Originally Posted by rice_rocket88 (Post 1571801)

I'm going to chime in on this because I recently did the "secret sport button mod" and I do indeed have the stiffened steering. I have a 2008 535XI.

Thanks also to rackhacker for telling me it worked on his car so I went and did it. I'm so sad that I listened to other people saying it wouldn't work on the LCI cars when I first got it a few yrs ago or I would have done it right away.

Anyways, summary of what I did:

1) did the sports transmission flash (This changed my DS to S so it's always "sport".. I don't need the DS anymore in my opinion). That was a good upgrade to start off with

2) I did the "secret sport button mod" On the LCI models USA version, you go into the glove box, remove the cover, and there is a white box above the actual row of fuses. You short pins 7 and 9 with a temporary switch.

** This enabled sport mode, and the active steering. However, NO SPORT listed on the dash

3) Went and looked and KOMBI for coding, and found FDC_VERBAUT and set it to aktiv.

** This enabled SPORT to show up on the dash.

So now the tight steering really sucks, I went to the SAT post and read this:


GESCHWIN_WERTE_SPORT_KGM
wert_02
wert_05
wert_06

STROMWERTE_SPORT_KGM
wert_02
wert_05
wert_06

I'm going to give it a shot to fix the steering while I wait for the button to come in and mount it. The one I have is not so pretty and I did it as a quick test first.

Here's my impressions though:

1) Sports mode does increase the pedal sensitivity across the board.

2) It is only slightly faster on my "S1" sports mode transmission flash.. which is also related to pedal responsiveness being better.

3) It is a WORLD of difference better in the regular "D" drive mode which is what I wanted.

4) A MAJOR bummer was that I was hoping D mode would stay that way, but with sports and D mode on, it is limited to 5 gears, not 6.

5) The tightened steering wheel is awesome for driving, but pretty rough for the slow speeds.. I hope the last set of codes worked.

6) If just this button was responsible for all this.. I might have not bothered coding the SAT flash.. but I have a feeling they all work in conjunction since a lot of people have mentioned increase in steering wheel effort, but no increase in transmission.. this is probably why they said not to do it in the first place.

As everyone said.. do it.. it's a different car! (Oh right, I also have JB4 in.. so it's cheating since it's even better with the JB4) Hehe

Originally Posted by rice_rocket88 (Post 1572040)

One comment that I have yet to test out a lot completely... is that with sport mode on it does not upshift at wide open throttle.

So definitely in the manual mode... I'll have to check again but I'm pretty sure it'll still change eventually, BUT on the regular "S" mode with sport on, it does not shift in 3rd? I had this happen twice.. drive it nicely in sport with "s" mode and it'll shift, but floor it and it seems to hang into redline on 3rd gear? I had to let off and it shifted and get on it again. I thought this was weird and I did it again the next day. So it seems that it holds the gear, hits redline, traction control light goes off.. and then I let off. Odd...

Originally Posted by Booyaazaa (Post 1572154)

That doesn't sound good.

Originally Posted by rice_rocket88 (Post 1572160)

Yeah..a but scary..but I also have no time or opportunity to test it more since I commute to work and there is always traffic. In drive mode with sport on it does seem to go straight to 7k redline to shift. The issue is I can't test wide open throttle much especially for the same mode. Whenever it isn't wot it shifts fine. The two times I noticed it in the same mode I felt it go past the power curve and my jb4 shift blinker went off at 6k as well.. ( that's preset )