Just installed a used Dinan Elite on my daughter's Clubby S All4. Picked it up for $300 off Facebook marketplace for Christmas.
Simple install. Took a couple of drives for the ECU to adjust. Works as advertised. Solid increase in torque from 2,000 on. Does not fall on is face above 5k rpm any more.

​​​​​​She said she likes the throttle response much better now.
I know a flash tune would net more gains, but very pleased for $300.

 

Ok, had it for about 2 months now. I have it set on sport + because I can not get 93 octane gas recommended for race setting. I do notice a bit of a difference at high RPMs and the app sends me max boost notifications, so I know I am getting a bit more than stock. Is it huge? Not really. I am glad I got it and it was a gift. I think at some point I will pair it with a sprint booster, which might give me the feeling I was hoping for out of the dinan sport alone.

 

You mention an APP?!?!?! Did they finally get the Bluetooth working on the Elite?

 

The Dinan sport is the one I have. I don't know if the elite has an APP.

 

Elite doesn’t have Bluetooth or an app. I had the Elite installed on a 17 Clubman JCW. I honestly regretted the purchase. I didn’t find that I felt a big difference. I recently upgraded to a 2021 JCW and as anyone who’s driven one will attest it feels like it has the power they claimed the Elite would add. Just my take though YMMV.

 

Yeah there would be no reason to use one on our cars that have 305 HP. My understanding of what the "clip on" Dinan modules do is that they "trick" the car's ECU into delivering more boost which of course enhances acceleration. I had the ECU on my 2014 JCW Coupe reprogrammed in Tempe and it was great. But the car was already plenty fast I don't know if I'd do it again.

 

I find it odd that the performance increase would not be noticeable with those claimed hp and ft lb gains. Perhaps some units were not working properly?
I also thought Dinan was working on a new tuning box for the new F54 JCW's?

 

Well, there are lots of reasons. I had a 17 JCW Manual. I love driving manual, have driven a manual daily for most of my adult life. I think the F54's implementation acceptable but not great. The 1 - 2 Shift in particular couldn't be hurried (as is the case with many modern turbo cars with some rev hang etc). Anyway I'm not saying more power wasn't there, BUT it didn't change the car in a way that was meaningful at the price for the item.

Also, and this is a personal gripe, when I stated this before, on this forum, Dinan was very dismissive. I though that was kind of silly. But Dinan isn't the Dinan of old.

Regardless, I've moved on to a 21 JCW. The auto is really fun.....for an Auto. It's clearly better suited to these cars. The changes to the engine were very substantial, obviously far beyond bolt on parts that most would do to tune an engine. I plan to leave this car stock, it's already faster than I can use most of the time on the street. Sadly I would have to recommend the Auto on the F54 platform as I think its just better suited. I don't think the time or money are justifiable for MINI to put into a manaul given the sales. Strangely on the current platform they have 3 transmissions, a Manual, a DCT for the FWD cars and the Aisin sourced Auto for the AWD cars.

 

[QUOTE=galahad;4576902 Strangely on the current platform they have 3 transmissions, a Manual, a DCT for the FWD cars and the Aisin sourced Auto for the AWD cars.[/QUOTE] Remember, the 2020/21 JCW Clubman and Countryman AWD cars have a totally different engine and transmission than the 2021 F54 JCW cars. They are basically the same as the GP3 cars with different bodies. Like I said before adding a Dinan turbo booster to them would be stupid. Those things are far better suited for the Justa and MCS models IMO.

 

In that case there are 4 transmissions, since the ALL 4 cars don't get the DCT at all. The DCT apparently wasn't meant to handle AWD I guess. I didn't think the transmission in the JCW's was different than the S ALL 4 cars. I'm going to have to look to see if they are different ratios, or just different programs.

 

Yeah check that out. Somehow I thought the F56 JCW new cars had a 7 speed (not an 8 speed) unit. I'm referring to just the 2020-21 JCW Clubman/Countryman not the 3/4 doors models. The ones like the GP3 with 305hp. .

 

Fair enough...the Dinan Elite is not cheap and you need to feel it is worth the cash. I do want to tune my 2021 F54 JCW but will only do it after a down pipe and intake at the very least. I also have not been happy with Dinan from past experience.

 

I disagree that is stupid to add a Dinan tuning module to a JCW as any car can benefit from a tune. Some of friends with tuned Audi S3's and Golf R's would happily support that argument.

 

I certainly wouldn't say it's stupid to tune your car regardless of the power in stock form. For Me, I'm using it as a daily driver and find it almost frustrating to have the power on tap whenever I want it and not really use it, so I don't want more at this time. But that's just my take.

 

I've seen ad's for Race Chips, which is a Euro product. Their gains for the newer (20 +) engined cars are pretty modest, I think maybe the power on tap in stock is close to what can be had without other hardware mods to the car. But it sounds like you have plans for more hardware anyway.

As far as the transmissions being different, well I can't find any real info on even the gear ratio's inside the transmissions to compare them. I still think they are programmed differently BUT not physically different. MINI buys them from Aisin and so long as the transmission can hold the power there isn't a reason to make changes. I am very impressed with how hard the car shifts gears when driven with purpose, the shifts border on violent and can chirp all 4 tires on the 1-2 shift. That alone makes it better than the manual car where it was impossible to accomplish a good launch for me without feeling I was doing harm to the car.

 

Does Dinan even make a module for the new 305hp Mini GP3? I'd be surprised if they did.

 

No they don't as I asked them this week actually. They don't have any current plans to do so at this point but I do agree that the modules are better served for the less powerful Mini variants.

 

Race Chips does, I know because I keep getting google ad's for them all over the place. They only claim to add about 30HP, so I don't think there is much headroom for tuning these cars. But why be surprised that someone offers a tune. There's an APR a tune for RS3, and APR is owned by the people that own Dinan now I think. Someone ALWAYS wants more power, and someone will take your $$$$ to do so.

Some of the mods I have seen for these are outrageously expensive, like this thing:
https://www.urotuning.com/products/e...4aAnJPEALw_wcB

I don't know why it has to be make of Carbon Fiber, it looks cool and I love that it makes the hood scoop functional (as it bothers me that it isn't).

 

I have had my dinan sport for a few months now and recently found how to get more out of it in my 17 S All4. Gas in my area is 92 so I needed an extra octane point to switch from sport+ to race. The Least expensive way to do this was to add a bottle of gumout octane booster to each tank of gas. It isn't terribly expensive and does not include any of the ingredients that destroy spark plugs. Walmart sells it for less than $3/bottle and if you buy 12 at a time you get free shipping.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gumout-Oc...E&gclsrc=aw.ds
The difference between sport+ and 92 gas vs race and 93 gas is like the difference between midrange and sport settings. I was thinking about getting a sprint boster or remus responder, but don't think I need to now.