Today, I wrote a post on another Forum, to add a little to the discussion in terms of how "useful" xHP is. I thought it is a good idea, to have that also here, as it applies general:
No mather, if it is the stock flash, or the Alpina flash, they are limited in TQ, which means ECU/Engine Tuners have to keep their reported TQ values below this limit. For years this was the standard, as there was no alternative. People flashed Alpina on it (negating the fact, that Alpina uses different trans hardware, but that's another story) and living with it, because it was the best, what was achievable at that time.
Those guys running upgraded Turbos or even strong FBO ones, run TQ well beyond what this transmission was ever made for, but beated on it nevertheless. So now we combine 2 factors: Running TQ well above OEM limits AND at the same time sending lowered TQ values on CAN, to avoid hitting the internal limiters. The result is obvious: Too much slip in every situation and really ****ed up adaption values.
For example: Desirable Slip is in the range of 30 - 60 rpm at the TCC, which helps dampening vibrations and removes spikes from the internals. With screwed TQ values on CAN even a Stage 1 car slips around 100 - 200 rpm at the TCC. That is unnoticable to the driver and can only be seen in the logs. Of course the transmission tries to compensate, but that compensation has boundaries. You will end at the limit of adaption, which is never a good thing.
So if anyone with 600 ftlb wants to make any use of xHP in terms of shift speed or TQ capacity, he has to adapt his engine tune to work again with the transmission as it is intended to be and then drive some time to normalize adaption values. I do not recommend anyone to clean them, to take a shortcut. That can lead to funny behaviour on transmissions with some miles on it. Additionally, xHP will not be able to repair a transmission. If your car slipped for ages on certain WOT shifts, your clutches are likely already worn out. No way xHP will bring back lost clutch material.
The situation is a difficult one. There comes a totally new product in, which open up a lot of possibilities, but people expect it on day 1 to solve all their problems. That won't happen. It's like working with a black box for years and getting along with it. Once the box opens and you start to look what's inside, you will notice a lot of new stuff to be taken into account.
For now theres little to none knowledge in the market, concerning the BMW 6HP box. We released it a few days ago and Engine Tuners and Endusers have now to learn how to deal with whats coming up. First and foremost the ones pushing the limits.
But apart from that, there are benefits which are really simple to grasp, like the extended Rev-Range, or the fully open TCC in S mode in Gear 1,2,3 on Stage 3. Those are all features intended to benefit the ones with heavily modded engines. A FBO car will never get anything from a 7500 rpm shiftpoint, but some with big singles might love that.
And if someone loves his Alpina tune, but only wants to change certain things, it's as easy as it can get. Backup you TCU with xHP, use this backup as base file in TunerPro, load the xdf from our website and start to tweak the Alpina file. You will only need the General Flash License one time, to flash your car as often as you like with your custom files.
And if you don't want to play around, by yourself, we can do it for you, once we start the custom Map service in 2 - 3 weeks, similar to whats known from MHD.