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Does anyone have experience with

Specific discussion about the E89 2009 Z4 (sDrive35is, sDrive35i, sDrive30i, sDrive23i)
Z4Rick
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Does anyone have experience with

Post by Z4Rick » Wed Apr 26, 2017 1:59 pm

Shorty wrote: Wed Apr 26, 2017 1:30 pm I have the stage 1 Racechip on my 35i. I am more than happy. I thought I would try the cheaper version to make sure it worked OK with a view to upgrading. For now at least I will stick with the stage 1. Great value and very easy to fit, it took about 10 minutes.
Shorty,
I'd be VERY interested in hearing more....
Are the power gains noticeable? Can you estimate the gain in HP? What about MPG - any gains there? Drivability? Does it still idle well? accelerate smoothly? Any trouble with the DCT and shifting? Did you need to make any adjustments once the chip was installed? Anything else you've noticed?

The stage 1 chip seems a reasonable first step, and may give me enough boost to still enjoy the car without the rough edges of a full blown RaceChip Ultimate

lordgrover
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Does anyone have experience with

Post by lordgrover » Wed May 03, 2017 3:32 pm

A topic close to my heart. My 35i is still relatively new to me so feels plenty powerful enough for now, and I paid for BMW Insured Warranty so not looking to invalidate that. Next year however, I may well be tempted to gain a little more torque/power.

However, my recent experience with another platform makes me a little nervous. A decatted header and remap on a NA engine and the darn thing seized on me. Whether the mods were related to the failure will never be known - but I had a nervous few weeks while dealer ummed and ahhed over whether I would get a new engine under warranty or not. Happily, my claim was accepted and all was well, but it's made me a little nervous about the whole modification thing.

I'd expect 35i to 35is power level to be achievable and not overly greedy, but much more and I'd have concerns.

davis449
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Does anyone have experience with

Post by davis449 » Thu May 04, 2017 12:51 am

I have Dinan Stage II. I have a whole history tuning cars both my own and others at a good friend's performance shop, but I won't get into it because it never seems to matter what anyone's creds. are. in these discussions. For me, piggybacks and handhelds (with the exception of Cobb OTS tune with their handheld or custom done by Cobb) are a no go. I much prefer a pure ECU flash from a company that has a lot of experience with the particular engine I'm tuning. I considered ESS as my buddy is a dealer, but I chose to go Dinan instead. I couldn't be happier with the results as it seems to be just the right amount of power for this car and my intentions with it. IMHO and personal experience, "feature rich" translates to "more ways to blow up your engine". There are SO many self-entitled "experts" out there screwing around with things they have NO business f***ing with and that includes some so-called "Performance Shops" who sell\install piggybacks and handheld tuners. Go into any American BMW forum and just click on the Engine forums, hell stay in the model specific general discussion, and there will be 7-10 threads having to do with "Installed JB4 (or MHD) and 'x' happened, how to fix?".

IDC what anyone says, the dealer can ALWAYS tell your car's been tuned whether that's by flash count (yes, MHD flashes count) or past running parameters stored in the ECU. They can and might use it against you in the event of a catastrophic failure. Is it legal? Depends on your view of the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (U.S.), but not really unless they can prove the tune caused it. Are you likely to win that debate with the dealer? Nope. Are you likely to win at all in a legal dispute? Nope. Are all these people who have no issues getting warranty work done with a tune on their car liars? Nope. Most of the time, if you're not a dick, they don't go looking for excuses to nail your bank account to a wall. But, no matter which way you decide to go, you're taking a sizeable risk. Even Dinan (carefully read the fine print of any of these tuners' warranties, should they provide one). That said, I'd rather have a good chance at someone else besides me paying for a blown engine than no chance at all. That, to me, is worth paying for (Dinan isn't even expensive anymore).

OP, since you track your car that often, should you choose to tune the car via any method (and I can't stress enough to the haters that are going to jump on me for this post how little I truly care what he chooses to do), I highly recommend the installation of supporting mods such as a larger intercooler and oil cooler. If you're just some idiot like me who wants more power and simply drives aggressively, you really don't need them below a certain threshold.
2016 BMW Z4 sDrive35i
Dinan Stage II

willgill
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Does anyone have experience with

Post by willgill » Thu May 04, 2017 4:17 am

I can't understand why people consider anything other than MHD, it's up to date, it's actually revised on a regular basis, it doesnt leave a footprint on the DME and it's cheaper than pretty much everything being discussed here.

No brainer tbh
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R.E92
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Does anyone have experience with

Post by R.E92 » Thu May 04, 2017 10:42 am

davis449 wrote: Thu May 04, 2017 12:51 am I have Dinan Stage II. I have a whole history tuning cars both my own and others at a good friend's performance shop, but I won't get into it because it never seems to matter what anyone's creds. are. in these discussions. For me, piggybacks and handhelds (with the exception of Cobb OTS tune with their handheld or custom done by Cobb) are a no go. I much prefer a pure ECU flash from a company that has a lot of experience with the particular engine I'm tuning. I considered ESS as my buddy is a dealer, but I chose to go Dinan instead. I couldn't be happier with the results as it seems to be just the right amount of power for this car and my intentions with it. IMHO and personal experience, "feature rich" translates to "more ways to blow up your engine". There are SO many self-entitled "experts" out there screwing around with things they have NO business f***ing with and that includes some so-called "Performance Shops" who sell\install piggybacks and handheld tuners. Go into any American BMW forum and just click on the Engine forums, hell stay in the model specific general discussion, and there will be 7-10 threads having to do with "Installed JB4 (or MHD) and 'x' happened, how to fix?".

IDC what anyone says, the dealer can ALWAYS tell your car's been tuned whether that's by flash count (yes, MHD flashes count) or past running parameters stored in the ECU. They can and might use it against you in the event of a catastrophic failure. Is it legal? Depends on your view of the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (U.S.), but not really unless they can prove the tune caused it. Are you likely to win that debate with the dealer? Nope. Are you likely to win at all in a legal dispute? Nope. Are all these people who have no issues getting warranty work done with a tune on their car liars? Nope. Most of the time, if you're not a dick, they don't go looking for excuses to nail your bank account to a wall. But, no matter which way you decide to go, you're taking a sizeable risk. Even Dinan (carefully read the fine print of any of these tuners' warranties, should they provide one). That said, I'd rather have a good chance at someone else besides me paying for a blown engine than no chance at all. That, to me, is worth paying for (Dinan isn't even expensive anymore).

OP, since you track your car that often, should you choose to tune the car via any method (and I can't stress enough to the haters that are going to jump on me for this post how little I truly care what he chooses to do), I highly recommend the installation of supporting mods such as a larger intercooler and oil cooler. If you're just some idiot like me who wants more power and simply drives aggressively, you really don't need them below a certain threshold.
Firstly, any tune will throw up issues if you car isn't well maintained. Even people using Dinan tunes will have misfires if they are using old spark plugs or have a duff coil.

The tunes you get from places like Dinan and Hartage are inferior to tunes from MHD. I can send you an unlocked copy of the Hartage or Alpina tune which people pay £2000 for and you can see for yourself.
The reason these tunes are inferior is down to the fact they had limited tables to manipulate. More recently people have put serious effort into reverse engineering the BMW DME software and have unlocked a lot more tables and functionality. MHD is also now writing custom code into the DME which is something nobody else has managed.

The part about the flash count is not true. The flash count is only incremented when flashing with BMWs own software suite, COBB, MHD, BBFLASH etc will not increment this counter.

I appreciate that you have been fed a lot of tuner marketing spiel on this but all the tuning shops are out there to make a quick buck reprogramming a module in your car. Most are no longer interested in actually improving the vehicle or doing any real R&D on mechanical mods, they just want to sell you their generic ECU flash that ups boost a few PSI.

Z4Rick
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Does anyone have experience with

Post by Z4Rick » Fri May 05, 2017 12:19 am

You guys emphasize the weight of the decision for me. I ,too, am still under warranty for a year, and really only track the car for fun and a good day with my son, who shares driving the Z. (Kid is better than me - better reflexes, better eyesight, better situational awareness. I hate the young....)

I've got a year to work this warranty down and suspect I'll only add a tune if I feel I am up to the increased performance. Maintenance and operational costs are just a new hobby, so i may put a toe in the water rather than committing to a list of enhancements that get the most out of a high end tune. We will see. I do appreciate the spirited dialog though, and I will dig around some more in the forums. Thanks!

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