Alex Alpine ECU Tune

[tigermack]

Does anyone know if Alex is able to adjust the speedometer for changing tire height? Curious if that's possible.

To add, I autocross my car in hot climate every other weekend. Bouncing/riding limiter occasionally and have not had any issues. Just updated my tune with raised limiter and worked flawlessly.

[s0ldats]

as usual nothing but good things to say about the product and about dealing with alex.

i will be switching to BW x-pipe soon and preparing to request a new map for catless (stage 2?). anyone running stage 2 with a bw x-pipe? what are your thoughts?

[omgzirra_exe]

Originally Posted by s0ldats

as usual nothing but good things to say about the product and about dealing with alex.

i will be switching to BW x-pipe soon and preparing to request a new map for catless (stage 2?). anyone running stage 2 with a bw x-pipe? what are your thoughts?

just request it in your, tune so he can make the adjustments for the forward X.

[x Spades x]

Is there a forward "X" x-pipe, with HFCs?

[Andy1gg]

I uploaded new E30 map today and I feel like it doesn't pull as hard on the upper rev range but it is smoother.

[s0ldats]

Originally Posted by tigermack

Does anyone know if Alex is able to adjust the speedometer for changing tire height? Curious if that's possible.

To add, I autocross my car in hot climate every other weekend. Bouncing/riding limiter occasionally and have not had any issues. Just updated my tune with raised limiter and worked flawlessly.

curious to know about the speedo thing too, he's just an email away

[Alex@Alpine]

Originally Posted by s0ldats

curious to know about the speedo thing too, he's just an email away

Originally Posted by s0ldats

curious to know about the speedo thing too, he's just an email away

Not possible through tuning, sorry.

[Scharbag]

Originally Posted by chocstraw

I'm going to write a big long post and ignore any responses to this.

My qualifications: I'm a technician under federal regulations. I work with internal combustion engines and more advanced technologies.

My experience with alex has not inspired confidence. I began this process after removing my primary cats and a fresh set of plugs, oil, etc.

Alex is polite and I do like his demeanor in most communication. However, his rigid inflexibility in tune requesting is beyond annoying. Any communication that anyone competent can interpret is met with some sort of scorn. This has been addressed.

Onto the tune. I have requested a decent sample size of tune files from alex, all of which are inconsistent. There is almost no rhyme or reason to the changes he makes to his files. Invariably, the issues I would have would either be:

- pre-ignition
- poor MPG
- worse than stock performance

On the first few tunes I requested, all tunes had a knock at high-load, low-RPM circumstances, typically uphill driving in 7th gear. While I have experienced this on stock 241E, the stock software adapted VERY quickly to these circumstances and prevented further knocking, often within seconds. The car would also make strange noises on high load, high RPM uses. Noises at redline that I wasn't used to hearing.

Upon further mention of knocks and furnishing of logs / evidence of knocking, Alex had the audacity to suggest that my issues were related to rod bearing wear, and suggested, and I quote, that tuning in additional lubrication was necessary. The S65's oil pump's output is directly correlated to the engine RPM, and thus cannot be "tuned".

Upon mentioning this to Alex, Alex suggested many things. The first was a map that was so bad that it brought my MPG down to nearly 10MPG combined. Of course you can eliminate knocks if you richen the mix, but you also eliminate power.

I abandoned this tune, my confidence diminished.

Alex also blamed "fuel quality". This is an illegitimate issue. Fuel quality is regulated strictly, but even if this was not the case, see Brazil, which has lower quality fuel than CA but still has perfectly fine S65 BMWs (no adjustment to compression ratio). "bad gas" is, far and away, a myth.

I had my rod bearings replaced in the middle of this communication, and issues followed. Rod bearing wear as an issue eliminated (though they were not legitimate to begin with).

After some positive feedback from associates, I decided to get continued tuning from alex to see if issues have been corrected; everyone is worthy of redemption.

Tunes continue to get worse than stock performance and MPG ratings. One concession I will make is that perhaps, at its best, the Alpine tune is better than the stock 241E. In extreme conditions, be it cold or high demand, the tune is invariably worse because Alex has seemingly eliminated the flexibility of the stock tune.

The MSS60 is a very advanced ECU / DME and is more than capable of extracting the best power. It will adapt to cold / hot weather, good / bad fuel, aggressive / soft driving, and it will be fine. Those who are unfamiliar with other platforms, some ECUs will destroy an engine simply on a cat delete or filter change (see: subaru).

Look at the S65 and the E9x M3 and tell me that the engineers at BMW M didn't take all considerations into mind. The intake design is among the best I've ever seen. The exhaust design is excellent. The transmissions, engine, etc have all taken far beyond their rated power under strenuous circumstances.

I am not to believe an army of one has somehow superseded this engineering expertise.

My opinion of this tune is based on multiple years of experience with this tune and several revisions (they are free, why wouldn't I try a new tune?). To this day, I cannot clearly identify why Alex makes the changes he does. I love my E92 and am intimately familiar with the platform, I hope to see you all at a [200k+ miles] thread. But with this tune, I am afraid that cat melting, piston melting, cylinder wall scraping, etc failure would be brought on prematurely.

My issue with this tune is that alex assures that none of these concerns are legitimate. Claims of stock safeguards being kept intact are intuitively ignored by the prevalence of knock I've experienced. The DME is not adaptive. Performance on a cold night is the same as a hot day. This was not the case with 241E, it would perform just fine regardless of inputs.

I take ethical issues with the tune. I would not imagine charging for my services if I was not fully confident in what I was doing. If you are chasing big power: go with a newer turbo BMW solution. The S55 does make big power with relative ease.

If you want to go faster, take this money and budget for a set of camber plates or tires / coilovers.

This tune is an irresponsible risk to the community- no matter how slight- and a clear cash-grab of an amateur turned entrepreneur.

my advice is to get better at tuning. leaning out an engine and disabling stock protections for small (<10hp gains, delta) are not worth it. do not offer a service that you cannot in good conscience offer.

I spent 2 years trying to get the Alpine tune to not cause terrible high load low RPM pining. Only thing that worked was mixing in E85 to boost the octane.

I tried many Stage 1 and Stage 2 tunes. Changed exhausts, replaced O2s, swapped plugs etc…. I even swapped out my Dinan ITBs. Stock programming as well as my new tune do not have any issues and my car runs fine.

Not sure what is the root cause, but on my car it seems that the Alpine tune is not a viable option. Perhaps there is something in the tune that is compromising the knock protection or other adaptations.

Oh well, such is life.

Cheers,

[s0ldats]

does anyone have a tool that i can use to upload alex's files from my mac? my windows computer took a shit

[Alex@Alpine]

Originally Posted by s0ldats

does anyone have a tool that i can use to upload alex's files from my mac? my windows computer took a shit

Just use our instructions for Mac. Send me an email

[Irish222222]

Installed the stage 1 tune a couple days ago and it’s perfect. Alex was extremely responsive and I got my tunes very quickly. Now the car actually feels like I expected for 414hp crank. Can’t wait to move to the stage 2 when my xpipe finally gets here.

[x Spades x]

Hey Alex

Uploading the E30 map tune today.
I the very near future, I'm thinking of getting a HFC xpipe. Am I able to run a stage 2 with that? If the answer is no, how would i see gains? Do you have a special HFC stage 1 or is it a waste of money getting HFC xpipe?

Kareem

[Vuu]

Originally Posted by x Spades x

Hey Alex

Uploading the E30 map tune today.
I the very near future, I'm thinking of getting a HFC xpipe. Am I able to run a stage 2 with that? If the answer is no, how would i see gains? Do you have a special HFC stage 1 or is it a waste of money getting HFC xpipe?

Kareem

Yes you're able to run HFC with stage 2. For optimal power, catless is recommended but not required.

If you're going with a burble tune, it's almost pointless to get a HFC x-pipe set up. But if you're not, you'll notice more power down low due to backpressure.

It's not a waste of money.

[Vedubin01]

Originally Posted by Scharbag

I spent 2 years trying to get the Alpine tune to not cause terrible high load low RPM pining. Only thing that worked was mixing in E85 to boost the octane.

I tried many Stage 1 and Stage 2 tunes. Changed exhausts, replaced O2s, swapped plugs etc…. I even swapped out my Dinan ITBs. Stock programming as well as my new tune do not have any issues and my car runs fine.

Not sure what is the root cause, but on my car it seems that the Alpine tune is not a viable option. Perhaps there is something in the tune that is compromising the knock protection or other adaptations.

Oh well, such is life.

Cheers,

I'm also getting that ping you describe and thought about adding e85 to get rid of it. I'm surprised Alex has not addressed this with many people experiencing the same thing.

[Alex@Alpine]

Originally Posted by Vedubin01

I'm also getting that ping you describe and thought about adding e85 to get rid of it. I'm surprised Alex has not addressed this with many people experiencing the same thing.

Request a new file. It has been addressed but none of you guys want to try the new file.

[Vedubin01]

Originally Posted by Alex@Alpine

Request a new file. It has been addressed but none of you guys want to try the new file.

Awesome, sending you a PM now!

Thank you,

[omgzirra_exe]

Originally Posted by Alex@Alpine

Request a new file. It has been addressed but none of you guys want to try the new file.

lmao. love it.

[Krypptic]

Originally Posted by Alex@Alpine

Request a new file. It has been addressed but none of you guys want to try the new file.

I reverted back to stock because of this issue. Car runs much smoother stock than it did with alpine tune. Are you saying the new file resolves this problem? Please send it my way.

[Alex@Alpine]

Originally Posted by Krypptic

I reverted back to stock because of this issue. Car runs much smoother stock than it did with alpine tune. Are you saying the new file resolves this problem? Please send it my way.

Send in a request

[Vedubin01]

Originally Posted by Alex@Alpine

Request a new file. It has been addressed but none of you guys want to try the new file.

After this post I had gotten a PM from Alex asking for my email address. He was going to send me a new file. In this I had stated that I was running 93 octane fuel from different vendors and was not brand specific.

This was a first for him as most of the guys that have had this issue were only lucky enough to get 91 oct. I have the new map and will be uploading it to the car hopefully today.

I did speak with him on the phone and Alex has been straight forward and does not want me to report to him first. He did not tell me what he has changed or where the change is in the band of power but did express the issue of knocking has been addressed and I should be greatly happy with the new mapping.

He asked that I write my findings and put it out as I see and feel it. And let the cards fall where they may. I am looking forward in this new tune and seeing if this does in fact correct some of the knocking issues under heavy load.

Will report back with findings.


UPDATE:

Well the wife went to the gym and I was able to sneak out to the garage to update the car with the new file. Took a whole 6 minutes to complete the upload. Pretty simple. Took the car on about a 10 mile run down the highway where I was able to stretch the legs a bit. (you know in Mexico and all) Outside temp is currently 90 degrees and I allowed the car to warm up before really getting into it. This was a quick blast down the highway, turn around and blast back. My exit ramp is a super long stretch with a sweeping left turn with about a 3 foot wall on both sides.

The car idles around 700 rpm, revs up quickly and pulled all the way to around the 8400rpm mark. Super smooth and felt the car continued to pull. Coming onto my exit on the way home I got the car well into the triple digits. The last tune I would hear some pinging while the car was under heavy load and WOT, but this time I was not able to hear it at all. The car sounded super smooth and again pulled like a raped ape. Big smiles for sure.

I will report more when I have some more seat time on the car but as of now it was much better than the tune I got back this time last year. I have to say Alex was prompt to address my concerns once I posted and has always been great to deal with. I truly wish I had a dyno to see the difference in the two tunes and just see what the car is actually making. But today was a fun little experiment and so far like the outcome of the new tune as I think it addressed the issue of the pinging or knocking at WOT and under load.

Current setup is:

Stage 2 tune from Alpine.
BW x pipe with 2 HFCs in 1st position
BW cat back exhaust
MS under drive pullies
Active Autowerks green filter

Car has 50k+ miles on it currently and fresh plugs etc.

[Vedubin01]

Originally Posted by Krypptic

I reverted back to stock because of this issue. Car runs much smoother stock than it did with alpine tune. Are you saying the new file resolves this problem? Please send it my way.

Have you given it a go yet?

[x Spades x]

Originally Posted by Vedubin01

After this post I had gotten a PM from Alex asking for my email address. He was going to send me a new file. In this I had stated that I was running 93 octane fuel from different vendors and was not brand specific.

This was a first for him as most of the guys that have had this issue were only lucky enough to get 91 oct. I have the new map and will be uploading it to the car hopefully today.

I did speak with him on the phone and Alex has been straight forward and does not want me to report to him first. He did not tell me what he has changed or where the change is in the band of power but did express the issue of knocking has been addressed and I should be greatly happy with the new mapping.

He asked that I write my findings and put it out as I see and feel it. And let the cards fall where they may. I am looking forward in this new tune and seeing if this does in fact correct some of the knocking issues under heavy load.

Will report back with findings.


UPDATE:

Well the wife went to the gym and I was able to sneak out to the garage to update the car with the new file. Took a whole 6 minutes to complete the upload. Pretty simple. Took the car on about a 10 mile run down the highway where I was able to stretch the legs a bit. (you know in Mexico and all) Outside temp is currently 90 degrees and I allowed the car to warm up before really getting into it. This was a quick blast down the highway, turn around and blast back. My exit ramp is a super long stretch with a sweeping left turn with about a 3 foot wall on both sides.

The car idles around 700 rpm, revs up quickly and pulled all the way to around the 8400rpm mark. Super smooth and felt the car continued to pull. Coming onto my exit on the way home I got the car well into the triple digits. The last tune I would hear some pinging while the car was under heavy load and WOT, but this time I was not able to hear it at all. The car sounded super smooth and again pulled like a raped ape. Big smiles for sure.

I will report more when I have some more seat time on the car but as of now it was much better than the tune I got back this time last year. I have to say Alex was prompt to address my concerns once I posted and has always been great to deal with. I truly wish I had a dyno to see the difference in the two tunes and just see what the car is actually making. But today was a fun little experiment and so far like the outcome of the new tune as I think it addressed the issue of the pinging or knocking at WOT and under load.

Current setup is:

Stage 2 tune from Alpine.
BW x pipe with 2 HFCs in 1st position
BW cat back exhaust
MS under drive pullies
Active Autowerks green filter

Car has 50k+ miles on it currently and fresh plugs etc.

Can you tell us about your xpipe setup (and what cats you have)? expensive? any check engine lights? Pass emissions?