It’s been over a week and a few hundred miles since I installed all my recent performance goodies, so I wanted to share some feedback on the combination of parts I put together.
The exhaust and intake components all went in relatively easy, and have really really transformed the driving experience. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the VRSF downpipes, AA EL resonated midpipe and an OEM backbox, but it’s exactly what I was looking for in both tone and volume level. The intake and charge pipes put off a nice induction noise on throttle dip in, and I’m seeing clean, misfire free, MHD data logs thanks to the fresh coils and NGK 97506 plugs.
With the cold start deleted, and in efficient mode, the car sounds stock and is very stealthy in my neighborhood, something I find important in a daily driver. Turn on sport mode and things really wake up. An aggressive snarl with any increase in throttle, and it absolutely screams when opened up completely with OEM like pops and cracks on gear changes. Turn it up again to sport plus mode, and you get all of the above + aftermarket burbles to whatever you’ve loaded up on the MHD app. Having the three different exhaust modes that are changeable with efficient, sport and sport plus is a very useful feature. The S55 has a bad reputation for not sounding as good as some other sports cars, but that is all addressed with a few hardware changes. This S55 sounds intoxicating; especially rev-matching into a down shift.
The power increase from the stage 1 93 octane tune was impressive to say the least. For less than a few thousand bucks you can reach around 500HP/500TQ. In anything less than 4th gear, the 275 rear width Michelin PSS tires are holding on for dear life.
My only complaint came with the increased sensitivity to an already sensitive sport and sport plus modes. When starting from a stop in sport or sport plus modes, which I enjoyed driving in due to the increased exhaust note now, it was nearly impossible to roll off without getting the dreaded bucking bronco effect. Prior to the tune, I never had this issue. After the tune, in efficient mode, I never had the issue. Only in sport and sport plus. After doing some research, it seems that others had also experienced this problem.
I ended up reaching out to MHD through email, and over the past week have been giving them feedback as they gave me updated revisions of the stage 1 93 octane that toned down the throttle sensitivity in sport and sport plus modes. I was very impressed with the customer service of one of their tuners custom tailoring a version of their OTS tune for my liking at no charge. Now the pedal feels perfect in all modes and has a more linear feel overall, something I appreciate over the artificially front loaded pedal feel it had prior.
SOUNDS CLIPS TO COME SOON.
In the meantime, I did what I seem to always do to BMWs I buy, delete the spoiler. I’ve always enjoyed the wingless look.
