Stage 3 Dinan Impressions and Install

[Mr. Wilson]

Let me just start by saying,
please guys can we hold back on the cost vs power gains controversy. This has been spoke of over and over again. Enough.....

As most of my posts have reflected I am no fan boy of dinan with the exception of their level of quality in their hardware. I have done many tunes. Yet this is my first Dinan tune even though I have been using their hardware for years. Why...

A warranty that I am not even confident in. I hope I am wrong. It took a lot for me to jeopardize my bmw factory warranty but I did it.

They do not seem to want to independently back their power gains as spoke of in a different thread. For some of us this is of issue. For others they don't care. But since this car is my DD I was never looking for much.

The install:

If you have large hands forget it. The space between the firewall and the block/ top mount cooler is nothing. This was one of the biggest PITA installs I have ever done on a car.

There are three females that must be unlocked and pulled at the DME. The dinan harness then goes into 2b and 3b. The first female goes back in. It just needs to be moved out of the way temporarily. Next the 2b and 3b males from the harness are plugged into the stock oem females (the two you originally pulled). Next the harness wires are ran behind the weather strip and mounted on the fuse box and power is picked up from the 12 v lead next to it and grounded out about a foot away.

Seems straight forward and frankly it is. But.... connecting and disconnecting the respective plugs is miserable in that confined space and if I had to do it again I would pay someone.

Impressions:

One of the things I enjoyed about the M3 was that the DCT in sport plus was obnoxiously abrupt. This though is a common criticism and rightly so. I am thinking PDK here. But I very much enjoy that raw feeling. My 1M has that feeling when shifting through the gears hard and I love it.

The Dinan tune greatly softening the gear changes and smooths it beautifully. The upshifts feel far more soft and linear. Far more refined. I thought this was in my head because there hasn't been much said about this so I called Dinan today to verify and sure enough that was their intention. This is probably the most noticeable thing I get with this tune.

As for the power gains it feels stronger on the top end but honestly I can't tell much because the car drives differently. The whole "it will turn into a beast" is bullshit. I have done enough tunes to say this is a very conservative tune but again what is hard to compare is how the car drives stock vs with this tune. Only with ECU flashes have I seen this degree of change in the feel of a car. No piggyback has done this that I have driven.

My verdict.

Very expensive but so far it seems well engineered and alters the overall feel of the car for good and for bad depending upon what you are shooting for. If the M3 was my weekend car I would have returned the tune but since it is my DD I think this may have been the right fit.

[TR930]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wilson

Let me just start by saying,
please guys can we hold back on the cost vs power gains controversy. This has been spoke of over and over again. Enough.....

As most of my posts have reflected I am no fan boy of dinan with the exception of their level of quality in their hardware. I have done many tunes. Yet this is my first Dinan tune even though I have been using their hardware for years. Why...

A warranty that I am not even confident in. I hope I am wrong. It took a lot for me to jeopardize my bmw factory warranty but I did it.

They do not seem to want to independently back their power gains as spoke of in a different thread. For some of us this is of issue. For others they don't care. But since this car is my DD I was never looking for much.

The install:

If you have large hands forget it. The space between the firewall and the block/ top mount cooler is nothing. This was one of the biggest PITA installs I have ever done on a car.

There are three females that must be unlocked and pulled at the DME. The dinan harness then goes into 2b and 3b. The first female goes back in. It just needs to be moved out of the way temporarily. Next the 2b and 3b males from the harness are plugged into the stock oem females (the two you originally pulled). Next the harness wires are ran behind the weather strip and mounted on the fuse box and power is picked up from the 12 v lead next to it and grounded out about a foot away.

Seems straight forward and frankly it is. But.... connecting and disconnecting the respective plugs is miserable in that confined space and if I had to do it again I would pay someone.

Impressions:

One of the things I enjoyed about the M3 was that the DCT in sport plus was obnoxiously abrupt. This though is a common criticism and rightly so. I am thinking PDK here. But I very much enjoy that raw feeling. My 1M has that feeling when shifting through the gears hard and I love it.

The Dinan tune greatly softening the gear changes and smooths it beautifully. The upshifts feel far more soft and linear. Far more refined. I thought this was in my head because there hasn't been much said about this so I called Dinan today to verify and sure enough that was their intention. This is probably the most noticeable thing I get with this tune.

As for the power gains it feels stronger on the top end but honestly I can't tell much because the car drives differently. The whole "it will turn into a beast" is bullshit. I have done enough tunes to say this is a very conservative tune but again what is hard to compare is how the car drives stock vs with this tune. Only with ECU flashes have I seen this degree of change in the feel of a car. No piggyback has done this that I have driven.

My verdict.

Very expensive but so far it seems well engineered and alters the overall feel of the car for good and for bad depending upon what you are shooting for. If the M3 was my weekend car I would have returned the tune but since it is my DD I think this may have been the right fit.

Install the Dinan app from app store or Google play and you can toggle the tunes from baseli e to stage 3. Compare and contrast.

[Dinan_Engineering]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wilson

Let me just start by saying,
please guys can we hold back on the cost vs power gains controversy. This has been spoke of over and over again. Enough.....

As most of my posts have reflected I am no fan boy of dinan with the exception of their level of quality in their hardware. I have done many tunes. Yet this is my first Dinan tune even though I have been using their hardware for years. Why...

A warranty that I am not even confident in. I hope I am wrong. It took a lot for me to jeopardize my bmw factory warranty but I did it.

They do not seem to want to independently back their power gains as spoke of in a different thread. For some of us this is of issue. For others they don't care. But since this car is my DD I was never looking for much.

The install:

If you have large hands forget it. The space between the firewall and the block/ top mount cooler is nothing. This was one of the biggest PITA installs I have ever done on a car.

There are three females that must be unlocked and pulled at the DME. The dinan harness then goes into 2b and 3b. The first female goes back in. It just needs to be moved out of the way temporarily. Next the 2b and 3b males from the harness are plugged into the stock oem females (the two you originally pulled). Next the harness wires are ran behind the weather strip and mounted on the fuse box and power is picked up from the 12 v lead next to it and grounded out about a foot away.

Seems straight forward and frankly it is. But.... connecting and disconnecting the respective plugs is miserable in that confined space and if I had to do it again I would pay someone.

Impressions:

One of the things I enjoyed about the M3 was that the DCT in sport plus was obnoxiously abrupt. This though is a common criticism and rightly so. I am thinking PDK here. But I very much enjoy that raw feeling. My 1M has that feeling when shifting through the gears hard and I love it.

The Dinan tune greatly softening the gear changes and smooths it beautifully. The upshifts feel far more soft and linear. Far more refined. I thought this was in my head because there hasn't been much said about this so I called Dinan today to verify and sure enough that was their intention. This is probably the most noticeable thing I get with this tune.

As for the power gains it feels stronger on the top end but honestly I can't tell much because the car drives differently. The whole "it will turn into a beast" is bullshit. I have done enough tunes to say this is a very conservative tune but again what is hard to compare is how the car drives stock vs with this tune. Only with ECU flashes have I seen this degree of change in the feel of a car. No piggyback has done this that I have driven.

My verdict.

Very expensive but so far it seems well engineered and alters the overall feel of the car for good and for bad depending upon what you are shooting for. If the M3 was my weekend car I would have returned the tune but since it is my DD I think this may have been the right fit.

Appreciate the honest assessment. As TR930 mentioned I would encourage you to download the app and turn the tune off for a day or 2 and then put it back on to really appreciate the differences in power. For most, you don't appreciate what you had until its gone. The goal is always to make everything seamless so power feel can be deceiving. Removing the extra power is the quickest way to tell that difference (moreso then adding it).

[F80R]

How can a piggy back that connects to Tmap sensor and map sensor have anything to do how DCT is shifting ? It has nothing to do with transmission... I'm I missing something ?

[Ilikemike]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wilson

Let me just start by saying,
please guys can we hold back on the cost vs power gains controversy. This has been spoke of over and over again. Enough.....

As most of my posts have reflected I am no fan boy of dinan with the exception of their level of quality in their hardware. I have done many tunes. Yet this is my first Dinan tune even though I have been using their hardware for years. Why...

A warranty that I am not even confident in. I hope I am wrong. It took a lot for me to jeopardize my bmw factory warranty but I did it.

They do not seem to want to independently back their power gains as spoke of in a different thread. For some of us this is of issue. For others they don't care. But since this car is my DD I was never looking for much.

The install:

If you have large hands forget it. The space between the firewall and the block/ top mount cooler is nothing. This was one of the biggest PITA installs I have ever done on a car.

There are three females that must be unlocked and pulled at the DME. The dinan harness then goes into 2b and 3b. The first female goes back in. It just needs to be moved out of the way temporarily. Next the 2b and 3b males from the harness are plugged into the stock oem females (the two you originally pulled). Next the harness wires are ran behind the weather strip and mounted on the fuse box and power is picked up from the 12 v lead next to it and grounded out about a foot away.

Seems straight forward and frankly it is. But.... connecting and disconnecting the respective plugs is miserable in that confined space and if I had to do it again I would pay someone.

Impressions:

One of the things I enjoyed about the M3 was that the DCT in sport plus was obnoxiously abrupt. This though is a common criticism and rightly so. I am thinking PDK here. But I very much enjoy that raw feeling. My 1M has that feeling when shifting through the gears hard and I love it.

The Dinan tune greatly softening the gear changes and smooths it beautifully. The upshifts feel far more soft and linear. Far more refined. I thought this was in my head because there hasn't been much said about this so I called Dinan today to verify and sure enough that was their intention. This is probably the most noticeable thing I get with this tune.

As for the power gains it feels stronger on the top end but honestly I can't tell much because the car drives differently. The whole "it will turn into a beast" is bullshit. I have done enough tunes to say this is a very conservative tune but again what is hard to compare is how the car drives stock vs with this tune. Only with ECU flashes have I seen this degree of change in the feel of a car. No piggyback has done this that I have driven.

My verdict.

Very expensive but so far it seems well engineered and alters the overall feel of the car for good and for bad depending upon what you are shooting for. If the M3 was my weekend car I would have returned the tune but since it is my DD I think this may have been the right fit.

I'm also thinking Dinan but concerned about the cost/benefit ratio, BTW, did you change the heat exchanger, as recommended for warranty? No pre-post dynos so that makes it hard to see what the changes were objectively... I'm getting mine 'baselined' next week and will add items sequentially. Thanks for the review!

[Mr. Wilson]

F80R the piggyback is different then others. It plugs into the DME directly. That is why I stated the install was miserable. After talking to Dinan it doesn't directly interface with the DCT but alters the timing as well as other parameters in a fraction of a second during the gear change. This changes the feel of the car. Call them, they will fill you in. They should talk about this more when advertising. I just had a buddy of mine drive it with a M4 ZCP, to compare to my M3 ZCP. With me saying very little he noticed this right away.

ilikemike I changed the heat exchanger and wrote up a DIY thread to help others. Did this about three months ago. I did this more out of "something to do" at the time and wasn't sure I would go with Dinan. Ultimately I did it for multiple reasons. One reason I didn't mention above was that the stock car is plenty strong enough to get you in trouble and around here that is easy to do. There is no where to drive here. I am eager to see what the baseline vs staged dynos show. There is a lot of variables but it should give us some idea. As mentioned in my prior posts I was very critical of Dinan on this subject.

Other things I haven't mentioned. It seems that maybe traction control has been altered or its not keeping up with any added torque. I keep thinking it will cut power like in stock but my ass keeps wiggling which didn't happen before unless I put it in MDM mode. Tires are warm. Just seems more loose. I figured no matter how much power is added if the car lets go a little in the rear with all the nanies on, the power would be cut. Doesn't seem to be happening much. Seems odd to me. Also the pedal feel seems slightly different but this could also be the slightly different power curve. Dinan told me they didn't alter the pedal feel so that is probably me.

[Ilikemike]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wilson

F80R the piggyback is different then others. It plugs into the DME directly. That is why I stated the install was miserable. After talking to Dinan it doesn't directly interface with the DCT but alters the timing as well as other parameters in a fraction of a second during the gear change. This changes the feel of the car. Call them, they will fill you in. They should talk about this more when advertising. I just had a buddy of mine drive it with a M4 ZCP, to compare to my M3 ZCP. With me saying very little he noticed this right away.

ilikemike I changed the heat exchanger and wrote up a DIY thread to help others. Did this about three months ago. I did this more out of "something to do" at the time and wasn't sure I would go with Dinan. Ultimately I did it for multiple reasons. One reason I didn't mention above was that the stock car is plenty strong enough to get you in trouble and around here that is easy to do. There is no where to drive here. I am eager to see what the baseline vs staged dynos show. There is a lot of variables but it should give us some idea. As mentioned in my prior posts I was very critical of Dinan on this subject.

Other things I haven't mentioned. It seems that maybe traction control has been altered or its not keeping up with any added torque. I keep thinking it will cut power like in stock but my ass keeps wiggling which didn't happen before unless I put it in MDM mode. Tires are warm. Just seems more loose. I figured no matter how much power is added if the car lets go a little in the rear with all the nanies on, the power would be cut. Doesn't seem to be happening much. Seems odd to me. Also the pedal feel seems slightly different but this could also be the slightly different power curve. Dinan told me they didn't alter the pedal feel so that is probably me.

Thx. I had the DCT software on my e92 M3 which massively softened the shift feel and, like you, I did not like the change in character... Oh well...maybe the 'good' changes in character will outweigh this 'bad' one...

[mike@x-ph.com]

Thank you for sharing OP and glad you are happy with your decision

[skalberti]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wilson

Let me just start by saying,
please guys can we hold back on the cost vs power gains controversy. This has been spoke of over and over again. Enough.....

As most of my posts have reflected I am no fan boy of dinan with the exception of their level of quality in their hardware. I have done many tunes. Yet this is my first Dinan tune even though I have been using their hardware for years. Why...

A warranty that I am not even confident in. I hope I am wrong. It took a lot for me to jeopardize my bmw factory warranty but I did it.

They do not seem to want to independently back their power gains as spoke of in a different thread. For some of us this is of issue. For others they don't care. But since this car is my DD I was never looking for much.

The install:

If you have large hands forget it. The space between the firewall and the block/ top mount cooler is nothing. This was one of the biggest PITA installs I have ever done on a car.

There are three females that must be unlocked and pulled at the DME. The dinan harness then goes into 2b and 3b. The first female goes back in. It just needs to be moved out of the way temporarily. Next the 2b and 3b males from the harness are plugged into the stock oem females (the two you originally pulled). Next the harness wires are ran behind the weather strip and mounted on the fuse box and power is picked up from the 12 v lead next to it and grounded out about a foot away.

Seems straight forward and frankly it is. But.... connecting and disconnecting the respective plugs is miserable in that confined space and if I had to do it again I would pay someone.

Impressions:

One of the things I enjoyed about the M3 was that the DCT in sport plus was obnoxiously abrupt. This though is a common criticism and rightly so. I am thinking PDK here. But I very much enjoy that raw feeling. My 1M has that feeling when shifting through the gears hard and I love it.

The Dinan tune greatly softening the gear changes and smooths it beautifully. The upshifts feel far more soft and linear. Far more refined. I thought this was in my head because there hasn't been much said about this so I called Dinan today to verify and sure enough that was their intention. This is probably the most noticeable thing I get with this tune.

As for the power gains it feels stronger on the top end but honestly I can't tell much because the car drives differently. The whole "it will turn into a beast" is bullshit. I have done enough tunes to say this is a very conservative tune but again what is hard to compare is how the car drives stock vs with this tune. Only with ECU flashes have I seen this degree of change in the feel of a car. No piggyback has done this that I have driven.

My verdict.

Very expensive but so far it seems well engineered and alters the overall feel of the car for good and for bad depending upon what you are shooting for. If the M3 was my weekend car I would have returned the tune but since it is my DD I think this may have been the right fit.

I know you're concerned with factory warranty being matched by Dinan, so I'll share my experience. I had a 2008 335i that I sent the DME to Dinan for a flash tune. The power gains were awesome. At 42k miles I noticed a noise when I let off the gas pedal and the transmission held the gear. Took it in to my dealership and was told #6 rod bearing was spun and metal shavings were dispersed through the motor. A PUMA case was opened as expected. It didn't take but a few hours for BMW to blame Dinan and void the warranty even though the rod bearings were a known issue on the 08's because of supplier issues. Dinan stepped up and covered the cost of a new short block at a tune of $16k. For BMW to reinstate the warranty the factory software had to be reinstalled and even my cold air intake had to be removed and factory air box had to be replaced. Dinan has a great warranty. What makes me leery is BMW's ability to wash their hands to your warranty over a cold air intake. That's just obscene.