Remaps, Software tuning call it what you like

[Gee@aat]

Hi Guys,

.I have also posted this in another thread by member Lawsey called Remaps?
It was this thread that made me sign up and post.

First of all I would like to clear up that AATechnik is not the same as AL Tuning. However we do know each other very well. They tune totally independent to my self.

Before I start I would like to say this is not an attempt for me to sell a product or my service. I generally do not get much time to get on forums and try to sell my products/service to people nor would I want to. And the times I do I sometimes read false information and unfortunately the ones that do not know any better believe it. It can get quite annoying at times.



Now moving onto M3’s and software tuning…

There are many companies now that are offering remaps/software tuning for these cars.

When I first started tuning M3’s I was the first one I believe in the UK to get any general power increase from these vehicles.

As I went further into tuning these cars I realised how inconsistent performance figures were on these vehicles after tuning. I know that other tuning companies are also experiencing similar issues that I was back then.

After scratching my head and trying to figure out exactly what was going on I soon realised what works and what does not.

These in consistencies have been blamed on all sorts of things, Cam Timing being out on stock cars, air mass sensors being faulty the list goes on.

First of all I have probably lost count of the amount of S54 Engines that I have stripped down and in stock form I have never come across an engine with the cam timing slightly out but hey I could be wrong….

Secondly I believe no real investigation ever gets carried out when these claims are made. No real diagnostic work is ever carried out. Just assumptions!
If ever I have a car that we need to tune on a dyno which has custom parts fitted and it does not make the required power we look into why.

Thankfully we have good diagnostic tools and actually have automotive background.

We are able to look at
Vanos position in real degrees for each bank while the car is running from this I can see if I am getting the correct angle compared to what is programmed by Bmw in the ecu.
We can check ignition in degrees for each cylinder
Knock sensor voltage, from this I then calculate how much degrees the ecu is actually pulling.

And a whole load of other stuff that generally is not available on readily available diagnostic tools out there.


After over 30 alterations we released our software for road going cars, and this is after 5 months of testing with customers…..

To get anymore than 20hp from these engines consistently one would need to push the engine very hard indeed. Many other tuners/companies may disagree but I know that I can make a car show 20hp gain on a dyno with some tuning, I also know that 2 weeks down the line if I was to re dyno the car, most of the time that gain would either not be there or be much less as the DME has adapted and did not like the changes made.

So sometimes having a car on a dyno showing some good gains doesn’t necessarily mean they are there for good. Altering certain perimeters with in the DME will make power for some short time until adaptations take place.

I am not saying that dyno’s are useless, they are a very good tool, my argument is with oem engine management there are many variables that go through adaption and the gains seen sometimes are not necessarily there for good. It is these adaptions that keep engines from going horribly wrong when tuned incorrectly.

On another note, here is something to think about, when purchasing a supercharger kit for these cars either from ESS or Active Autowerke, are you required to dyno tune the car? Come on guys we are talking of increase of 100hp minimum. No you send your Dme away it gets flashed and you fit into the car and drive. Now how many stories have you heard about where a supercharged car has blown up because of the software not being right? Think about this…. J

When we first released our software for the E46 M3 we quoted +17hp we soon realised that it was not consistent and then every customer who enquired about the remap we explained that gains would be anywhere between 10hp to 17hp. Generally we see around 15hp. We were also asked why we do not put the car on the dyno and “tweak the map” and the reason is that we have set the road software at a point where we think is safe for a road car. If we were to get 20hp from an s54 we would get it CONSISTANTLY, some months down the line if nothing has changed mechanically on the engine the gain would still be there and there would concern for the engines in the long run.
I have seen stock S54 engines go wrong, I certainly was not going to release something that was going to contribute to that happening.

With over 200 M3’s tuned worldwide over 100 from one UK forum alone, not one has gone wrong I think this rather proves the point….

I hope this clears things up…

Lastly I would like to point out that this my opinion based on my experience many may disagree J

Gee