For others, you could pull out the lower cover of the steering if you try a bit, but will not be able to put it back without removing the steering, learned that the hard way, made a trip to the local store to pick a ratchet with a long handle and had somebody hold the steering. I was not able to remove the steering myself, once somebody grabbed it the bolt was not that difficult to remove.

I have done half of the wiring yesterday. I have now two problems, the bushing connector that I bought worked okay for the steering wheel connector, but not on ebox, anybody has the part no for it? Also I could not route the wire to ebox, I have the wire to ebox lying beside the glory hole. The hole seems extremely congested to route additional wire. Any ideas?

 

Finally I have put together (almost) all with my SAT retrofit Unfortunately the right paddle was delivered without the holding bracket and the 2 screws so I will have to open up the wheel once again later on. Tomorrow I will get my heated wheel programmed at BMW and will then continue the quest. I can confirm that on a 530xd e61 LCI the "two wires" are not present! I hope to do the coding of the SAT and flashing of the EGS in the next 2-3 weeks

I will then come back with the results.

Timiboy

 

I had the the dealer do the wiring from glory hole to ebox, as I could not wiggle the wire through and was a bit scared as I might tear up existing wires. Anyways, after that coded my car and no luck . It is coded properly as putting to DS now puts the gear to D as it cannot find the paddles. Any ideas? However, they also could not confirm which connector it is in ebox, they said they can solder it, I agreed to go ahead.

 

Hmmm... so it sounds like you are in the "failsafe" mode that I encountered before we ran the ground wire (see the additional info waaay back in the thread). Think you're correct that this mode occurs if the car doesn't detect the paddles.

You could always diagnose at the paddles and ensure you're seeing the proper voltage signals coming through, and check that the ground wire is properly attached. It's a little scary that the dealer said they could not confirm the connector in the ebox -- as the connector # and pins were identified in the documentation earlier. You might want to push them to 'do their homework' as there's no reason they shouldn't be able to identify the correct connections.

Good luck, and let us know how you make out!

 

The dealer was not even able to code my heated stearing wheel without Problem. The car is now a week at the delaership...


Timiboy

 

Thanks everybody for the DIY.

Finally everything working. Yayy. The problem indeed was wiring, the ground was not ok. I am not sure where/how they grounded it, I just re-did the ground completely and now everything is fine. Paddles are working great, only no S1~S6 as my EGS software is not SAT, and no SAT software for 525i.

 

I've seen Sport button integration thread and would like to get this functionality in my wife's car, though to take an advantage of faster shifts EGS reflash is required. Is it possible to do that with original shifter? I don't need steering wheel paddles. I have them on my car and never use them.

 

My educated guess would be that if you reprogram the egs with the sat firmware using winkfp and then ensure that paddles are still turned off using ncsexpert in egs, should give you faster shift times in ds mode and s1~s6 in display while in DS mode. As s1~s6 displays when your are in ds mode has nothing to do with sports button. I would give it a try, however, for reference and reverting back if needed ensure that you keep your original zb number.

 

I can confirm there is a big difference between DS only and SPORT with the SAT EGS firmware upgrade, compared with the normal steptronic firmware here are the differences as follows:

If I put it in DS without SPORT button activated the shift is like DS mode as in the normal steptronic EGS firmware except that you now get S1-S6 (rather than DS) on the dash display. When I use the manual shift via the paddles or gear lever I get M1-M6 on display, the car will eventually revert back to full auto if you don't shift within say 10-20 secs.

With DS and SPORT activated the shift is much quicker, and especially the manual mode downshift via the paddles or gear lever is lightning fast with a throttle blip rev match to go with it. Throttle response is much sharper and steering stiffens up considerably. Once you start to use manual mode via the paddles or gear lever it stay in this mode permanently until to switch off SPORT mode.

With SPORT activated but gear lever left in D mode I get the same characteristics as DS with SPORT, if I use manual mode via the paddles or gear level I get M1-M6 but reverts to full auto if I don't change gear for 10-20secs.

So in summary just by flash programming the SAT EGS firmware won't give you the full functionality if you don't install the SPORT button.

 

Awesome. Thank you for the explanation. Is there DIY guide for these steps? I haven't flashed any modules with winkfp yet. It looks like Z4 sports button is the way to go for non sat LCI gear shifter.