JasonBourne

very informative, please keep the updates coming.

Booyaazaa

Hey Biz can you post up some logs via datazap. Interested to see what things look like fueling wise on your stock fuel buckets.

biz77

Here you go Booyaazaa. This is the log used to make the REV 8 dyno graph a few posts back. There is one random dip down to 51.XX, but no other drops below 60psi. AFR was not affected during the dip to 51.XX.


datazap.me | Biz77 | 2010 535XI Stage 1 E50 REV 8 70 degrees ambient log

djmevans

Great post Biz! Sub'd

DRK BMW

this is great!
thanks for posting , im fully subscribed , esp since i have a 2010 535 xdrive msport
ive done jb4, dci, and dinan exhaust and am very pleased, but since im in socal, its hard to find anything above 91 on a daily basis to play around with fuels and maps. ill do some searching for adding 100 octane to mess around a bit and see what happens
definitely occ and fmic next!!
ive only got 17,500 miles so occ ordered right now.
what suspension are you going with , I am pretty sure the only coilover for us is the KW V3
I too have a baby thats due in Jan, so congrats to you Biz77!!
im in the same boat between baby money and modding money haha!!

biz77

Thanks!

Not sure what if any suspension will be going in this car. I'm rather enjoying the soft ride and stealth factor and the car's handling is good enough to be entertaining in stock form. If I were to do something I will probably go with the CKS coilovers. If you contact CKS, they still produce and will sell you a set for under $1,800.00 for the E60 Xi/XDrive models.

Our new addition showed up on 10/1 and he consumes a huge amount of time. My car hasn't even been washed in two months!!! The wheel grime is amazing. Maybe I'll do a comparo of a couple of different wheel products to show off how each deals with caked-on BMW brake dust.

I do have some projects and a couple of new boxes waiting in the garage. As soon as I can get some time I will get to them and post up. Other than that I have switched my car back over to straight 92-octane pump gas due to the cold (really cold here this week) weather and I've been tweaking the Cobb Stage 1 Aggressive base map some more. I'm now seeing 340WHP and 385 Ft. LBS torque on just a tune and intake with pump gas. That's a gain of 85WHP and 115 Ft. LBS over stock.

biz77

It has been a very long time since I have updated this thread and with reason… I have not done much to the car over the winter months due to my new little one taking up a significant amount of time and my focus on my main winter-time hobby, which is racing RC cars.
What I have done is performed basic fluid maintenance on the drivetrain, including replacement of both front and rear diff fluid, replacement of the transfer case fluid and replacement of the automatic transmission fluid along with new pan/filter and sealing parts. The diffs and transfer case were for peace of mind and at 52,000 miles on the clock, they are due for routine fluid maintenance. The transmission was done due to poor performance and shifting.
When I first purchased my car back in the summer of last year, the transmission worked flawlessly. It was smooth and quick to downshift. As my ownership experience progressed the transmission started exhibiting some of the irritations of my last BMW with the ZF 6HP19TU/6HP21 transmission. This included bump downshifts in multiple gears, slow downshifting when the throttle went to the floor and slow gear changes. The worst of it was during spirited driving around turns in second gear it felt disconnected for a second with moderate throttle input and then it would decide to engage and in doing so unsettle the balance of the car. While it never showed any error messages, it was clearly not operating as it should.
I thought for sure I would be looking at valve body replacement, because my E90 exhibited some of the same issues and fluid/filter replacement, updated software, adaptions resets and even the Alpina transmission flash never cured it or even made it much better. But I decided to give the basics a go on the E60.
My first area to attack was the easiest and least expensive. I wanted to try an adaption reset on the transmission module. Unfortunately I was not equipped to do it and that sent me out on the hunt for a K+DCAN cable so that I could use INPA. I decided on a cable and bundled software package from eBay, which included all of the BMW standard tools in a simple, easy to install package. The item took approximately two weeks to arrive from the UK and as described, included the important programs: INPA, NCS Expert and WinKFP. I followed the directions included and had the cable and software up and running without hiccups in less than half an hour on my old Windows Vista laptop.







Armed with the new cable and INPA I decided to reset the adaptions on the transmission. I’ve heard many reports of this taking care of transmission issues on these cars. After clearing the adaptions I headed out for a drive. As the car shifted from 1st to 2nd gear for the first time my heart sank and I wondered what I had screwed up. Things went from bad to much worse. Every gear change up was jolting. Every gear change down was like being softly rear ended by another vehicle, but I stuck with it and got out on the freeway. After exiting the freeway from a 10 mile jaunt, things settled down quite a bit. The shifting was becoming much more pleasant. After about 30 miles and a couple of days letting the car relearn it seemed that I had solved all of my issues. It was smooth, responsive and shifting fast. Unfortunately after another 30 miles things took a turn and it felt exactly like it did prior to the reset.


Disheartened by the fact that a simple adaption reset did not fix my issue, I went shopping. A ZF replacement pan was purchased on Amazon for around $100 shipped:

Amazon.com: BMW Transmission Oil Pan + Filter + Gasket + Drain Plug Automatic ZF OEM 217: Automotive

Amazon.com: BMW Transmission Oil Pan + Filter + Gasket + Drain Plug Automatic ZF OEM 217: Automotive

I decided to use Redline 75W90 for the front and rear diffs:

Amazon.com: Red Line 57904 (75W90) Synthetic Gear Oil - 1 Quart: Automotive

Amazon.com: Red Line 57904 (75W90) Synthetic Gear Oil - 1 Quart: Automotive

I found an equivalent fluid for the transfer case that doesn’t cost $60 per liter like the BMW fluid:

Amazon.com: Febi-Bilstein Gear Oil SAE 75W GL-4 1-Liter: Automotive

Amazon.com: Febi-Bilstein Gear Oil SAE 75W GL-4 1-Liter: Automotive

Picked up a bridge seal from Amazon:

Amazon.com: BMW OEM Seal Adapter Grommet For Auto Trans Valve Body - Valve Body To Pump 525i 525xi 530i 530xi 528i 528xi 535i 535xi 530xi 535xi X5 3.0si X6 35iX 128i 135i X1 35iX Z4 3.0i Z4 3.0si Z4 3.0si 128i 135i Z4 30i 323i 325i 325xi 330i 330xi 335i 335xi 323i 328i 328xi 335i 335xi 325xi 328i 328xi 328i 335i 335xi 328i 328xi 335i 335xi 3: Automotive

Amazon.com: BMW OEM Seal Adapter Grommet For Auto Trans Valve Body - Valve Body To Pump 525i 525xi 530i 530xi 528i 528xi 535i 535xi 530xi 535xi X5 3.0si X6 35iX 128i 135i X1 35iX Z4 3.0i Z4 3.0si Z4 3.0si 128i 135i Z4 30i 323i 325i 325xi 330i 330xi 335i 335xi 323i 328i 328xi 335i 335xi 325xi 328i 328xi 328i 335i 335xi 328i 328xi 335i 335xi 3: Automotive

Grabbed a mechatronic sealing sleeve and sealing sleeve kit from The California Transmission Supply Company:


http://www.thectsc.com/products/sealing-sleeve-3-10.html


http://www.thectsc.com/products/sealing-sleeve-kit-6hp19/21-218-43.html


And lastly, picked up 8 quarts of Ford Motorcraft Mercon SP at my local O’Reilly auto parts. From all of the research I have done, it appears this is identical fluid to the ZF Lifeguard 6 that sells for over $17.00 per liter.
Fortunately my friend has a small shop with a lift. I performed this job on my E90 on ramps and jack stands and it sucked.

Once the fluids were replaced, it was again time to reset adaptions and put it to the test. This time the initial drive after adaption reset was not brutal like the first, although it was still not good. I decided at this point to go ahead and dive into one of the projects that has been sitting in the garage for a few months to see if I could further improve the drivability and performance of my ZF 6HP19TU...





Over the course of the fall and winter I was doing constant search on eBay for SAT (Sport Automatic Transmission) hardware and after several months I accumulated everything needed except the bezel. After exhaustive searching and waiting I resorted to ordering a new bezel from Tischer BMW. My final parts tally included:


61319204093 – Shift Box - $125.00 shipped


61319208271 – Selector lever handle - $79.99 shipped


61319142869 – Sport button - $25.00 shipped


51166985886 – Bezel trim - $100.64 shipped


The hardware part of the SAT retrofit is quite easy. In under an hour I had the clunky old shifter out and the new SAT pieces put in. It just looks so much nicer than the regular steptronic lever.








While the SAT looks way cooler than the standard piece it replaced, the real magic of this retrofit came from the SAT firmware transmission flash and associated coding, which I was now able to perform myself with my recently acquired K+DCAN cable and accompanying software. I did massive amounts of research and put together my own guides for performing the procedures in NCS Expert and WinKFP and when I got stuck, I asked questions. If you are interested in performing the programming yourself, I have posted a DIY tutorial within the SAT thread on this board, which you can find here: https://5series.net/forums/e60-parts-accessories-mods-22/sportautomatic-sat-retrofit-55056/page74/#post1561012

I believe between everything done prior in changing fluids and the sealing parts along with this firmware flash, the transmission has been transformed from unbearable into quite livable. Is it perfect? Nope! It still has minor bump down issues and sometimes in full automatic mode it won’t downshift into first at a complete stop, but overall it is much improved. I’m hoping it stays this way. My favorite part is when “SPORT” is engaged the full throttle up shifts are amazingly fast, like DSG fast and quite firm. I feel like I can now comfortably take that $750 I was going to spend on a valve body and put it towards other go fast parts.

biz77

Please stay away from the multi-element LED replacement plate lamps!!!
When I first installed these:

Amazon.com: Docooler Led License Plate Light Lamp for BMW 1 3 5 Series x1 x3 x5 x6 M3: Automotive

Amazon.com: Docooler Led License Plate Light Lamp for BMW 1 3 5 Series x1 x3 x5 x6 M3: Automotive

Back in August of last year, they worked as advertised. They didn’t present any errors and they were bright. Too bright! As in they were very obviously not OEM. But I decided to live with them instead of paying to ship them back to the seller. Back in March I began to get error warnings for the right plate bulb being out. At that time it still seemed to be lighting fine, but I thought I noticed that the lights had toned down quite a bit. They weren’t quite as eye searing bright as they were when first installed them. Upon closer inspection I found out why they seemed to be less bright.






You can see a couple of rows unlit on the right side light versus the left side. It actually looks like even the left side currently has about half the LEDs functioning. It is easier to spot the difference in the reflection on the license plate than by looking at the lights themselves. I believe this will eventually be an issue with all of these aftermarket LED plate lights, whether you buy them from Burger, Umnitza or on Amazon like I did. I have now had to code the bulb errors out to avoid iDrive warnings and I expect at least one of these if not both of them will fail completely in the very near future. Resolution coming soon.


Any idea what I might be using this for?

seven11

mhd tune?

i have one of those too working with my JB4 and i am gonna use it to upload the MHD backend

biz77

Indeed!





I decided to take a crack at this tuning platform because the interface looks nice (better than Cobb’s), future support should be better than Cobb and I can use tools that I’m already familiar with: Data Zap, Tuner Pro and Virtual Dyno.


So far, the experience has been positive. I ordered the tablet from Amazon in a bundle with a case and 3-pack of screen protectors and added a Cables To Go OTG cable, all for about $70 delivered to my door in 2 days. The tablet itself is about what I expected for $50.00. It feels a little cheap in the hand, the screen is cheap plastic and scratches very easily and it is missing some things that you will find on the more expensive models, like Bluetooth. Fortunately, because I purchased this solely to run the MHD apps, those issues are not issues at all. The only real disappointment is the startup time from a powered-off state. What I’m pleasantly surprised by is the battery life, processor speed and screen resolution. It’s no Samsung Galaxy Pro, but it’s Worlds better than our original Kindle Fire.


Once I had my Dragon Touch tablet up and running and signed into my Google account, I went to the Google Play store and downloaded the MHD flasher module, MHD Monitor module and MHD Stage 1 flash. While the product is still in beta the developer is offering a 20% discount on all items purchased, so I ended up spending $79.00 for the flasher module, $52.07 for the Monitor module and $39.00 for the stage 1 MAP, which includes options for 93 octane and 91 octane fuel as well as stock or linear throttle mapping. All in with the tablet purchase I’m at $240.00. Not bad considering a used AccessPORT V2 runs almost twice that. You will also need a K+DCAN cable for this to work. Fortunately for me, the cable I’m using for coding works. If you need a cable, there are plenty of known good cables on both Amazon and eBay that run about $25.00 shipped.


So the big question is: How is it relative to the Cobb AccessPORT? I believe the best way for me to answer this is to lay it out in a list of PROs and CONs.


PROS:

• Inexpensive cost of entry. For as little as $79.00, you can be flashing your DME for increased performance. This is for the flashing app only during the beta period. You would need to build or have someone build a MAP for you in Tuner Pro. This does not included the ability to log. This requires an android device running the required OS, an OTG cable and K+DCAN cable. If you are starting from nothing like me, plan on spending $200.00 - $250.00 to get the ability to flash, log and for a canned MAP from Wedge Performance/BQ Tuning.
• Custom Tuned MAPs available from Wedge Performance/BQ Tuning, based on your mods, location and power goals.
• Once installed, quick 2-minute MAP switching – Same as Cobb.
• Off the shelf maps are slightly more powerful than the Cobb OTS MAPs. See more on this later.
• Monitoring GUI is much nicer than Cobb. You can display up to six different parameters on the screen at once. The larger the screen on the device you are using, the easier it is to read.
• Simply viewing or even grabbing data logs and posting them on Data Zap is much easier. You can do it right from your device, unlike Cobb, which requires you plugging into a computer and downloading the logs first before viewing or sharing.

CONS:

• You only have one choice in professional tuners. For now PTF, Bren Tuning and everyone else that tunes via Cobb ProTUNER is not going to tune you on this platform. If you want a Wedge Tune, plan on custom tuning it yourself, want to flash a BMS backend to run with JB4 or are perfectly happy with one of the available OTS tunes, then this is a non-issue.
• Unlike Cobb, your device requires its own power source. That means if your battery on your android device is dead, you are not doing any flashing or monitoring until it is charged or connected to a power source.
• Your device must constantly be able to connect to the internet. Every 24 hours (this may be changing to a slightly longer period of time per the developer) your device must “phone home” as an anti-piracy measure. That means if you are using a dedicated tablet, like me, that has been sitting in the glove box for three days and you want to do some logging, you will need to first pull it out and find Wi-Fi or tether it to your phone for an internet connection or it will not work. For those using their everyday android phone this should be a non-issue. The only other time this may present an issue is if you are out of any Wi-Fi or cellular coverage areas (camping, lake home, traveling through remote areas etc.).
• There is zero resell value on the MHD software. It is tied to a single vin only, unlike Cobb, which once unmarried can work perfectly on a different vehicle.
• Initial flash and flash back to stock takes a long time. 39 minutes on my car, versus Cobb, which can do it in around 17 minutes.