[335_N55_BMW]

A few months ago I picked up a completely stock 335i N55 xDrive 6 speed coupe and immediately decided that I wanted more power. Knowing that the N55 isn't as tuneable as the N54, I wanted to wring out the most power from a few basic/mild mods. I decided that I wanted a custom tune through the MHD interface and went with Wedge Tuning.

Ken was honestly a pleasure to work with. He was easy to reach via phone/email and had a turn around time of less than 24 hours for each tune revision (sometimes within a couple of hours). Before sending me the initial tune, we had a phone call and I explained that I wanted the maximum amount of safe power while running 93 octane. We went through about 7 revisions and each time the tune got a little smoother and more powerful. He also sent me 3 "race" tunes that had the timing increased a couple of degrees for the drag strip.

I haven't seen a direct comparison between Cobb/MHD/Wedge for the N55 so I decided to do one. The dyno runs were done all on the same day and had adequate cool down time between each run. We made 3 pulls on each tune and selected the best one for the comparison sheets below. This comparison was done on January 20th, 2017. Therefore the MHD OTS maps were current at that time and the Cobb maps were the most up to date at that time (don't remember revision #'s).

Overall, I honestly preferred the Cobb tune the best as I feel like that was the middle ground between the custom and MHD OTS. It was only running 14-15 PSI vs 21 for the Wedge but had much better drivability than the MHD OTS tunes. Now I must say there is nothing wrong with the custom tune. However, it feels like the turbo is definitely running out of breath and doesn't make any more horsepower than the Cobb/MHD tunes at the expense of much higher boost. You do gain a pretty substantial amount of low down torque though and that does make low speed driving more fun. The MHD OTS tunes were the jerkiest (least smooth), Cobb was next, and the Wedge tune honestly felt like stock in terms of smoothness during light throttle and daily driving.

I loved being able to use a tablet/phone to datalog and load tunes with MHD. The GUI is simple/easy to use for just about anyone and feels more advanced than the V2 Accessport that I was using. For some reason though, I could never get the "exhaust burble" feature to work.

If you have a lot of modifications over basic stuff, than the custom tune is definitely worth it. However, on a basically stock N55, you won't gain much top-end power over the MHD/Cobb OTS tunes but you will get very smooth and stock-like drivability. For a a very small monetary investment, the MHD OTS tunes are a good option as well. Possibly the newer maps have been smoothed out by now.

Datalogs from most of the tunes are located here http://www.datazap.me/u/b-feelgood

2011 335i xDrive coupe 21k miles

*Modifications*
- Cobb charge pipe
- Cobb intercooler
- Green panel filter
- Secondary cats removed

*Maintenance prior to dyno*
- Spark plugs changed
- All fluids changed
- Air filter changed

[princelybug]

Excellent post!

[Johnny Boost]

Nice comparison!

[BKBMW335I]

Great work!!

[FL N55]

Man I looked all over for something like this and now just stumbled into it by accident. Thanks for the comparison.

[335e92tx]

good you got Xdrive..otherwise that thing would not hookup.

And your clutch hates you, you know that don't you

;-)

[n55jb4]

Can someone state what hp gains over stock he got? I can't see pics for some reason

[Twisted Tuning]

current v0.90 E30 OTS map dyno from a user/member. This car also had some fueling issues in the lower RPMs (you can see the power dip), but a good indicator of where the OTS Map is currently...

[FL N55]

Any other OTS 2+ 93 dyno runs?