Originally Posted by EuroCarFan' post='216974' date='Dec 29 2005, 05:43 PM

I called Dinan a couple days ago to inquire about the MAF and ECU tuning. I spoke to Felipe and he was very helpful. Since I'm not too far from their Morgan Hill facility, he invited me to come down and test drive their 545.

I went there earlier today. I was down the street and happened to run into one of their e39 M5s (I think S2-M5). It was behind me and we were about 50 yards from the left turn down their street. The guy gunned it and that thing blasted right by me and took the turn at probably 50mph+. The sound of that car was awesome.

I got to the facility and Felipe took me for a tour. It's a huge place, there were about 12 cars in their engine bays including Steve Dinan's S3-M5 and his new E60 M5, having Dinan wheels put on. Felipe took me through the shop and showed me where they fabricate their own exhausts. They hand weld all their exhaust. There are only 4 welders that service the 140+ Dinan retailers nationwide. Each muffler has the hand engraved initials of the welder (nice personalized touch). He also took me through their race department where I saw about six or so race engines on stands. We found the dyno room and there she was, the black E60 545 all wired up like the Six Million Dollar Man.

The 545 was under some testing so unfortunately, we couldn't take it out for a spin or fire her up. But I was able to check out the exhaust and CAI that was mounted in the car. The installation and product all look top notch.

At this point, if it wasn't the little voice in my ear that sounded like my wife, I would have told Felipe to throw his entire catalog at my car. Too bad that voice got louder and kept me real. Felipe is a great guy. He said if I wanted to have them do all the work, he can put something together for me and work on the labor costs. He also suggested other options such as calling Wayne at Stevens Creek BMW if I wanted the work done there, closer to my house. Since we couldn't drive the 545 today, he told me to come back on Mon and take her for a spin.

We walked outside and while Felipe was checking out my car, Steve Dinan's wife roared through the parking lot in a black 645i. Didn't get to meet her though but the Dinan exhaust on that 645 sounded beautiful. I hope to go back there on Mon since it's my day off. If the stars line up, maybe I'll drive away with the CAI, throttle body and exhaust. Anyone want to come??

Sorry for the long post.

Originally Posted by EuroCarFan' post='218486' date='Jan 2 2006, 09:40 PM

Unfortunately, the weather sucked today and I'm still recovering from NYE... so I didn't get a chance to go back to Dinan. Actually, their 545 is still undergoing beta testing for the new MAF so it won't be accessible for another 2 weeks. I talked to Felipe today but forgot to double check the release time for the MAF. He said the ECU tuning/programming will be around March at the earliest and right after that, they should make a decision on whether or not to build a supercharger.

Znod, their 545 is a Step and it has pretty much all their performance stuff on it...CAI, throttle body, exhaust, wheels, brakes....I need to remember to ask him about dyno charts next time as well. Oh, what's the reason for the long delivery time for your CAI? Felipe didn't give me any indication that they didn't have any available at this time. He actually gave me a pretty good price quote for the CAI, throttle body and exhaust because I'm thinking of having all the installation work done by them directly. I sent him a follow up email after my phone conversation today to ask about a group buy and will let everyone know.