He closed his shop so what did you expect?
Don't get me wrong I'm in the same boat. Support was great at the beginning. I love the smg updates, the rest... meh. Doubt other tunes are any better anyway. This is a NA engine that was already tuned to/close to max power to begin with. Unless you have mods that need a tune (catless, etc.) I'd spend my $ elsewhere.
I agree. If you want a car with 600/700/800 horsepower or a can you can incrementally modify for more power the e60 is not it. If you are happy with 500hp it’s a great car.
As you said it’s an NA engine where all the usual places to gain power have been pretty well optimized. It is after all a 100hp/litre NA production motor. ITB’s? Already done. Variable cam timing? Done. Efficient tubular headers? Done. Increase the rev limit? It’s alresdy 8,250...
None of the intake options really gain any power. The ‘power pulleys’ just reduce a little parasitic power loss from ancillaries at the cost of under driving them at low rpm. IAT relocation kit just tries to trick the engine into advancing timing a little (I’m not sure it actually works). The tunes will give you a little more timing and a more aggressive AFR but it’s not going to transform the car.
None of the popular mods appeal to me. Cams might get you a little power but they are always a trade off. Remove some mid range to gain top end, and they’re expensive to buy and expensive to install. Catless headers might gain a little power too, also expensive to buy and a ball ache to install. And if you did cams and headers then a custom tune to take advantage of them would give some gains and even more again if you upgraded the fuel system and ran e85. But that’s serious time and money for not much extra sauce.
An off the shelf (with admittedly some tweaking based on data logs) tune is never going to provide a massive gain. It’s best feature is probably the speed limit delete and (from reports) the smg improvement.
If I wanted more power from an S85 I’d jump straight to a supercharger kit. It’s still terrible value but at least gives a decent gain.
The other side is it’s hard enough and expensive enough to keep these engines in peak running order when they’re standard.
I have happily modified lots of my cars, my RX7, numerous GTR’s, my B58 m140 but I’ve never been tempted to try and squeeze more power out of the e60. I totally get modifying it for sound (I have an H&S exhaust on mine) but it’s already a fast car as is and probably the most mod unfriendly car I’ve ever come across.
Rant over.