* I show as new member, but could not recover my old account.***
So I have a few things to say about this post. I have firsthand knowledge of your setup as I am in the same boat in terms of fueling option and mods. I have had two different tunes with the Doc and I have been more than happy with both. But let’s look past my experience and into what you have presented.
First, when it comes to recommending a company, there is no responsibility that should come to the person that recommended it. Those issues, the buyer will need to handle. With that said I have the exact setup that the Doc prescribed to you, and it in fact it works great, but more about that later. Now, it did take about 2 weeks for them to ship, and when they did ship, one of the check valves had the wrong flow direction, making the kit not usable until I received the correct one. I did reach out to them and they got the correct one sent out with no issue. I can’t speak to the whereabouts of that company however it was the weekend plus a federal holiday in the states. I suggest that you give them a call, I called like three times and a nice lady with a real hard country accent answered each time and was very professional and answered all of my questions.
Next, there the price quote. That to me was an honest mistake and if the 100 dollars is a deal breaker then I would recommend to move away from the n54. This is something that both you and the Doc can work through. That is really all I have to say about that.
Now, a little back ground to my current setup. I have a 2008 e92 335i, i would be considered the normal FBO, and have upgraded turbos and meth injection. I don’t have your conventional turbo build, but I will explain. I took my factory turbos, ripped them apart checked all the tolerances and began the rebuild. I ordered a kit from Taiwan that had larger billet compressor wheels, and a 9 blade high flow turbine wheel. The compressor wheel measure 39.5/51.00mm, it is considered a 14T 6+6 super back. The turbine wheel is the same size as factory just more blades for a higher flow. I machined the CHAR’s to accept the larger wheel and assembled them with the turbolabs rebuild kit. I am located in UAE so I have no one in the country that can machine the compressor housing for the larger compressor wheel. So I sent he assembled CHAR’s to the UK for machining and VSR balancing.
Once I got them back I got them installed and got with the doc for a tune. After getting the base tune from him and going back and forth for about a week, we came to a stopping point to. That stopping point was a fueling issue. We only have 98RON (93.5OCT), so single point CP meth injection was my only saving grace. I was able to get to 22 PSI at or around 8.5 degrees of clean timing, no drops. We did try to add a pound or two, but the car was running lean, there was timing drops all over the place and my WGDC was getting to the high 60% range. I was maxing the turbo build out and was limited on fuel. After a few weeks I was able to get onto the dyno and I performed 481whp and 472 ftlb torque, on a dynocom. The pull was in 4th gear and was the 3 pull of the 8 I did. Lowest was 461whp, out of the 8 pulls. This was in June if last year, about 105 F ambient and 50% humidity. As a note, all dynos are different some are fair, and some are not fair. I have heard that there can be 30-50HP difference on some models.
After that dyno day and the summer I did research on PI and if it was for me. Well to be honest spraying more of the same fuel into the cylinders seems pointless. I was not running out of fuel, I was out of octane for desired boost levels. So I decided to look into direct port meth, mainly because I already have most of the setup. There are plenty of options out there, Snow Performance has a plate that takes the 1/8NPT meth nozzles, devils own makes a kit, coolingmist, and twisted tuning have a similar setup that snow performance has and of course ProMeth. After all my searching I went with ProMeth, one for the fuel rail style, so there is even distribution and two I wanted to run a check valve on each port so there is no siphoning on start up.
Once I got this kit installed and ready to rock I contacted the Doc for a new PI meth tune. Again, about a week or so of back and forth of logs, we got to where I am at right now. I have not got to a dyno but I have no timing drops though the full pull averaging 9 degrees at peak 24 Psi @ 70% WGDC. My guess is that I am knocking at the door of 500 but, I do not have the sheet to prove that. I am currently rebuilding some MMP stg3 turbos, that the doc will tune, and I will go for 575-600 with solid timing and my current setup.
Some takeaway bullet points
- I feel your pain on not getting the hp you think you should have, but that is because of the fuel limitation. With your 17t’s, an E60 fuel blend, a 50/50 meth mix with a C in the CP for IAT’s, you could probably see 500 whp at 24 PSI easily, this is just not the case.
- Any issues with a vendor should be taken up with them. Get a hold of your bank show them, that there is no communication, and they have not shipped. They “should” refund you and go after the company. ProMeth is a big company and has been around for a long time, I would not think they are burning a guy for 600 USD.
- I have not been on this forum much, but plenty of other n54 and BMW pages. This one of the only times I have heard issue with the Doc.
- As for a refund for the tune, you got the tune and are over 150 WHP, over stock. This is limited due to your set up. If you been around before you will know nothing is a guarantee. When and if you get your fueling taken care of I am sure he will get you to where you want to be.
- Bashing a tuner because of not getting you to the number you want is crazy. There are plenty of tuners either custom or OTS maps that can just throw more boost in and get you to that 500+ HP, but at a cost of dirty timing, lean conditions, which in time will led to knock and burnt piston rings.
I hope that you can digest this in and understand, that between my experience and everyone else I have seen deal with the DocVu, this is a one off situation that should be rectified easily and all negative comments about the Doc should be removed unless you have factual and most importantly logical proof of an unjust tuning transactions.
What a mess lol
