Another option for software tuning

[ga41]

As per the title another ECU remap has been released for our Z4 M steeds. This one is from Bren Tuning and costs $790 (the tuning day price was 650). They recently organised a dyno and tuning day in the States and a couple of members from Zpost went and tuned their Z4M's. The claimed power gains are 17hp and 15lb ft.

xJxDx0926, wrote a nice thread there with some information on the tune, before and after dyno plots and even videos. He reported a peak gain of 20whp and 10lb ft.

Thread here: http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=409785

Me and Jared (JCz04Bimmer) bit the Bullet. We got the BrenTuning Z4M Performance Tune. As mentioned earlier, There was a Tuning event held in Massachusetts which offered a Tune for our cars. And being the first to try this (in this community at least) Really turned out to be a good thing. Both of us are more than happy with the Results. It feels like a Completely Different car and MUCH more smoother than the stock settings.

Before:
[youtube]COMuIgNz5Ro[/youtube]

After:
[youtube]dyWs7oIolP8[/youtube]

Whats changed:

Modified Fuel tables
Modified Ignition timing
Modified VANOS changes
Modified Torque targeting
Warm up enrichment settings
Drive-by-wire settings, for sport and non-sport throttle modes
Rev limiter raised 150 rpms
Speed limiter removed
Torque limits raised
15-25hp , and 10-20tq (at the wheels) depending on modifications.
Custom dyno tuning available
Off-Road cat delete files available too

I got this information from Bren, If you want to set up a group buy I bet he would be willing to. As far as pricing goes the last time I spoke with him it is $790,Group buy events is $650.

 

[Andy]

Looks good

Shame they're thousands of miles away :?

 

[ga41]

Much like ESS you ship your entire ECU to them and they ship it back the next day or so. Downtime depends on where in the world you are obviously.

Differences from ESS's as far as i can tell are that ESS claims that theirs auto-adapts its mapping as you keep adding performance mods on it and their redline is at 8500, instead of BrenTuning's 8150. I asked if BT's also adapts to new mods but the forum user didnt know..

Still, it's good to have options right?

 

[ZM4000]

yep very good

 

[mmm-five]

If I'm reading the other thread right, the owner had some mods on the car already (underdrive pulleys, exhaust, intake). I'd like to see the same run on a standard car, as for all we know, the chip (now that the ECU has been reset) is just taking advantage of the installed mods. I'd also like a baseline for RWHP/RWT as I'm not sure what the parasitic losses are on a Z4M.

However, if I use some maths, a bit of factory data, assume those mods didn't add anything to the initial dyno measurement, and use 12%* correction for rearwheel to flywheel horsepower then the after figure is 358bhp (320 uncorrected). Torque correction figure seems to be slightly lower at 10.9%** but would still give an after figure of 273lb/ft (250 uncorrected).

The peak horsepower gain on the dyno chart is about 31bhp at 6600rpm where it goes from 307 (274) to about 338 (302).
The peak torque gain on the dyno is 22lb/ft at 6600rpm where it goes from 244 (220) to 266 (240).

All these figures could be wrong as it used my 'guesstimation', and the 'correction' value on almost every machine can/is/will be changed to suit the conditions (barometric pressure, temperature, operator mood, etc.). Plus, if the Z4M has an adaptive ECU already, maybe the system hadn't been reset after the mods were put on and then this chip comes along, resets the system and voila.

Calculations for parasitic losses...
* US standard figure of 333bhp divided by the dyno'd RWHP of 298bhp
** US standard figure of 262lb/ft divided by the dyno'd RWT of 240lb/ft