[gmoney]

I'm completely new to the world of mods, yet would like to get started. I've been doing a lot of reading in this forum, which by the way, is filled with awesome members who share knowledge, and I just want to say thank you for your help!!

Here are my questions/concerns: I'm looking into getting a full exhaust by Ultimate Racing, and a Vishnu chip ( I'm not sure if I'm using the right phrasing or terminology). However, not sure if doing so will yield the most performance gains. Any suggestions?

Also another well respected member asked me if I really want to have my engine running at a high psi using Procede. Again, not being familiar with these types of mods, I'm not sure what the pros and cons are, and what exactly he meant by "do you really want to run your engine at that psi"?

Could you guys here please help me understand this better? Also, what mods would yield the most performance gain and what are the negative effects on the car?

Thanks in advance for your time.

[scottp999]

There are plenty of people in soCal that have the mods you want. My suggestion is to go to the California regional sub-forum and ask if anyone would take you out for a test drive in your area with the mods you are considering. There are probably also regular small 335 car meets in your area.

UR and Vishnu are reputable vendors and sponsors of the forum.

The regional forum for CA is here: http://www.e90post.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43

There is going to be a nice BMW meet in your area on July 19th. Looks like over 75 cars are signed up. Going to the car meet would be a great way to get up to speed on the general performance of the different mod vendors. Check it out here:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141799

[gmoney]

Thanks scottp999... that would really be helpful. I'll check out the links. Do you have any thoughts in the psi issue I was told about?

[scottp999]

I'm running procede V3 now and I see max 15psi, mostly less. Empirical data is all we have to go with. The tuner's own cars have logged significant mileage without a failure, and many customer's cars are over 10 or even 20k miles, but it's always the car owners perogitive to take the risk or not.

The fact that Dinan offers a matching warranty on their tune for 2k that runs up to 13.2 PSI gives me some comfort that running 14-15 every once in a while is not too bad.

You could always opt for the Dinan Stage 2 tune if you want great performance and to get a matching warranty. Something to think about.

[Sinister Stairs]

Originally Posted by gmoney

what exactly he meant by "do you really want to run your engine at that psi"?

Also, what mods would yield the most performance gain and what are the negative effects on the car?

Turbos (and superchargers) make power by forcing more air into the engine; more air = more power. The amount of additional air forced into the engine is measured in PSI, just like you measure air in your tires. The most common (purists would say "boring") mods increase power by increasing PSI. The pro of high PSI is more power obviously; the con is you're putting more stress on the powertrain and potentially reducing the life of the engine.

The answer to your question is another question: How much risk are you willing to take for the rewards? Or more practically, how deep is your pocketbook or how mechanically inclined are you, should your mods cause problems down the road. The more extreme your mods, the higher the probability of failure; and there is a point of diminishing returns between money spent and performance improved.

The common saying is, "do you want performance, reliability or cost? pick two"

[gmoney]

Thanks once again scott, and awesome explanation Sinister. That, along with the reading I've done gives me a better understanding.

Now I remember something interesting but apparently inaccurate someone told me not too long ago. I was reading a pamphlet on some European chip at a local shop (I can't remember the name right now) but I asked what effect it has on the engine, and they told me it's actually good for the engine as it burns gas more efficiently. Once again, I stress my absolute lack of knowledge on this, as when I heard that I thought: "wow, awesome!! A faster car & it's better for the engine... Great!!"

But now reading all the info here and what you're saying, it makes perfect sense: there will be a trade off... performance gain, engine life loss, possibly.

What ECU mods would you recommend?

[scottp999]

Originally Posted by gmoney

What ECU mods would you recommend?

Right now, no doubt in my mind that the Vishnu Procede V3 is the best option for a piggyback. The burgermotorsports JB3 will be out maybe mid to late august and it will be interesting to see the final product. It may be the biggest rival to Procede V3 in time.

If you don't go the Dinan route, and you want high power that is diagnostically invisible to the dealer, then you will want the new plug and play options which are Procede V3 (out now) or JB3 out late summer.

[StarrDlux]

but to be fair invisible may be a current state of affair which could be invalid in a next firmware upgrade.

i bet bmw has every single piggyback in their engineering center and can pinpoint them in a heartbeat. just like dish network has every "hack/mod" to get their service for free in house. It doesn't take an engineer too long to regression test and locate these devices from a programming standpoint. they can emulate the entire vehicle with these piggybacks and create a condition that is implausible in short time.


It would be cool if they could ECM the piggyback systems ya'll remember the days of free directtv?

[gmoney]

Originally Posted by scottp999

Right now, no doubt in my mind that the Vishnu Procede V3 is the best option for a piggyback. The burgermotorsports JB3 will be out maybe mid to late august and it will be interesting to see the final product. It may be the biggest rival to Procede V3 in time.

If you don't go the Dinan route, and you want high power that is diagnostically invisible to the dealer, then you will want the new plug and play options which are Procede V3 (out now) or JB3 out late summer.

So, I assume that when you say I can go the Dinan route, Dinan offers an ECU mod that doesn't void the warranty? If that's the case, how does it compare do the gains with the Vishnu chip?

And since the dealer detecting it is an issue, is there a way to remove it before one takes the car in to the dealer for service?

On a side note, I feel that using the term " I want to install a chip" isn't correct. What's the correct way of expressing this type of mod?

[StarrDlux]

no wrong. dinan offers to cover the powertrain and consequentials for 4/48K. they can detect dinan easily.

the piggyback mods if they detect it in the future, they could void the warranty for good. go see the dude that spent $26K on a new motor.

dinan would have paid that $26K if there were no other engine mods (only dinan approved). no other tuner in the usa or piggyback seller would cover that $$cash$$ loss. you would. just like the guy that paid $26K out of his pocket for a new motor.

thats alot of money to gamble. I am not a gambler. $2K for safe power gains for 4/48K or $100-1300 for safe power gains but possibility of a very big bill in the future.

do you feel lucky? that is what is boils down to.

It would be completely naieve to say bmw would not be able to hunt down and detect these mods. the cars have alot of storage and telemetry. your lying to yourself if you think the designers of the ecu (and rest of the electronics) can not detect anomalies.

i'm not against any form of mod i'm just saying it from how i see it. If someone were to bludgeon my programming (firmware) with a piggyback i'd be pissed off as it would make the designers (@bmw) look bad if their cars mysteriously started failing prematurely. someone in the software design team would get a spanking.

[skim7x]

Originally Posted by StarrDlux

no wrong. dinan offers to cover the powertrain and consequentials for 4/48K. they can detect dinan easily.

the piggyback mods if they detect it in the future, they could void the warranty for good. go see the dude that spent $26K on a new motor.

dinan would have paid that $26K if there were no other engine mods (only dinan approved). no other tuner in the usa or piggyback seller would cover that $$cash$$ loss. you would. just like the guy that paid $26K out of his pocket for a new motor.

thats alot of money to gamble. I am not a gambler. $2K for safe power gains for 4/48K or $100-1300 for safe power gains but possibility of a very big bill in the future.

do you feel lucky? that is what is boils down to.

It would be completely naieve to say bmw would not be able to hunt down and detect these mods. the cars have alot of storage and telemetry. your lying to yourself if you think the designers of the ecu (and rest of the electronics) can not detect anomalies.

i'm not against any form of mod i'm just saying it from how i see it. If someone were to bludgeon my programming (firmware) with a piggyback i'd be pissed off as it would make the designers (@bmw) look bad if their cars mysteriously started failing prematurely. someone in the software design team would get a spanking.

+1

That's why I chose Dinan.

Dinan for safeness!

[gmoney]

Originally Posted by StarrDlux

no wrong. dinan offers to cover the powertrain and consequentials for 4/48K. they can detect dinan easily.

the piggyback mods if they detect it in the future, they could void the warranty for good. go see the dude that spent $26K on a new motor.

dinan would have paid that $26K if there were no other engine mods (only dinan approved). no other tuner in the usa or piggyback seller would cover that $$cash$$ loss. you would. just like the guy that paid $26K out of his pocket for a new motor.

thats alot of money to gamble. I am not a gambler. $2K for safe power gains for 4/48K or $100-1300 for safe power gains but possibility of a very big bill in the future.

do you feel lucky? that is what is boils down to.

It would be completely naieve to say bmw would not be able to hunt down and detect these mods. the cars have alot of storage and telemetry. your lying to yourself if you think the designers of the ecu (and rest of the electronics) can not detect anomalies.

i'm not against any form of mod i'm just saying it from how i see it. If someone were to bludgeon my programming (firmware) with a piggyback i'd be pissed off as it would make the designers (@bmw) look bad if their cars mysteriously started failing prematurely. someone in the software design team would get a spanking.

Excellent POV starrdlux!!

Now, please tell me how the gains with Dinan compare to those of Vishnu. Thank you!

[StarrDlux]

vishnu's seems to make more power.

Statistically dinan had to guestimate a safe point of power to ensure they don't pay for $26K motors. no doubt the dinan dudes themselves have spooled the turbos to peak (20+psi) on their own rides to figure out where things break.

if dinan sold 20 chips at a net profit of $1500 each ($500 net cost of design/business operation) then if one motor fails at a $26K bill they would net $4K profit instead of $30K which probably would bankrupt them quick and then Every dinan owner would lose their warranty... the math can't be that hard but its been a long week so if i wrote something totally wrong feel free to baste me.

My audi (APR stage 1+) peaks at 22psi then drops back to stock near peak RPM. These chips and motor combos go for 50K to 150K (again odds) no problems. knock on wood. But APR has no warranty and i took the risk because i knew i could pick up a used longblock and turbo for about $3G and spend $1.5G having it refreshed and installed. Thats alot less gamble than $26G

[E82tt6]

Dinan makes about 40 extra hp, the same as SSTT and JB1.

With V3 you would gain 80-100hp with no other mods.

I don't think we should throw around the $26k or $11k numbers to scare people, because quite honestly you'd have be be a complete moron to pay that much money for those sorts of repairs. The turbos new in the box are 1.5k a piece. You could have the engine rebuilt to your specifications with much stronger parts for 6k or so. 26k is an unrealistic number, unless someone like wasting their money.

[gmoney]

Originally Posted by E82tt6

Dinan makes about 40 extra hp, the same as SSTT and JB1.

With V3 you would gain 80-100hp with no other mods.

I don't think we should throw around the $26k or $11k numbers to scare people, because quite honestly you'd have be be a complete moron to pay that much money for those sorts of repairs. The turbos new in the box are 1.5k a piece. You could have the engine rebuilt to your specifications with much stronger parts for 6k or so. 26k is an unrealistic number, unless someone like wasting their money.

So what is your take on this... would you go with Vishnu, or Dinan to have it covered during the warranty period?

[E82tt6]

Originally Posted by gmoney

So what is your take on this... would you go with Vishnu, or Dinan to have it covered during the warranty period?

If you want JUST a moderate power bump with a warranty, Dinan is good. If you want invisibility and the same power, SSTT is good.

If you want more mods than just a tune, Dinan is a bad option. Non-Dinan parts void your Dinan warranty. If you want a turbo back exhaust, I'd go with JBX, V3, or Helix.

[AMJ_77]

To avoid the whole tuning thing go M3 I am giving up my 335 to avoid this whole issue. Not that I am saying this is the only way to go or the right way, it is just the way I chose.

[StarrDlux]

dinan stage 2 is more than SSTT its a couple psi more.

we need a fair and similar dyno array posted by the same people on the same octane on the same day.

i don't think any other tuner is modifying the cooling system (water pump) to go faster?

[arter]

If you compare the dyno results of many tuning options, you can see that procede and JB2X provide the highest power levels of all the options. (Sorry, didn't include values above 6000 rpm which can be higher, see max hp & torque claims in plot labels).

Dinan has close to their power levels in the mid range ( +65 hp at 4000 rpm and 13.2 psi boost), but trails off boost and power more than the others at the high end: Dinan +55 hp over stock at top rpm, vs + 80 for V3 high boost.

SSTT runs at +12 psi so it is significantly lower that Dinan through most of the rpm range, but it does respond well to higher octane levels for more power.

If you are worried about detectability ( With Dinan you are not as it is a declared option to the Dealer) the V3 Doomday map has much lower torque and power throughout most of the rpm range except for above 5000 rpm. A later version of this with more power may be develped.

[e90AW335i]

Thats a damn good graph.

[gmoney]

E82tt6 you say that if I want a turbo back exhaust I should go with one of the three you mentioned. How is that different that the Ultimate Racing full exhaust I'm looking into?

And to everyone else: how likely is it to experience failure or problems with procede?Also is the price drastically different that Dinan? And finally, is there a way to remove the procede product before going to the dealer? This last question may be dumb I'm sure since I dont know how or where it's installed. Thanks!