[BMWZiggy]

Until about 8 months ago, I had driven vehicles with an AT my whole life. And unless you have the money to buy an M car, driving any ol AT is just plain boring. I wanted to experience what it was like to truly drive a car, one with a manual transmission, and awd since I live in Denver. So I bought a 2010 328xi with 50k miles for about 16k from carmax, not a bad deal. I have to put a lot of miles on for work and figured the 328 would be more reliable than a 335. Little did I know about the journey it was going to take me on.

Instantly, I was hooked. Of course it was scary driving off the lot for the first time however as I became better and better at driving, naturally I began to thirst for even more power and ways to improve the driving experience as a whole. So down the 328 rabbit hole I go.

After some research and due diligence, I had discovered that it was pretty difficult and costly to squeeze any extra hp/tq out of these NA engines, hats off to those that have done so. I figured I may as well keep it stock and reliable. Other than an injen air intake which improved sound and drive-ability, I have not done any other mods... yet..

3SIM+headers+tune as far as hp per $ did not seem worth it to me until I discovered I have the N51 engine which already comes with the 3SIM.

The sounds and feeling of being thrown back in your seat at 6kRPM is f***ing exhilarating but cut short at 7kRPM redline. Im not sure if its because its a manual or awd, this car is really fun to drive stock as is but if that power surge could start at 5k or even 4kRPM now that would be something.

Originally I was going to get the base BPC tune, I had read some positive reviews about getting that low end tq, since I already have the 3SIM I wanted to see what that does. However just recently BPC has removed their N51/N52 tunes from their website due to their tuner quitting. So I have a few questions regarding tunes and headers:

1. Would I even feel a difference in getting a tune such as AA or maybe BPC in the future just for the N51 and 3SIM?
2. Are headers worth it?
3. From my understanding of tunes (correct me if im wrong) but if you want to do it yourself you have to buy the cable and send your original ecu files in to be tuned? I was curious if say I found a tuning shop in Colorado where they had a dyno and are AA partners. Does that mean they can run the car on the dyno and tune onsite or do files still have to be sent to AA?

**Still need to keep the car reliable for work**

Anyways sorry for the long read I just wanted to give as much info as I could in order to get the best answers. Cheers! And long live the ultimate driving machine.

[JingChai]

I have the N51 tune from AA. What I did was go to the local dealer out here in California, have them do all the work, and drove home the same day. They got the data from my car, sent it over to AA, and then uploaded the data back into the car. Whole process took about 3-4 hours.

In terms of power, you can definitely feel it where there's no hesitation when you step on the gas. The car does rev a bit faster in 2nd and 3rd gear.

As for headers, it would be nice but there's no way that I can pass smog/emissions in California with headers. I'm not going to put the stock ones back for emissions and then put back on the aftermarket ones.