Dinan Stage 2 I recently had the Dinan Stage 2 software and exhaust installed on my 335i vert (sport & auto). The power delivery is linear like a NA engine compared to the factory setup of 100% torque at low RPM. While powerful, it doesn't feel like I have the listed 390 HP and 425 ft/tq listed by Dinan. I do use Shell V-power which is 93-octane fuel. From reading posts on different boards, people appear to be very happy with the upgrade. I am going to have the installer running a diagnostic to be sure everything is working according to spec. My issues might be attributed to the engine being new as there is only 1300 miles on the odometer. I went with Dinan because of the warranty match. This is important for me as I plan on keeping this car for a few years. As far as the exhaust, it is a lot of $$$ for sound and appearance. I do like it but the money could have been used elsewhere. If I had to do it again, I would've gone with the software upgrade only. Regards, NHman
I have Stage 2, the exhaust and the lightweight wheelset. I have had a persistent ticking noise (not fuel injector) since I picked the car up. It now has 14000km on it and I am confident it is the wastegate causing the issue. When the software was first installed I got out of the car thinking it was almost too fast. Since the dealer has been messing around with the software to try to solve the ticking issue they've had to reflash the Dinan twice and this last time there is a noticeable lag in power. I think it is the BMW software though not the Dinan. It goes in again tomorrow and I hope like heck they are going to put version 31 of the progman in and then reflash the Dinan. I drove a stock 335i at a BMW driver training course and do notice a pretty substantial difference in the mid range. The stock 335i is no slouch but let me put it this way, with the Dinan flash you never have to worry about merging. Point and shoot, the car is very fast, especially from about 2500 to 5000 rpm. Before they messed around with the software the bottom end was much stronger - but again this is the BMW software not the Dinan. I've read on other forums about v 29.2 being blamed for lag and slow throttle tip in. The exhaust sounds really good to me and it doesn't drone. There is a nice burble on the way down the revs and a great growl when you open it up. Yes its a bunch of money but I think it was worth it. Its a personal choice. I like the fact that mine sounds a little different (better) - its deeper but actually quieter than the stock exhaust when you are loafing along. The biggest difference with the wheels is that it is more of a square set up and I'm using normal tires instead of runflats. Although I'm now on 30 series tires the ride is better than the stock 19 inch runflats the car came with. The car is alot less twitchy, especially under heavy breaking but the turn in isn't quite as quick as the front wheels are full inch wider. All in all I've spent about $10K including tires and will probably do the Stage 3 suspension in the spring. I haven't put the Dinan badge on, it resides in the glove box. I'd be curious as to whether members think I should put it on or not. At the moment it is debadged so all it says on the back is BMW - no 335i badge, no Dinan 3 badge. Some of my BMW friends say stay debadged, some say for $10K I should be putting the badge on. I'm really neither here nor there but am leaning towards staying debadged. The thing I like about the Dinan mods is that they are not really visible and are aimed at function over form. I don't need the attention that the badge would get, now only the cognoscenti know what it is and that is perfectly fine with me.
Thanks for your thoughts I think I'm doing the exhaust off your recommendation. As for the flash, I've heard a lot of mixed reviews. I have heard there are issues with lag, one blogger went on to say he only gained .1 on a quarter mile run. That doesn't seem worth it to me. What mpg are you seeing, any major difference? Thanks
I'm not disappointed with the exhaust at all, I hope you are happy with yours if you go that way. My mpg didn't change much at all with the flash - maybe a 1 -2 mpg less in the city if I drive hard. If I drive it normally there is very little difference. There is more lag below 2000 rpm but once you get above about 2500 it really goes. I have a buddy with a step 335i which is stock and I can still pull away from him in spite of the shifts I need to make. I don't blow him away but by 3rd gear it is 10 car lengths or so. The midrange punch with the Dinan is very noticeable vs the stock car. Roundel says anyone in an M3 should be wary and there is a great video comparing the Dinan S2 and the new M3 on Youtube. The S2 loses by a 10th to 60 and about the same in the quarter mile. Its worth a watch. My temps did go up by about 5 degrees though - I only have the factory oil cooler. As I mentioned the car is in today for progman 31 and reflash of the Dinan software (most up to date version) so we'll see how she drives tonight when I get her back. On the highway I still get around 30 mpg even at 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.
Thoughts from a Chicago Dinan Dealer Thanks again for the update, please let us know if one of the software updates fix the low end lag issue. I saw the video today and it got me on the phone with my local dealer, who is a large Dinan shop. I was totally ready to schedule the appt today to have the flash installed, but I got talked out of it. I was told that the newer ECU's (> 03/08) would have to be sent to Dinan to have the flash installed. The dealer rep said, "that will void the bmw warranty 80% of the time and it will guarantee a hassle 100% of the time from bmw". The dealer rep said "dealer management was warning all customers interested in the dinan flash". But my ecu was older, so it wouldn't require shipment to dinan, but when I told the dealer rep this, he still tried to talk me out of the flash. He said, "it's your car and the performance is awesome, but as a bmw technician, I can't recommend it". This is from the guy who sales dinan parts for this dealership. He said more than half of the installs have come back with issues. Mostly minor stuff, but stuff that is forcing owners to bring the cars in, they just are not happy with the results. Now he wasn't a dinan hater, he had a lot of great things to say about the company and their other products, but he didn't appear to have confidence with the flash. He went on to say, "dinan is producing updates all the time and one of these future updates might fix these issues, so if you really want it done, I would wait". Any other dealers talking customers out of the flash? To protect the innocent, I won't reveal the dealer name
The car runs fne, the lag is less noticeable than when I took it in. TheSA went out of her way to tell me that the ticking noise that I've had since the car was almost new was from the Dinan software so now the finger pointing has started. Except the Dinan software didn't go in until 5000 miles. I think I'll just live with until it breaks and then get my lawyer involved when they start to fight about where it should be covered. However whatever they did to it seems to have worked as the car is pulling like a freight train again. A number of things needed to be reset when I picked up the car so they did something software related to it even if they aren't fessing up. They blamed it on the fuel injectors and obviously don't read their own files. They've already replaced them and the high pressure fuel pump. My ticking noise is a well known wastegate cycle time issue that is solved by the latest BMW software which the dealer says they won't install over the previous version I have because there are no significant updates. When I asked what progman I had she didn't even know what a progman was. So I have someone who knows nothing about the car trying to resolve an issue she doesn't understand. It seems to be a consistent issue with this dealer. I wish they'd let me talk to the tech directly. My salesman tells me they've put the Dinan flash in over 100 cars and have not had a single issue, so your dealer may have had a different experience or is hoping to sell you BMW software when and if it comes out at a higher margin for him. There is alot of negative opinion about the Dinan upgrades out there and I'm not sure why. There are many Dinan equiped cars on the road, they've been in business for a long time and they offer a warranty that other tuners don't. The Dinan warranty does cover consequential loss which is really important if something blows up. Not that I expect it to. I put the Juicebox in a previous 335i I leased and it produced similar results for 20% of the price. But since I own this car and want it to last I figured I'd go with the Dinan. With the Juicebox, the car wanted an oil change every 5000km. Have not had that issue with the Dinan. It seems like the upping the boost and fuel maps without the rest of the processes was convincing the car it was being driven very hard. Literally every 3rd time I would start it the oil change counter would drop another 1000km. It was pretty disconcerting actually. My current car is an early build e92 so I expected to have some bedding in issues with it since BMW seems to beta test in the market now. Except for the well known issues (hpf/injectors and wastegate) the car has been stellar. I now have about 5000 miles on the Dinan flash and except for the ticking issue and a some lag that came after the last time they updated the BMW software I haven't had any other issues. I drive it aggressivley and it never chokes. Though they are blowing out M3's pretty aggressively right now....
Good Post, do they charge for dinan software updates are you being charged with each software update? how long does each update take?
No, not so far. I've been wooed by the M3 over the last few days...the danger of going into the dealership. Have a deal pending for a Jerez black M3 sedan with 19's, black Novillo, M drive and a few other bells and whistles. I will say that around town the Dinan 335i is a better car than the M3. The M3 really lacks the grunt of the 335i but oh my god the sound... Handling is much crisper in the M3. It was a fresh engine so I didn't go over 5500 rpm. Below 3000 it feels very weak. At fisrt I though something was wrong. Still managed to have my BMW addict buddy grabbing for the holy sh!t handle though. It drives kind of like a 335i on steriods. Bouncier, quicker steering, almost darty. It was AWESOME!
As an M3 owner I can attest to the "lack" below 3k. I was happy, but not blown away by the e92 M3....until i got it back from the 1200 mile service and was really able to open it up. THE CAR IS A BEAST. The sedan is a total sleeper too. The ride around town in my M (18" wheels, tech package) is actually better than my sister's e93 335i (18", sport package), so I wouldn't worry about that. Just make sure you have the electric dampening ability. The handling, as you stated, is much crisper. That rear diff makes a huge difference. My girlfriend's lease is coming up soon, and I am pretty much sold on a e90 335xi, w/ the Dinan Flash. My question though is also about how often the ECU needs to be updated. Unfortunately my local BMW dealership isn't a Dinan dealer, and the closest Dinan dealer is 40 minutes away. Having to take multiple trips that far would be a huge inconvenience.
I think in theory you never really need to update the software if you don't have any of the silly little software related issues that seem to plague early production 335's. I think they've nailed it all on the current version though. My car is a Sept 06 build so I've had to put up with a bunch of little hassles relating to software updates. The cars are so complicated that the tech's learning curve is pretty steep and a savvy owner definitely knows more about the car than the service adviser, maybe not the tech. it would be nice just to skip the sa and deal with the tech directly. The Dinan flash itself is the newest version and hasn't been updated. But when they update your BMW software it erases the Dinan flash so they reflash the Dinan software, There is no charge for this. I've wanted an M3 since I saw the first spy photos in 1987. This would be a nice 40th birthday present to myself if it all comes together. Although my original plan was to wait until next year and pick one up at the Welt, the pricing and financing options are too good right now. May sound silly but for a dyed in the wool BMW guy like me (first car was a 2002) the M3 is the Holy Grail. I'm having trouble finding one with edc though. Wierd option packages on the ones I'm looking at. They are either strippers or fully loaded or only have M drive but no edc. A fully loaded one probably isn't in the budget. I figured I'd get by without edc and M drive. Though the tester I drove did have edc and the comfort mode was much better than the mid mode on our bumpy freeways. Since I plan on taking the car to the grave I was concerned about the cost to repair edc down the road as well (once out of warranty). My expereince with my last 5 series (e61) suggests to stay as far away as you can from anything related to i-drive. Not that it wasn't super useful and easy to use once you figured it out. It just seemed that everything was connecte to i-drive and if one little peice of the puzzle broke the car was paralyzed. Simpler is better with BMW electronics based on my experience. A small part of the reason why I'm thinking about the M3, no turbos, wastegates etc. I will definitely get an extended warranty on it as I get near the end of the 4 year original warranty. Normally I don't buy extended warrranties on anything but in the BMW case I think they are probably worth it, especially on an M car.
I was completely against idrive at the time of purchase; however, now that i have been using it since late Febuary/Early March I think that it is actually one of the better in car control systems out there. Audi's MMI may be better, but not by much. It is a completely revamed system from even my father's 2006 330xi idrive. His system is god awful, in fact, the knob will often start spinning on its own! I too plan on keeping this M3 for the duration. My e46 M3 depreciated like nothing else, but I am hoping that the first production V8 model, especially given the current climate in the automotive industry, will hopefully mimic the values of the e30 M3s. I am surprised that they would offer vehicles w/ M-drive, but no EDC. I am definitely going for the extended coverage on this when I near the end of the factory coverage. A simple computer fix in my 2001 z3 for a crankshaft sensor cost over $1200 recently!!
Buy the M3 It was wicked. I looked at one and I wanted to go that route, but wifey won that one. I wasn't allowed to buy another stick. F'g painful. Next, I wasn't allowed to buy RWD. So I bought a 335xi coupe, but it lacks the edge of the M3. Its too refined for my taste.
Its kind of out of my hands now. I have a guy who may want my 335i and if he does we are good to go. The market tanking yesterday certainly didn't help either of us. Him with a 335i purchase and me with funding the additional to go to the M3. That was f'ing painful....
Well, its all but done. E90 M3 Jerez Black, Carbon leather, Black Novillo, M Drive, 6mt, 19's. Pick her up on Saturday. If anyone is interested in a set of Dinan e9x 3 series wheels with Dunlop Sp Sportmaxx tires I have set with less than 3000km on them for sale. Will advertise in classifieds also.
