I FINALLY FOUND A SOLID TUNE FOR MINI F56! **This relates to my car and my car only, others may have a different experience** **All dynos are different! Please refer to delta numbers, never peak HP/TQ**

As you guys may know my car by now, I’ve gone through many different setups, tunes, and even engines… I have had 3 different tuners for this car and I finally found one that works. I run very crappy California 91 octane and it has been a real struggle for tuners to dial in my tune correctly. On my Stage 3 R56, I had to run meth injection for safety because I didn’t want anything drastic happening with this fuel I do not trust. So far, I’ve had 3 tuners, 1) Bytetronik 2) Evolve Automotive 3) RPM Tuning. Yes, I know thats a lot. Research purposes and I was never really happy.

Bytetronik. Bytetronik was by far the most powerful tune I’ve had on this car. Killed every car on the street and showed no mercy. Never lost a race with this tune. From day 1, my feedback to this tuner was that power came on waaaay too early. While it did feel badass when having people in the car and getting instant power, it just did not feel safe for the life of the engine. The second you put your foot down, boost will spike to around 21psi. There was a crazy amount of torque on this car which felt insane! On other days when doing pulls, I would hear weird noises, experience random shutters, and bogging. This would scare the hell out of me. I felt the car was being pushed to hard. I lost all confidence driving the car hard. Ultimately, the fix was to run higher octane so I mixed 2 gal E85 on every tank. While it did fix most of the issues, the car made way more of torque which caused the clutch to start slipping at wide open throttle. I also mentioned that the car felt like it was “running out of breath” after 5k rpm. I thought maybe it was because of turbo inefficiency. Boost spike ultimately killed my motor. I was in 4th gear, put my foot down at 3k RPM and a rod went through the block and breaking cyl 1 piston into pieces. This was approximately 8-10 months ago, the tuner may have adjusted things since then.

Evolve Automotive. Evolve Map was similar to Bytetronik. Power came on slightly later (which made me feel a little better) but it was still way too early for my comfortability. For some reason on their standard map, boost would spike to 21psi but taper to about 6psi which was very weird making less power than stock at higher rpms!! It seemed maybe the ECU was cutting boost even though there was no faults or car going into limp mode. Running octane booster seemed to have fixed this issue but like I said, 91 octane is a major struggle for most tuners. We ended up lowering the torque target on a revised map and it fixed the major boost drop. 91 octane just wasn’t up to par for the requested torque. No random shutters or bogging like experienced with Bytetronik and no slipping clutch experienced (same clutch) even though the tunes had similar torque numbers. One thing I did experience was going wide open throttle in 4th gear at 3k rpm, I heard a weird misfire type noise. No CEL, No limp, but when pulling codes, I got a “super knock cyl 2”. Reading online, super knock is caused by too high loads at too low of RPM. This is again why I am not a fan of boost spiking!

RPM Tune. So far, RPM has been very solid. No stutters, bogging, or low end super knock issues. Their tune gives me confidence to drive hard and feels extremely safe. The reason for this is because their boost strategy is different from other tuners for B46/B48. They tune boost progressively. While you do not get instant “smack your face torque” like other tunes, with RPM boost builds which also is very much safer for your motor. Having progressive boost is actually very exciting and I do like it a lot! This tune is like saying “power, power!, power!!, power!!!”. Bytetronik and Evolve is like saying “power!!!, power!!, power!, power, pow..” which is kind of like letting you down. It makes sense because boost is tapering down from 21psi instead of building up so max power is in the middle of the RPM range. I am also not saying the RPM map takes a long time to build either, it is just a lot more well rounded. The car is quick and very responsive. The next greatest thing is that parital throttles are just like an N/A car. You literally can control boost with your foot. Half throttle is literally half throttle! 3/4 throttle is literally 3/4 throttle! With the other tunes, once you surpass approx. 1/4 throttle, it’s as if full boost hits. Evolve was better than BT at this but not nearly as good as RPM. If you have BT or Evolve, try it and you will see because it is mapped to spike to 21 psi and it is harder to control throttle maps with an early high boost target. The next greatest thing is torque limit on 1st gear and 2nd gear. I have never spun the wheels yet even with traction control off. The car just grabs and goes. Evolve did similar but I experienced slight wheel spin. Bytetronik I would spin 1st and 2nd gear.

Overall, the problem with Bytetronik, Evolve, and other 3rd Gen MINI tuners is boost spike! All the excitement is in the beginning. Throughout the rpm range, power tapers down and ultimately isn’t as exciting as it was initially. On wide open throttle, boost would hit 21psi and taper down to 16-17psi. Per my dyno graphs on the exact same DynoJet: Stock Map achieved MAX HP at 5200rpm. RPM Map achieved MAX HP at 5200rpm. Evolve Automotive Map achieved MAX HP at 4600rpm. Bytetronik Map achieved MAX HP at 4100rpm. With redline at 6500rpm, you can see why I get the “let you down” feeling.

I specially requested a very safe tune for 91 octane and so I don’t blow another motor. The shocking part is that the RPM tune targets roughly 16psi and we achieve the same hp (if not more). I don’t believe the extra 4-5psi is worth the extra torque with virtually the same hp for both safety reasons, driver confidence, and reliability. *Keep in mind the BT tuned run was running higher octane with 3 gal E85 mixed* For shipping my ECU, RPM definitely has the smoothest graph at 0 correction.

Being a customer of all 3 tuners. All 3 definitely have A1 customer service and are willing to accommodate your needs. The difference is tuning/boost strategies and RPM wins it for me for having a rock solid map and has the best overall driving experience. And it works with my turboback exhaust without issues!!

Again, this is my preference and with data from my car specifically. Results from other tuners and experiences will vary.

mariopalza@gmail.com

Mario Palza and Lorenzo Lebediuc are awesome people to work with!

yes you will love it!
Cant say on cost. But you need to ship ECU to Mario Palza unless you live in So Cal.

Definately a solid and smooth map. Especially with 91 octane.
Progressive power is so much better than instant power and taper.

send me a PM or email and we can work out something.

mQubed Motorsport Manic & RPM Power Tuning

Nope. I wish.

This is great, thanks. I just spoke with Mario yesterday on the phone for a bit. He is going to meet up with me on his way north later this month to install an RPM on my R60. After talking with him, I was impressed by how the RPM tune sounded and the fact Mario is using RPM in his countryman pretty much sold me on it. But reading about your experience with it has made feel even better about my decision. This is the best kind of info out there! Personal experience is awesome. I wanted something to give a bit more power but retain every day drivability. Mario explained to me several ways that it would actually improve over how it is now, as far as that goes. And your post backs that up. I’m excited. I was just thinking of something mild like stage 1.....but with the upgraded turbo I installed and a few others, he said I actually am getting more of a stage 3 to make things work together properly. At first I was a bit surprised “whoa stage 3?” But when he explained it, then it made sense. I also figured I would just be ahead of the game at that point anyway, because it seems like every time I see where somebody got a stage 1 tune, it’s not long before they were wishing they had gone stage 2 or more to begin with, lol. The comments about throttle position are terrific information that really helped!!
Thanks for the info!

Got my tune done by Mario on Tuesday. What a difference! Like previously stated by others, it’s very streetable, and when you give it the beans, it pulls like there’s no tomorrow! I am thrilled with it! Another happy customer