this doesn't mean what I think it means, though I'm thinking it myself. So many douchebags entered the E46 community once a lot of older, used ones became more available for cheaper prices. Not trying to draw unfair comparisons, but having a higher premium in terms of price and availability means less "riff raff" (look at how immature and idiotic lots of Honda and VW forums tend to become.. it's slowly happening here) but with the riff raff comes a greater interest in more extreme mods so it's bittersweet.

7. Dude I wanna race supras and shit, what you talking about? 999+ whp or nothing. My next mod is a quad turbo V12 made of two I6's. Totally possible

[Freon]

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

and if there is no place to tap the ecu or the computer system to run a meth system then where do the chips like JB4 and Procede plug in?

Well, without writing a crash course in EE...

Piggybacks have their own drivers to run the meth system. I.e. they take the signals they are tapping (say, RPM and MAP) and do some logic in the piggyback's CPU, then the piggyback unit has its own pin to drive the meth nozzle and the meth fuel pump. It's NOT a wire out of the car. It is a new wire with a brand new signal that is part of the piggyback. It's not something the ECU is doing, so that's why the piggybacks have meth, but reflashes do not.

It's not like the factory ECU has a bunch of unused output pins sitting there waiting for you to program to run meth. Even if you can insert the programming code into the ECU that would calculate your meth spray, you still have to drive the nozzle and pump with a wire coming out of the ECU. It's unlikely the ECU has a 7th injector driver just sitting there waiting to be used by hackers. "Hey looks, here at BMW we put a 7th injector driver right here for you, just in case you hackers want to write some code to have this drive your meth system." Yeah, no.

You might be able to reprogram a pin that does something else, like EGR, to run the meth nozzle. But that's not easy, and there are a lot of concerns such as scheduling the code. Reflashes are typically based on reverse engineering and disassembling code at the lowest level of the CPU. It's not like you're looking at commented C++ code.

[BrokenVert]

Lol at that response. You can have a wiring harness with a small processor that runs data sent by the CPU and sends the appropriate output through the harness.

Ie meth spray.

Don't be so closed minded

[moveswiftly]

Originally Posted by 1speedbike

4. Hope this doesn't mean what I think it means, though I'm thinking it myself. So many douchebags entered the E46 community once a lot of older, used ones became more available for cheaper prices. Not trying to draw unfair comparisons, but having a higher premium in terms of price and availability means less "riff raff" (look at how immature and idiotic lots of Honda and VW forums tend to become.. it's slowly happening here) but with the riff raff comes a greater interest in more extreme mods so it's bittersweet.

7. Dude I wanna race supras and shit, what you talking about? 999+ whp or nothing. My next mod is a quad turbo V12 made of two I6's. Totally possible

You can see the immaturity on e90post already. It's pretty sad...

Hahah i wanna do wheelies in my 135i yo

[KinoBoom]

Originally Posted by chesterfan1230

You can see the immaturity on e90post already. It's pretty sad...

Hahah i wanna do wheelies in my 135i yo

speaking of wheelies... I might be buying me an R1!! who wants to race????

[Freon]

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

Lol at that response. You can have a wiring harness with a small processor that runs data sent by the CPU and sends the appropriate output through the harness.

Ie meth spray.

So... a piggyback?

Don't be so closed minded

Let's keep the discussion civil. This comment isn't helping anyone.

[Shoukin Kubi]

09' 135 with full exhaust(no cats),intake, FMIC. With Dinan car dynoed 323hp 346tq with JB4 341hp 365tq in map 2. JB4 map7 w/100 octane 381hp 411tq. No issues with either one but I like the extras with the JB4 more.

[BrokenVert]

Originally Posted by Freon

So... a piggyback?

Let's keep the discussion civil. This comment isn't helping anyone.

Sort of, but it would simply be a slave bus to the dme. It wouldnt be a standalone like a piggyback, and it wouldn't be a piggyback

Think of it like a docking station. It's simply a way for the dme to communicate to the added systems.

And seriously? I said to not have a closed mind. You're the person who assumed that I was lacking in intelligence and needed a crash course in EE.

Haha. This is a civil discussion and I don't see how asking you to think outside of the box is not keeping in that tone.

Let me give you a crash course in all forms of engineering. You take what's been done in the past and you improve it. That's all that I'm that proposing

[RealityDesign]

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

Think of it like a docking station. It's simply a way for the dme to communicate to the added systems.

And what exactly is it communicating to your meth system? The current boost? Your meth system already knows that if you have a progressive controller with a boost line.

You don't need your DME to communicate to the added systems, you need the meth controller to communicate with your tune. You think a "docking station" is going somehow allow your meth system to communicate with a flash tune? How does that work? Your DME has a set number of wires designed for STOCK functionality (RPM, boost, throttle position, etc...). The DME doesn't just have a "meth flow" wire for you to "dock" with and tell your flash tune what to do.

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

Let me give you a crash course in all forms of engineering. You take what's been done in the past and you improve it. That's all that I'm that proposing

What exactly is there to improve? For less than $500 you have a piggyback that can receive input from your meth system and reactively raise boost based on meth flow. Can you explain to me how you improve on that? Trying to make some "docking station" in the stock DME to trigger a fail safe in a flash tune is a giant step backwards from how the piggybacks work right now. Rather than running unsafe levels of boost (if meth were to stop working) and then hoping a failsafe cuts boost before damage occurs, piggybacks only run safe levels of boost for pump gas, and then AFTER knowing meth is flowing properly, they increase the boost. What else do you want? RPM / gear based triggering of the meth in addition to boost? That's available now too with a piggyback.

[BrokenVert]

This is incredibly off topic and I'm stopping it. If you want to keep fighting with me PM me.

There is more than one way to do something. I'm not a fan of piggybacks, and so are a lot of other people. No matter how cheap they may be a lot of people don't feel safe running a chip that tricks the ecu into doing something that it wouldn't normally do.

And I think that it's pretty fair to explore the functionality of the devise that I described for those of us that would like to run meth but who would also like to have a fully flushed engine control program that does more than simply crank up boost.

There is always something to improve. You're simply an idiot of you think that there isn't.

[KinoBoom]

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

This is incredibly off topic and I'm stopping it. If you want to keep fighting with me PM me.

There is more than one way to do something.

I agree.
This is not a thread to argue but to simply point out the different tunes and their pros/cons
Everyone is entitled to their opinions and facts speak a lot louder.
Please let's keep this back on "track".
Thank you.

[808_m]

Back on topic...
Just curious to see if anyone has tried stand-alone ECU's? I.e. AEM, MOTEC, etc?

[KinoBoom]

I personally am a fan of custom tune, had it done on most previous sports cars I've owned.

[cpt97m3]

Originally Posted by 808_m

Back on topic...
Just curious to see if anyone has tried stand-alone ECU's? I.e. AEM, MOTEC, etc?

I don't think the AEM can handle the dual vanos, but others can.

[KinoBoom]

I just placed an order for the Cobb AP tune! Will try it and post a new thread about my thoughts.

[JBW]

I'm perfectly happy with GIAC. (I replaced a PROcede with it.)

[KinoBoom]

Originally Posted by JBW

I'm perfectly happy with GIAC. (I replaced a PROcede with it.)

A lot of folks back in my Porsche days loved their tune too... One of the reasons I am going with Cobb:

1- Easy install/Uninstall
2- Upgrades for life
3- Customer service
4- Good power gains
5- Diff fuel maps

So far I have not received my unit, should be here Tuesday and will see!

[BrokenVert]

Originally Posted by Red6spd

would be nice if you could do these tunes without blowing up your engine lol!!!

I can only think of 2 blown N54s. And those weren't becUse of standard run of the mill tunes.