I picked up my car on Tuesday afternoon after the Powerchip installation. To recap, I've just had ceramic-coated RD Sport 4-1 tubular competition headers, custom collectors feeding back to an existing Supersprint exhaust, and 94 octane Powerchip software installed. I had brought the car back to my dealer last week with the headers, but not the software installed. During that drive back, low-end torque was feeling a little soft but higher RPM response felt very good, a little better then before. The car seemed to pull with a greater sense of urgency at WOT. The overall tradeoffs if any were positive. I was excited to see and feel the difference.
I had great expectations for the Powerchip, what with the high praise on the board that the product has garnered. So when my tech Jason passed me the keys after the software installation I was practically salivating with anticipation and excitement. Bringing the beast to life after turning the key, I was a little surprised but quite gratified to hear that exhaust noise at idle seemed to be little changed from before. Pulling away, I heard more of a raspy snarl mixed with a heathy dose of V8 rumble, a more aggressive and authoritative sound than before, very racy but not loud at all.
Rush hour traffic constrained me somewhat, but soon I found openings in traffic and began to hammer the throttle as I covered familiar terrain. My initial impressions were that the low end was back to normal, a good thing, but high end response was oddly lacking where I had expected it to shine. Attacking hills that I've driven hundreds of times before in 2nd and 3rd gear revealed 540i power and quickly wiped the smile off my face. Bluntly speaking, I was disappointed in the apparent effect of the Powerchip as the response and power felt no better than, and possibly worse than the headers before the Powerchip software. Feeling totally deflated and somewhat defeated, I parked it.
Around midnight I pulled back out into the quiet of a weeknight for two hours of high speed, full throttle runs sans earlier traffic, hoping to get a handle on the car's performance or lack thereof. During the first hour I felt the beast gaining strength but didn't put much thought into it. Between the second and third hour (total time including the prior rush hour run) I began to tingle with excitement. It seemed as if power was being added by the minute and I was dialing into the "freight train on steroids" experience that I had expected. Wow, what an incredible change! Those same hills that I plodded up earlier were attacked with an aggression and explosiveness I had never experienced in four years of owning the M5 - sometimes it felt as if the car simply reared up on the back wheels. Throttle response was razor sharp in sport mode. I parked the car in a mild daze.
A few emails exchanged with Wayne at Powerchip revealed why. The website (which I hadn't bothered to check out) discusses how the values stored in the air/fuel maps are zeroed out with the software change and need to be rebuilt over time, the car being in an extremely lean condition with headers initially. Powerchip says maybe five hours are needed. I experienced huge gains between the second and third hours. After five hours on the software I feel that the biggest gains have been had, but am hoping for incrementally more. It's getting harder to tell now but we'll see. I'm very happy and very satisfied with the way it is now, anything else will be more icing on the cake.
Now here's a surprising thing. My tech drove the car this afternoon and immediately commented that the exhaust noise was louder. That's exactly my experience, that in a few hours it's at least 25+% louder, to my total surprise. Idle has more of a pulsating rumble, and from high idle on up the rev range there is a distinct growly turbine-like effect that extends from the rear floorpan all the way forward into the engine compartment. Full throttle is an aggressive-sounding snarl. Heads turn on the street! A goal through all my mods was to retain the refinement of a stocker, hence 18" instead of 19" Hamanns and a Supersprint exhaust. Although there is absolutely no unpleasant drone at cruise which was extremely important to me, be prepared for a significant but pleasant noise increase regardless of exhaust system. I got lucky with the total aural effect vis-a-vis my needs, it's just about perfect.
Thanks to Wayne, Joel and Travis at Powerchip. These are good guys to do business with, very committed to customer satisfaction. Thanks to Federico at RD Sport also (there - I'm putting you on the spot!). If you do headers and a Powerchip you won't be sorry.
:biggrin:
I had great expectations for the Powerchip, what with the high praise on the board that the product has garnered. So when my tech Jason passed me the keys after the software installation I was practically salivating with anticipation and excitement. Bringing the beast to life after turning the key, I was a little surprised but quite gratified to hear that exhaust noise at idle seemed to be little changed from before. Pulling away, I heard more of a raspy snarl mixed with a heathy dose of V8 rumble, a more aggressive and authoritative sound than before, very racy but not loud at all.
Rush hour traffic constrained me somewhat, but soon I found openings in traffic and began to hammer the throttle as I covered familiar terrain. My initial impressions were that the low end was back to normal, a good thing, but high end response was oddly lacking where I had expected it to shine. Attacking hills that I've driven hundreds of times before in 2nd and 3rd gear revealed 540i power and quickly wiped the smile off my face. Bluntly speaking, I was disappointed in the apparent effect of the Powerchip as the response and power felt no better than, and possibly worse than the headers before the Powerchip software. Feeling totally deflated and somewhat defeated, I parked it.
Around midnight I pulled back out into the quiet of a weeknight for two hours of high speed, full throttle runs sans earlier traffic, hoping to get a handle on the car's performance or lack thereof. During the first hour I felt the beast gaining strength but didn't put much thought into it. Between the second and third hour (total time including the prior rush hour run) I began to tingle with excitement. It seemed as if power was being added by the minute and I was dialing into the "freight train on steroids" experience that I had expected. Wow, what an incredible change! Those same hills that I plodded up earlier were attacked with an aggression and explosiveness I had never experienced in four years of owning the M5 - sometimes it felt as if the car simply reared up on the back wheels. Throttle response was razor sharp in sport mode. I parked the car in a mild daze.
A few emails exchanged with Wayne at Powerchip revealed why. The website (which I hadn't bothered to check out) discusses how the values stored in the air/fuel maps are zeroed out with the software change and need to be rebuilt over time, the car being in an extremely lean condition with headers initially. Powerchip says maybe five hours are needed. I experienced huge gains between the second and third hours. After five hours on the software I feel that the biggest gains have been had, but am hoping for incrementally more. It's getting harder to tell now but we'll see. I'm very happy and very satisfied with the way it is now, anything else will be more icing on the cake.
Now here's a surprising thing. My tech drove the car this afternoon and immediately commented that the exhaust noise was louder. That's exactly my experience, that in a few hours it's at least 25+% louder, to my total surprise. Idle has more of a pulsating rumble, and from high idle on up the rev range there is a distinct growly turbine-like effect that extends from the rear floorpan all the way forward into the engine compartment. Full throttle is an aggressive-sounding snarl. Heads turn on the street! A goal through all my mods was to retain the refinement of a stocker, hence 18" instead of 19" Hamanns and a Supersprint exhaust. Although there is absolutely no unpleasant drone at cruise which was extremely important to me, be prepared for a significant but pleasant noise increase regardless of exhaust system. I got lucky with the total aural effect vis-a-vis my needs, it's just about perfect.
Thanks to Wayne, Joel and Travis at Powerchip. These are good guys to do business with, very committed to customer satisfaction. Thanks to Federico at RD Sport also (there - I'm putting you on the spot!). If you do headers and a Powerchip you won't be sorry.
:biggrin: