Poking around yesterday in another NAM Forum; I found a reference to an article in European Car magazine of a recent ECU tuned CMS by NM. The dyno results showed gains of 32 hp and 42lbs torque on a stock intake and exhaust!!! This mod will go nicely with the plans I have for Sargent

http://www.europeancarweb.com/tech/p...r_s/index.html

 

500 isn't bad....mustang dynos read low......And it's 91

This might be my accessport replacement

 

Not bad at all and the perfect excuse for one of my first road trips...

 

I drove down to Miami from Connecticut and had my car tuned at PAW... The tune is still a work in progress as I've added some mods and it is running a little rough right now, but it is a must have if you ask me... The car isn't overpowered with the tune, it's just getting closer to being properly powered.

This run was measured on a mustang above ground dyno... Obviously the tune needs to be cleaned up a lot! This was with a stock intake, Akrapovic DP, JCW mid pipe (with silencers cut out) and a JCW back box... The exhaust in total actually lowered the hp rating by 2hp and added about 3ft/lb of torque... So I didn't gain much from those, but that wasn't what I was after.

I'm trying to find an AWD dyno in my area (southern Connecticut) so after I get the tune cleaned up, I can see what it will run with the intake as well as some other small little mods.

Kyle

 

I keep hoping that MINI is going to come out with a JCW Package with an intake, exhaust, & ECU remap (like they did with the original Cooper). But I'm not getting the feeling that that is going to happen. How can I get this done here in Minnesota?

 

In anticipation of getting my ECU tuned by NM I called today and had some comments from the article verified. If you are able to drive to NM the procedure takes about 2hrs; if you have to take it out and UPS it over it will take 1 day in the shop. The shop does ECU tunes Mo-Th only and the lead for these tunes is one of the NM owners. I confirmed the lifetime reloads if a factory ECU update erases the tune. If you are unable to find a shop that will do this locally, your only option would be to remove the ECU ship it and be out of your car for about a week...

 

Yup... From what I've heard they blocked the ability to write onto the ECU from the OBD port so the only option is to literally crack the ECU open and tune it from there.

Kyle

 

That's correct. No OBD write access to the ECU. The drive has to be unhooked and pulled. I watched the guys over at ECU Tuning Group (Jags) pull mine and remap it. Not something I think I would want to do on my own, that's for sure.

 

What's the drive? When mine was taken out all they did was unscrew the plastic cover and unhook the 3 electrical connections... It was actually really easy.

Kyle

 

The ECU. I'm an IT dork and that thing looks like a big *** hard drive to me. LOL!

 

No worries

If someone would like I can post a tutorial on how to do it

Kyle

 

Kyle or Solar 10, do you guys have an idea how often has MINI released ECU updates? According to the NM guy I spoke with last week, VW/Audi release 6 ECU updates in 1 year, to me that seems like a lot... thanks

Eddie

 

On the other hand Merceded Benz updates their ECU every new model, and rarely has any updates. MINI is somewhere in the middle... I would say its about one every year or two. But this shouldn't matter, I just tell my dealer not to reflash my ECU. Most MINI dealers are mod friendly.

Kyle

 

Would we miss out on anything important if we skip the ECU reflash at the dealer?

 

Not really, because you have already tuned out what they would have put on it anyways. The real upgrades and updates would be you having to have a good relationship with your tuners and make sure they are willing to have a few re-tunes if the dealer re-flashes it, or if you add some mods to the engine.

Kyle

 

Thanks, Kyle. Your post raises another question: Since i am also looking to get an exhaust and intake, would it be better to get that work done before the tune or does it matter. Sounds like it would be better to mod then tune, rather than tune then mod. True?

 

Well it is definitely better to have the mods then tune... Or if you know you will be putting the mods on in the very short future then have them tune the car for the mods. Therefore you won't need to send it back for a retune to get the most performance out of the modifications. A tune will amplify most performance mods you put on the car.

Kyle