Fortunately for us, our office is literally minutes away from DME Tune. Scott hooked up said Versace-class battery charger and a magic reflashing box to our longterm 2008 BMW 135i and we split for grub.
Over a bowl of steaming pho at the local Vietnamese joint, Scott described the company's tuning philosophy. In a nutshell, they have examined various aspects of the engine and settled on a few states of tune that they reckon provide meaningful power increases while maintaining healthy safety margins. And by employing a reflashing strategy, they have access to virtually every operational parameter of the engine which gives them full control over the changes they make.
He continued by explaining that our 135i is receiving his Stage 2 reflash. This is, apparently, one better than Stage 1. The price for either flash is $649.
More specifically, Stage 2 can be used on turbocharged N54 BMWs equipped with, at a minimum, the factory oil cooler. And our 135i has one. If you want to see if yours does, take a peek in the passenger side wheel well. If you see a heat exchanger lurking behind slots in the plastic liner, you just found the oil cooler.
When we returned to the car, the process was complete. We were back on the road minutes later and giving the spurs to our homely little German coupe.
We'll have driving impressions and performance test results for you shortly. So keep your ears on, fine IL blog readers.
Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor
cx7lover says:
09:18 AM, 05/22/09
OMG AUDI S5.
audisport says:
09:19 AM, 05/22/09
Can't beat some good pho! Has to have alot of hot sauce in it though.
s197gt says:
09:42 AM, 05/22/09
i paid $12 for a bowl of pho a couple of months ago. in vietnam it's like... 75 cents.
audisport says:
09:50 AM, 05/22/09
$12 for a bowl of soup?! Must be in LA right?
indy_mistert says:
10:00 AM, 05/22/09
Subscribed!
There's a lot of predictable forum BS to wade through... but if anyone's interested, here seems to be the major discussion thread of DME on e90post:
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250621
(definitely some good info - DME initially seems like a 1st class operation)
m3shmem3 says:
10:24 AM, 05/22/09
C'mon Jason, you're killing me. I wrestle with whether or not to do this to my loved 335i every day. I'm hopelessly in limbo - don't leave me hanging before the 3-day weekend away from my precious Interwebs. Tell me what you think already!
audisport says:
10:29 AM, 05/22/09
M3, What's to think about? Do it!
e10rice says:
10:34 AM, 05/22/09
Wow depending on the performance gains, $649 for increased performance and not losing your factory warrenty sound like a no brainer. Wish i could just hook my camry up for a reflash and get some performance upgrades, but that would be asking to much.
bkochuk says:
10:44 AM, 05/22/09
I had APR reflash my B5 S4. The improvement was noticeable, especially in third gear. The car ran for years with no problems, and it got better gas mileage to boot.
But...I waited until the warranty had expired to do it. Just chicken, I guess.
stephen987 says:
11:08 AM, 05/22/09
I've heard good things about reflashing even for the four-cylinder Fusion. . .
boostjunkee says:
11:35 AM, 05/22/09
DMETune was the company that presented the community with the compressor map for the turbos on the N54 cars.
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256804
The funny thing is how they feel its safe to run outside of the map. You can read that forum and people talking about having turbo whine and stuff. Many people have had turbos replaced, yet they insist its not the high boosted piggybacks causing it.
boostjunkee says:
11:41 AM, 05/22/09
By they, I mean the companies who sole purpose is to extract the most horsepower they can regardless of what it does to the driveability of the car. This would be the piggyback tuners.
Has anyone ever followed other car markets? When flashes become mainstream the piggybacks die. This will be the case with these BMWs.
DMETune is on the path to make this happen.
s1gins says:
12:06 PM, 05/22/09
Not sure I believe BMW would not know you reflashed. If they look at your ECU it will note the out of parameter activity that will occur. I realize the GTR may have a hypersensitive ECU monitoring system but they know when someone has run the Cobb AP...
joefrompa says:
12:59 PM, 05/22/09
To be clear: Any decent mechanic who believes your car has been reflashed will be able to prove it.
They can map boost or monitor max boost and check all sorts of things.
What many of these companies do is mask it to help prevent a mechanic from becoming suspicious.
Boostjunkee - Any relation to the subaru-boards BoostJunkie?
Joeinboston says:
01:29 PM, 05/22/09
WHY won't Edmunds do the same thing for the EVO X MR?
There are more owners and potential owners who would buy a COBB access port for a 'plug and play' flash tune than owners of 135 who would buy a tune.
EDMUNDS: please flash the EVO X MR! YOu can test owners claims of improved MPG, imrpvoed torque and 0-60 times, all while recording your driving impressions and real world numbers.
achenator says:
07:27 PM, 05/22/09
Don't you savages ever wipe anything down under the hood??
08lr3 says:
03:00 PM, 05/23/09
so, will this be avail for the 09 Z4 N54 with 7speed auto?