Ok someone please explain this to me.

See the attached image - it's from a newsletter i got from ziptuning.nl. It states the specs of a standard X6 and tuned by them.

How rediculous are those differences?

I mean, 58 extra bhp and more economical? Why doesn't BMW setup the engines like that themselves? I cannot believe they don't know how to, so what's the catch? According to ziptuning the engine's lifespan isn't hurt, the engine is cleaner and more economical. Ehm.. I just don't get that.
Maybe it's some trick to work around certain financial quirks in some countries? Like you'd have to pay more tax / insurance for those extra bhp's?

Could it be that the engine is a detuned version of one that they put into one of their higher performance 3 or 5 series, the aftermarket remap bringing it back to the power it should have ?

Maybe it is detuned on purpose to keep g co2/km down, and force it into a lower VED bracket ?

That does seem like quite a pretty big gain from just being chipped, especially on the torque. Do you know what engine is in it, because if it was some kind of turbo diesel, then they could have turned up the turbo pressure to get them kind of results. Im in no way saying that chipping a car cant get these kind of results, its just i've never seen that much of a gain.

@ Beano, good point.

should be the x6 35i in that pic : http://www.ziptuning.nl/chiptu ... X6-35i-306-pk.html#header

This diesel gets an extra 100hp : http://www.ziptuning.nl/chiptu ... X6-35d-236-pk.html#header heh and no mention of changing turbo pressure. Unless that's done via the engine management system as well and not a mechanical change.

Quote from Victor :

should be the x6 35i in that pic : http://www.ziptuning.nl/chiptu ... X6-35i-306-pk.html#header

This diesel gets an extra 100hp : http://www.ziptuning.nl/chiptu ... X6-35d-236-pk.html#header heh and no mention of changing turbo pressure. Unless that's done via the engine management system as well and not a mechanical change.

Hmm. Well i must admit, if those results are legit, then i am very impressed. Just to make sure though, is this "ziptuning" like getting a car "chippped" as in ECU changes? I've had that done to my cars in the past and have never noticed a big change like that . Its usually just an extra 20hp or so, although they were older cars.

I think that engine is the 6cyl twinturbo diesel as found in the 335d.

Max output (kW/hp/rpm) 210/286/4400
Max torque (Nm/rpm) 580/1750

Quote from Nathan_French_14 :

Hmm. Well i must admit, if those results are legit, then i am very impressed. Just to make sure though, is this "ziptuning" like getting a car "chippped" as in ECU changes? I've had that done to my cars in the past and have never noticed a big change like that . Its usually just an extra 20hp or so, although they were older cars.

yeah it's software updates basically.

And yep, for my car the stated difference is 15bhp and 40Nm or so - not worth it, since they will charge 900 euro for that.

It's possible that they just increased the boost. Most new turbo cars have a boost solenoid that's controlled by the ECU, so you can increase the boost with ECU tweaks. When I had my Subaru tuned it went from 279 whp 297 wtq to 299 whp and 339 wtq. They increased the boost 2psi and reworked the fuel/timing maps to compensate.

And more economical because they probably leaned out the air/fuel ratio, which makes more power and uses less fuel.

Car manufacturers put programs into the ECU to take into account poor quality fuel, and also have a good buffer so the engines don't run to a too high percent of there capability, due to manufacturing tolerances etc.

Big gains can be gotten with chip tuning, however, I would say it really needs to be combined with a decent high flow air filter, a free flowing exhaust and a session on the dyno with the chip tuners, where they can tweak the ECU program with a laptop, rather than one of these "plug in and play" chips.

I had a chipped 2.0 TDCi Mondeo, and it caused it problems.

On the flip side, I had a Honda CBR600 with a "chip" on it (power commander) and it made a poorly fuelled bike and heck of a lot better

This is 3,0l biturbo petrol engine.
It has one small turbo for each 3 cylinders.

The power gain from the NA engine i something like ~30bhp so BMW didn't go for extreme power yet and it may be easy to get even 400bhp from it, but.. while I don't really believe to more economical aspect, I do really believe that there is +100% chance of massive failure and engine will RIP in 1/2 kilometres driven.

Quote from SilverArrows77 :

Also dont some countries have a restriction of 250kph for their cars? and notice the standard car here is rated as exactly 250kph.

Maybe BMW havent gone further with engine tuning for this model as it already approaches this 250 kph limit, and maybe isnt marketed as a performance car, so achieves better compatibility (and reduce costs) to engine speed restriction laws across different countries. (just a wild guess)

250kph limitation can be (and as far as I know is) easily done by a rev limiter. Calculating the maximum engine power so it equals the resistance on the vehicle at a speed of 250kph seems a bit far fetched to me

On-topic: why not give them a quick call Victor? I'd be curious to hear what they make of it

offtopic
wow the X6 is one hell of an ugly car, even more ugly than the porsche cayenne

Victor: Like already sad, its not a diesel. Its the 3 litre twin turbo engine which is also available in the 3 series. My father drives a 335i and the engine is a blast. But back to the tuning: There are already many tuned 335i's out there. Especially the Alpina B3 Biturbo is really interesting. Same engine, 360 hp - so it shouldn't be to hard to realise those figures. And i would never say that an alpina engine is overdone and not reliable.

There are also people who say that bmw already tested 400+ hp versions of that engine without having a lot of problems. The only problem i could really think of is the heat generation, but the engine base of the x6 should be big enough - the V8 biturbo also fits in it. And it also has some huge air intake holes in the front bumper so... this shouldn't be a big problem.

Do you want to buy a X6? Or why are you interestet..

Greets

As already stated, its probably emissions at a given speed / revs. Not sure if noise is taken into consideration. AFAIK most new engines are in a state of detune because of strict emissions. Once sold however, you can release the extra power and make them breathe properly.

Non turbo cars doesnt get loads of extra horsepower from a single chip,its just removes revlimiter,and its just feels faster,as the brain gets confused by the fake tests.But turbo engines gets lots of hp by a single ECU remap,on 335's they go almost 400hp,and thats just sick.

Chip tuning, tasty...

Chip Tuning - A waste of time. You don't get something for nothing (not including the price of 'tuning' the chip [or replacing it]).

A con for stupid people in my opinion.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Chip Tuning - A waste of time. You don't get something for nothing (not including the price of 'tuning' the chip [or replacing it]).

A con for stupid people in my opinion.

Could you explain?...

in a turbo diesel engine its probably the best spent money, on a N/A petrol its useless unless there are changes to some components(intake/exhaust mostly).

Quote from mrfell :

As already stated, its probably emissions at a given speed / revs. Not sure if noise is taken into consideration. AFAIK most new engines are in a state of detune because of strict emissions. Once sold however, you can release the extra power and make them breathe properly.

I suppose that depends on country, I don't think chip tuned car would pass the annual check here due to increased emissions unless you de-tune it everytime you bring your car in or re-register it with new specs. I believe maximum legal power increase is ~20% or so, could be wrong.

My last car managed to fail the check due to different color numberplate lights (bright and yellow'ish) but got OK with busted brake disks and broken handbrake.

Most of time its not an actual chip thats changed rather a replacment ecu. They change values in the programming and it can lead to some pretty ordinary results. But the legit guys that know whats what can do wonders.

I have had one of my cars done and it was a disaster, fuel economy was shot to bits the way the trans shifted was horrible and it actually went worse, in the end i got my old ecu replaced after alot of drama's.

If its sounds to good to be true it usually is, also the car manufacturers tend to know a little more about there own vehicles than "Tuners".

With out airbox, cats and exhaust changes i find what they quote hard to beleive.

That said i think we all know the car manufacturers build there cars midly tuned at best, so there may be small gains if any.

Petrol forced induction engines usually benefit greatly from 'chipping'. Usually they up the boost to about where you are compressor limited, and injection, ignition and timing is adjusted to compensate. Usually they have narrower margins for fuel quality and such, and more agressive timing. Often with fuel octane restrictions as well, due to higher boost. My Passat went from a stock 150hp/230Nm to 211hp/355Nm by chipping (and a freeflow intake. Values were confirmed by dyno) alone. They upped the peak boost from the stock 0,55Bar to the compressorlimited 1,50Bar. The car ran like this for several years, and not a single problem due to chipping. As far as I know the car still runs fine.

Depending on engine of course, but usually engines are so restricted due to taxes and emissions.

Also, take a little care as to what program you choose for your car. There can be a large difference in driveability with different maps. I tried a program that had even higher peak power, but the powerband was very different. Probably cool for kids, cause it had tremendous 'turbokick', but not very driveable. The program I settled on was very nice to drive 'regularly', and awesome when pushed. My wife never even realized the car was chipped until I told her to push the pedal. Then she sat with a big grin and asked me "what did you DO to this car?!?"

not normally a fan of chip tuning but the results on turbo cars can be spectacular, both in power and in damage if it's not done properly.

nothing wrong with upping boost, resetting ignition and fueling if the rest of the engine etc is at optimum, other wise its extra power being developed by placing extra strain. a good example was with the original sierra cosworth, there were loads of chip tuners offering "stage 1" 260 bhp conversions and there was graham good racing offering 260 bhp, the difference was that graham good was a lot dearer but the reason was they achieved the extra bhp purely by ensuring manifolds and gaskets were matched with the ports, that the timing, fueling and compression were exactly what they should be etc. as a result it produced the same power as a "stage 1" but actually put less strain on the engine than when it came out of the factory. it also meant that if you then had the management and boost tweaked the engine could respond to it far better than factory spec engines.

one naturally aspirated group of engines that did respond well to chipping were the vauxhall single OHC engine in the 1990's. these left the factory with a strange dip in the power curve at 2 differing rpms, the reason for these became clear when you matched the road speed in top to the rpm, the dips coincided with 56 mph and 75 mph, the speeds that govt official mpg figures were taken !, it was a simple job for tuners to produce reprogramed chips with the dips removed and made a differenc ethat in some models was very noticable.

in general though if you are going to go for a remap, do just that !, get a bespoke remap for your car, not a generic map, it may cost more but it will be suited for your car and not every car. also check the owners clubs, find out who does the best job and if there are any other mods, exhaust, intake, fuel filter and pump etc, that they recomend before having the remap.

edit: the vw group 1.8 turbo engines are especially suitable for remapping and very strong internally, there are plenty of octavia vrs out there with the ability to surprise a lot of cars

Quote from Turbo Dad :

Could you explain?...

lol what he is saying is correct anyone that knows something about cars knows more power =more problems.
standed cars are not Tuned for max power and econemy they are tuned so that they will run smooth and without problems for as long as possible.

ill give u a example
lets say a car is running 14/1 AF ratio and thats arround what it should be but on a forced induction car that leans out and more boost is applyed the AF meter and detonation senser reads this and trys to bring it back to its default setting.now if u advance the timing and run more boost it leans out and the AF gets lower and you get more power untill you hit the detonation wall.

the detonation wall is caused by the car leaning out and can destory a car in a matter of seconds even in colder enviroments are car will run leaner then if it was 5deg hotter the sensors are ment to cope with this but their is only so much they can do so car manufactures detune the car and never run the injectors at max psi to keep the car running down with out destorying the engine.

so basicly The Engines are not tuned for your needs they are tuned for everyones needs!

and if u mod cars NEVER Chip the ecu REPLACE IT!

motec/haltec/microteck/powerfc
will do all ur modding needs dependant on ur car

Modding cars is 99% of the time, simply put... STUPID.

Who would you rather trust? the Giant headed, glowing veined wizard engineers the actually designed the car from scratch, or the pot-belly beer grubbing mechanic from the corner that with a lot of luck managed to do the 1st year of university?
One thinks like "hmm if ve increze zee rear ride height by 0.05 centimeterz, ze car will have aprroximatly 0,867371 newtons of exztra downforze".
The other thinks like "if I remove this bit HERE and put this new part there, car will go faster! wee!"

A couple of cases I got first-hand contact with:

1) One of the most usual mods around here, is fitting wide tires on the front of Smart City cars. They have fat rear tires and thin front tires cause they dont have power steering, and its a short wheelbase light rearwheeldrive car. thin tires at front = understeer which balances the oversteer from the RWD. Still, in the rain, smarts are pretty tailhappy. (I know, I drive one )
This guy, from a chip-tuning shop down the street from me, chipped his smart, and put fat front tires in it. Car was pretty fast, and was even more lively than usual smarts. Couple weeks ago (start of june, IIRC), he came to the shop in his wife's Espace. Asked him what happened to the smart. Answer:
"I was driving fast, having fun, then when I had to take a left turn, the rear suddenly started sliding and spun me around. I ended up in the opposite lane, facing sideways and got hit by a another car."
Car was totalled, and to add insult to injury, since the police's report of the accident said that "illegal modifications to the car" were partly responsible for the accident, the insurance company billed HIM for the 1'500€ of damages to the other car.
Obviously, fat front tires = much more oversteer, and he spun a slow-going city car with THAT smart move.

2)Guy from school bought an old 5-series BMW (dont quite know which). Sent it directly to "rice school", where he lowered the car to "look cooler".
about half a year later, he said he suddenly lost control of the car in the highway when he went over some kind of bump - car spun around and he ended up in the ditch. First thing he did after? changed the susp back to the original, is a much happier man.
Obviously, stiffer suspension, lower car = less compliance over bumps. Worse yet, if you change the roll stiffens ration from front and rear and/or the spring stiffness ration from font and rear the car will feel different. Change it too much... and you can (and problably will) crash.



And I live about 3kms from the Portuguese track of Estoril.
Every trackday is funny watching some kinds of cars crashing:
Big powered RWD cars driven by men in their mid-life crisis. (H2000, some porches, saw one mx5 having a really stupid spin and crash while braking), and... ricer cars.
Those crash with a regularity that has me betting on how many laps they gonna do before they end up in the wall/gravel.
Funniest so far was some dude with a Saxo Cup, all riced, lowered, about a billion speakers inside, supah paintjob, uber rims, super low profile tires... then flipping it LFS-style in T1 by clipping the inside kerb.. I loled the entire afternoon on that one