To Tune Or Not To Tune

[on3eighteen]

OK, if I had the money, I'd get an X5 M, no questions asked. My reason would be solely for power; suspension, handling, interior upgrades are nice but not valuable enough for me to spend extra money.

My question is solely around tuning an X5 50i with, most likely, Dinan to get the horsepower & torque close to the X5 M. I've never driven an X5 M, and probably better that I haven't lest me spend my child's tuition on it. I am impressed w/ the power of the non-M v8 & I have to imagine going one step further & tuning it must put that power to a level that even us guys who love fast cars are more than happy.

Thoughts? Again, interior & exterior styling/options, handling, etc. are important but when I drive quick, it's mostly in a straight line.

[hufington]

Tune. Because you'd enjoy it almost everyday. X5M is a beast but for my purposes a tad too harsh of a ride. 50i in msport is a great compromise and after a tune, it puts a smile on your face each time you drive it.

[M302_imola]

Tune it...cheap hp

[on3eighteen]

Boo...I just found out my soon-to-be 2016 X5 50i has an *electric* wastegate, not *mechanical* which, according to Dinan's website, won't work w/ their piggy-back tune. That sucks! So, if I'm right, that leaves companies like JB4 (not sure I love them) & ESS (don't know much about them). Does anybody?

[Meehow]

Dinan sucks. MHD or Bootmod3 have a OBDII flash.

[W37V]

Originally Posted by on3eighteen

OK, if I had the money, I'd get an X5 M, no questions asked. My reason would be solely for power; suspension, handling, interior upgrades are nice but not valuable enough for me to spend extra money.

My question is solely around tuning an X5 50i with, most likely, Dinan to get the horsepower & torque close to the X5 M. I've never driven an X5 M, and probably better that I haven't lest me spend my child's tuition on it. I am impressed w/ the power of the non-M v8 & I have to imagine going one step further & tuning it must put that power to a level that even us guys who love fast cars are more than happy.

Thoughts? Again, interior & exterior styling/options, handling, etc. are important but when I drive quick, it's mostly in a straight line.

Don’t bother with dinan. They are not what they used to be. Bmw no longer honors their warranty (not that they ever did). They are overpriced for gains achieved. Good quality product, but not as competitive.

There are much better options out there (few already mentioned) and depend which route you want to take. Piggyback or ecu tune. Piggyback will be “rough” due to way it works, while ecu tune will be smooth as there is no signal interception and manipulation on the fly.

[r33_RGSport]

Do RaceChip. Sold a lot of them to this community already.

[on3eighteen]

Originally Posted by r33_RGSport

Do RaceChip. Sold a lot of them to this community already.

I read good things but from the post just before yours, it looks like he preferred ECU vs. piggy-back and I guess I never really thought about the difference being a factor. I've read that if you have an ECU option, it doesn't have to worry about as many moving parts like signals?

[on3eighteen]

Originally Posted by Meehow

Dinan sucks. MHD or Bootmod3 have a OBDII flash.

Looks like MHD & Bootmod3 only does the v6, not 50i but thanks for helping me find other vendors than Dinan.

[SCA]

Originally Posted by on3eighteen

Looks like MHD & Bootmod3 only does the v6, not 50i but thanks for helping me find other vendors than Dinan.

I6...

[r33_RGSport]

Originally Posted by on3eighteen

I read good things but from the post just before yours, it looks like he preferred ECU vs. piggy-back and I guess I never really thought about the difference being a factor. I've read that if you have an ECU option, it doesn't have to worry about as many moving parts like signals?

If you are planning to go full on mods and pushing it to the limit, then ECU flash is the best.
Just do more research on the pro and con.

Piggyback such as RaceChip is for easy power gain and less headache.
It won't push to the max engine capacity, but it will give you enough while maintaining the ECU safety parameters and longevity to the engine.

Looking forward for your build though.

[mikew2069]

Originally Posted by on3eighteen

Looks like MHD & Bootmod3 only does the v6, not 50i but thanks for helping me find other vendors than Dinan.

Incorrect. I have BM3 on my 50i as do many others.

BM3 FTW!!!!

[DuSh]

Either go with piggyback (if you are concerned about warranty) or go with a flash OBD tune (BM3, BPC or any other available for n63tu x5 50i - plenty of them).

Dinan is no good in terms of tunes man. At least not for our n63tu engines. They do have an excellent intake for 50i, but expensive ($1.3k). So to reiterate we 50i guys here who are tuned have either piggybacks (r33_RGSport can fix you up with that), BM3 (that's a online tuning platform that has a lot of tuners to chose from) or a custom tune from various places (like for example I have it from BPC). Chose your poison.

[on3eighteen]

Originally Posted by DuSh

Either go with piggyback (if you are concerned about warranty) or go with a flash OBD tune (BM3, BPC or any other available for n63tu x5 50i - plenty of them).

Dinan is no good in terms of tunes man. At least not for our n63tu engines. They do have an excellent intake for 50i, but expensive ($1.3k). So to reiterate we 50i guys here who are tuned have either piggybacks (r33_RGSport can fix you up with that), BM3 (that's a online tuning platform that has a lot of tuners to chose from) or a custom tune from various places (like for example I have it from BPC). Chose your poison.

Good to know about Dinan. I'm a fan of piggybacks for its simple install & uninstall, but I read from another post that b/c they sit inbetween the ECU & other components, the car may not run as smooth as an ECU tune which directly modifies the software instead of using hardware. I guess I trust all your experience b/c I'm sort of a newbie, but whether it's ECU or piggyback, I'll pay whatever I have to for the most reliable tune with the least likelihood of bad things happening :-)

[johnhol]

Consider this a plus 1 for the racechips tune. Got mine for rgsports and it's a smile inducer...

Keeps the engine safe, gives flexibility on level of tune you want and simple to install, little bit of work but still simple.

[DuSh]

Originally Posted by on3eighteen

Good to know about Dinan. I'm a fan of piggybacks for its simple install & uninstall, but I read from another post that b/c they sit inbetween the ECU & other components, the car may not run as smooth as an ECU tune which directly modifies the software instead of using hardware. I guess I trust all your experience b/c I'm sort of a newbie, but whether it's ECU or piggyback, I'll pay whatever I have to for the most reliable tune with the least likelihood of bad things happening :-)

The best advise would be to NOT rush right away and enjoy your 50i for first month or so - just to get an idea how it drives and what exactly you'll want to improve. Meanwhile you can read more info about various options and make a decision. I do understand you want to jump right away into tuning, but gathering more info first wouldn't hurt.
Piggybacks are relatively safe as they don't push it to extremes and have a couple dials/switches to make it less/more aggressive. Their strongest selling point is that you can be invisible to a dealer. Compared to flash tunes that offer more customization and/or power, but are hit and miss in terms of warranty. BM3 had issues when dealers could easily see some red flags, but then they were able to make the process so that it was again ''invisible'' that DME was flashed. However, lately there've been some reports that dealers still can see it. Bottom line is that no one will give you 100% guarantee that you will not have some warranty issues. Tuning is always a risk, just need to weigh in all pros and cons and decide for yourself.

[Road Carnage]

Ben, do you know the 0-60 and 1/4 mile times for the Racechip tune?

[r33_RGSport]

Originally Posted by Road Carnage

Ben, do you know the 0-60 and 1/4 mile times for the Racechip tune?

Unfortunately, I don't.
Most of my customers add power to their car for enjoyment, not for 0-60 or 1/4 mile times.
I do guarantee that there is a great improvement over stock.

Probably out of 100+ units I sold in F15/F16 variant and F85/F86, only 2 or 3 guys that goes to drag strip.

[trlengle]

Originally Posted by DuSh

Either go with piggyback (if you are concerned about warranty) or go with a flash OBD tune (BM3, BPC or any other available for n63tu x5 50i - plenty of them).

Dinan is no good in terms of tunes man. At least not for our n63tu engines. They do have an excellent intake for 50i, but expensive ($1.3k). So to reiterate we 50i guys here who are tuned have either piggybacks (r33_RGSport can fix you up with that), BM3 (that's a online tuning platform that has a lot of tuners to chose from) or a custom tune from various places (like for example I have it from BPC). Chose your poison.

I have the Dinan (it was already installed when I purchased), why is it not good for the n63tu engine? I love the power but I don't have anything to compare it to. Seems like a lot of Dinan bashing...is it more than the cost?

[DuSh]

Originally Posted by trlengle

I have the Dinan (it was already installed when I purchased), why is it not good for the n63tu engine? I love the power but I don't have anything to compare it to. Seems like a lot of Dinan bashing...is it more than the cost?

If you get it for free - then you are good man. Enjoy it. Dinan by itself has great knowledge and is capable of excellent results. Like their intake is IMHO the best there is on f15/f85 platform. However, with tunes - they just never really pushed it to the max, they were always on the milder side so to speak. Very mild. Maybe it was to avoid headaches down the road as they were warranting their tunes like BMW warranty. Who knows?
Let's take BM3 Stage 1 tune - it has 500whp and 600wtq (roughly). To get similar results from Dinan tune - you will need to get something like their Stage 3-5 lol - which I doubt even exists for n63tu in Dinan catalog (haven't checked lately). For n63tu they never really developed anything close to what BM3 or BPC can offer. So I would consider Dinan as a very mild tune. They advertise their gains about 50-60hp if I'm not mistaken - that's more of a piggyback competitor rather than BM3 or BPC. The question arises - why bother with Dinan paying big money when you can get a piggyback for same results for several times cheaper? Just my opinion man, I'm not a Dinan expert really and might have missed something - maybe they developed some recent tunes that are more powerful - I don't know and I apologize if I'm wrong. My facts are based on 1 year old info - time when I was looking into tunes for my 50i.

So a short summary: Dinan has a safe tunes, but a mild one, very mild, so considering their hefty price - basically that's why we bash Dinan here lol. We shouldn't. Forgive us please. It's just you know when enthusiasts speak about specs and one tune is a lot milder than the other while costing several times more - well ..... you know.....

[on3eighteen]

So if we take warranty off the table, b/c it seems like the answer for any type of tune is "buyer beware", what tune is less likely to cause issues? For example, is the primary factor how far the engine is pushed, so a tune like BPC that squeezes out a ton of horsepower will put more strain on an engine vs. a "safer" tune like Racechip?

I guess the point of my question is that it's always an unknown of what a repair shop will do if they find out the engine is tuned (regardless of removing the piggyback or re-flashing the ECU to stock), but what tune, or configurations of that tune, are most likely to *avoid* the repair shop all together? And let's assume I'm driving quick 10% of the time & not WOT at every stop :-)

[BobBeau]

Originally Posted by mikew2069

Incorrect. I have BM3 on my 50i as do many others.

BM3 FTW!!!!

What he said. I've the BM3 tune on my 50i as well and it's a beast. Tune on, my friend, tune on