Convergence

Having driven it for awhile at 10%, how is it? Do you feel the extra power now?

djprov431

It's not that I didn't feel the increased performance at 10%, it was just much more of a rush at 50,40,30%. My guess is that the tuner probably makes the same damn power and torque at any setting from min to max but the x/y curve that it applies it at is what is changed by the setting - the lower the setting, the more of a gentle curve; the higher the setting the more of a pronounced linear curve...........of course I could be wrong and it would be nice if someone from BMS chimed in.

djprov431

I installed the new "xenon halogens" last night - excellent difference, no more yellow light, now a perfect match to the white LED side marker and daytime running lights. I think I will do the running lights as well in the near future (the ones next to the high beams).
I also moved the tuner from 10% to 20% and had a very spirited ride to work this morning...full throttle starts, roll ons and excessive abuse of the the rpm range...no issues or CEL. I think the tranny is starting to adapt a bit more to my driving style as well...shifts seemed much firmer with less delay today. Power was nice, I actually had a smile on my face zipping through the straights and S corners and power out of hairpin turns was very linear and satisfying. I'll leave the tuner at 20% for a while and perhaps try to give it a bump up in a week or so.
Here is a crappy picture of the low beam headlights...at least you can see they aren't yellow anymore and for $50 it was a no brainer compared to installing HID ballasts and error code elliminators.
Before:

After: in the second picture you can see the more yellow color of the running light compared to the new low beam - thank you to the fog this morning

djprov431

I've been running the tuner @ 20% now for a few days - hot and heavy on the throttle, no CEL or other issues - always in "sport" mode - I despise "Economy" mode!

Ordered the "xenon halogen" running lights the other day - should have them installed on Friday - going to look much nicer!

Will plan to bump the tuner to 30% when I'm in there doing the running lights and see how it goes....last time I had the tuner above 20% I had issues, so this will be a good test to see if the car ECU has learned anything or it still hates me.

Convergence

good to hear! your xenon lights look great btw...i'm sure the side xenons will make it look even better!

thanks for keeping ups posted on the tune. hopefully your car is learning and 30% will take this time around. i finally bought one myself and should come in anytime soon. I'll probably install it after I get my car back from the shop...it's been at the dealer for the second time as the driver's seat creaks like a rocking chair.

djprov431

Very cool - finally there will be two 2014's with the tuner that we can compare notes with. Let me know if you have any issues with the install - I bet you curse at the instructions like I did!
Did you get the air filter as well?

Convergence

i've already cursed the instructions. I've been looking at the pdf that i downloaded from their site -- horribly written. I'm planning on buying the air filter from amazon (have $$ from bunch of gift cards) later this week when i come back from my biz trip.

djprov431

Well make sure you have a butt splice for the ground wire and a similar piece of wire to splice in. I also changed the spade lug to a ring lug so it would be around the bolt and held down instead of just slid under it as supplied...I could see no way to let the unit hang where the instructions say to put it and have enough length for the connectors to reach their respective places. I also was oddly confused with the drawing as it seems to lead to to believe you are to use a connector located by the blue (windshield washer, i forget?) bottle when in fact it's trying to tell you to route cable in that direction. All of the connectors are in the center of the car under the engine cover..be careful with the gray connector which was a little tricky to understand how it came apart...instructions say to pull it out and then push it...yeah, that made no sense. I also wrapped some electrical tape around the "friction fit" connector...that was cheap in my opinion. You can probably make out where I ended up mounting the box...simply used some 3M double sided tape...holding nicely. You'll want it somewhere you can access it without much trouble.
The air filter was a no brainer.

djprov431

Good news and bad news...I received and installed the parking/running lights today - what a royal PITA, especially the drivers side. Anyway, they're in and they look so much better than the yellow color stock bulbs - now the front end is all the same bright white color.



Now for the bad news - I adjusted the tuner to 30% and drove to work - got limp mode just a few miles from the house. Stopped to get gas and adjust the tune back to 25% and dropped my precision screwdriver in the engine bay....figured it'll fall out evetually...went to put the cover for the tuner back on and dropped that in the same damn place......F ME. This is what happens when you're in a rush. Hopefully they both fell to the same location in one of the lower covers, I'll be under the car in the morning I suppose.
Moral of the story - tuner doesn't like 30%. 20% is good, not sure about 25% yet.
Xenon light replacements are also good...and far cheaper than HID ballast installations.

djprov431

OK first off I will say I made a rather big mistake....but we'll get to that in a minute.


I took off the bottom skirt from the car and retrieved my precision screwdriver, the top cap from the tuner however was nowhere to be had. I rigged up a black plastic cover to keep the dirt out until I can find a suitable replacement enclosure.


Now while I had the hood up I decided to look at the install for the tuner - why was it that I was having so much trouble and why did I have to extend the ground wire...must be a reason.
I noted earlier that the instructions SUCK ***....which they do. I looked through them again and went step by step staring at the pictures. I recognized that the MAP sensor connection that I used was incorrect. I connected to the front center of the car on the air tube, when in fact the correct position is on the drivers side down low to the left of where they state to make the ground connection. Sure enough as I stared at the pictures I was able to make out additional clues that confirmed I was in the wrong spot originally.
So to make a long story short, I undid what was wrong and made the correct connection. I also put the tuner to 50% as it was delivered and went for a quick ride - what do you know, no issues.
Attached are two pictures showing what I'm taking about. The first picture is where it is supposed to be connected, the second picture is where I had it. Of course both connections utilize the same connector and I think that's what got me off track.




Anyway, I officially apologize for my ignorance and confusion, no excuse I suppose. The yellow circles are where you want the connectors and where I have the box mounted, the red is NOT where the MAP goes.

Convergence

Thanks for clarifying! User error...that happens. It's great that you were able to figure it out though. That said, how was the drive at 50%? Did the car seem livelier? I just got mine in today. However, my car will still be at the dealer service until Monday. The dealer was able to identify the rattle and creaky sound coming from the back window area, the driver seat, and the front dash area. Also, what totally blows is that the car had scratches on the alum panel and a slight nick on the driver side door when it was new. I didn't really notice the scratches until recently, when I was drying off the door after a rare Los Angeles rain storm.

Also, with the proper set up, is it necessary to splice the ground cable?

djprov431

I sent BMS an apology letter as well - the car runs beautifully at 50% once the tuner was installed correctly. Hopefully they can improve upon their instructions. I bet I'm not the first person to make this mistake and would bet that most folks that had issues with the tuner may have had it installed incorrectly....ya never know.

djprov431

Not necessary to splice the ground unless you want to mount the box remotely where I did - which I like. The supplied ground is wicked short which will not allow many options to mount the box in a convenient spot.
The car responds beautifully - she's got some umph and sounds totally different too - lots of waste gate noise, I like it.

djprov431

Well performance is definitely improved - in fact my girlfriend was in the car last night and she said "what did you do to the car, it puts you back in the seat when you get on it".... that's a rather good sign when your girl notices it.
I've been driving it at 50% for a few days now, no issues so this morning I'm bumping it to 60% to see how it responds.
On another note, BMS responded to my apology communication and asked for pictures where I had it mounted vice where it was supposed to go; I sent them the same pics from above and they were appreciative. They were also kind enough to ship me a new tuner box to replace the cover I lost in the engine bay no charge.
I'll report back soon to let you know if there was any change at 60%.

djprov431

I got into limp mode this morning after driving the car all day yesterday @ 60% - I was romping on it quite hard and I think it was a fluke since I didn't drive it any less hard yesterday. I'll leave it at 60% for the rest of the week and see if it hangs in there. No CEL's to speak of, the performance is much improved - it's a 4 banger on fire now!

greasykid

Have been following your discussion. Have 2013 C250Coupe. Pls send info on the xenon-halogen bulbs. Where to buy,price etc.

djprov431

http://www.bimmerxenon.com/

He runs Ebay ads, do a simple search for mercedes c250 xenon lights

Low beams were $50 shipped, running (the bulb next to the high beam) were $37 shipped

greasykid

Have Osram Rally 65w bulbs now. 2100 lumens. Pretty bright but not xenon.

As far as tuning; have been considering Eurocharged. Anybody have comments?

djprov431

The bulbs I installed are same as stock wattage (55w low beam) and are 6000K color (very bright white with a slight blue tint)

Eurocharged is an ECU flash, not a plug and play (removeable) tuner as far as I can tell. Price is about the same. I like plug and play.

Convergence

man oh man...this is sounding funner day by day. i can't wait to get my car back from the shop. as soon as i received my BMS tune, I opened up the case and changed it to 10%. Now I'm changing it back to the default 50% to start! Now if I can just get my car back so I can install this dadgum thing. The car is in the shop for an extra day because I'm going to geek out and have them install the Drive Kit Plus for iPhone (will provide my review on that once I get my car back and fiddle around with it).

djprov431

Latest update - 60% was good, but now that I've driven the car for a good amount of time with the tuner I could more easily detect some erratic boost at this set point. It doesn't happen all the time, in fact never if you have your foot in it...seems to only occur during "off and on" throttle applications or when you let off quickly. I scaled back the tune to 55% yesterday - still find it hunting or surging just a little bit unless you're really on the throttle. I may put it back to 50% as I didn't have any issues there to speak of....we'll see.

I also relocated my mount position as where I had it was a big heat sink. Since I have the extra length on the ground wire I moved it to right behind the driver side headlight. I zip tied it about 5" away from the tuner box to some cables running through there so that the box could 1) be in free air and 2)still have enough slack to open it up and adjust if needed. I like this location much better.

The next challenge I'm looking to do is to remove the stock airbox & tubing and get the BMS kone filter away from the engine heat and into free air. My current thought is to cut the 90 degree bend on the downstream side of the kone filter right at the front of the engine and mount the filter there, right in front of the stock air intake.

Fastnine

Ya +1 on Tampa benz being a cool dealer they do my car too and know about all my mods no problems with them.
I have one tech that works on my car there.

djprov431

Been a few weeks since my last update so here's the skinny -

Tuner is set at 50% - any more than that I will occasionally get erratic performance - at 50% it's spot on perfect in any RPM range and any gear. Great power, predictable and much improved performane out of the engine. This is in SPORT mode only.
In "E" mode, the tuner isn't helping at all - with the increased boost and short shift program of "E" mode there seems to be a sync issue with power vs. transmission - what I find is the turbo occillates (making too much power, then not enough) due to short shifting of the tranny in "E" mode. The catch is that it only does this from a dead stop when you actually want to get the car moving. If you drive it like an old lady, well then there's no issue. Once the car is up in 6th, 7th gears again there is no issue.
Moral of the story - I keep my car in SPORT mode almost exclusively and will either grab the upshift paddle twice if I'm on a long straight to get 7th gear or will click it into "E" mode if on the highway. If I stop it goes back to "S" and when I'm in my daily traffic (Tampa Bay area) it's always "S" mode.

The tuner does what it says and the power is so much better than stock - you just have to find that happy medium to what suits your driving style.

2014sportplus

Great write up brother. As I was reading your earlier posts I said to myself man forget this crappy tuner and I was about to close the page. Good thing I kept reading. LOL

I'll be ordering mine in next few days.

Convergence

So, after multiple trips to the dealer service for some mysterious noises coming from the back and a couple of earthquakes here in orange county (i was just a few miles from the epicenter), I finally had the time to install my tuner yesterday. I took a lot of your learnings djprov and started at 40% -- thanks for all your input!!! Gonna go conservative and I'll let the car learn from that setting for awhile and change to 50% later.

I have not driven enough to provide a proper review but first impressions (all in sports mode): I'm definitely feeling the extra ooomph off the line. When I'm about 3000 rpm and kick it in a little extra, it feels more responsive. however, when i'm at about 6000 rpm, it doesn't feel that much more different from stock. i think the benefit is definitely in the lower rpm band.

I think the way MB tuned the sports plus was pretty decent but the tuner made it that much more decent.

side note: i was lazy and delayed the ordering of the burger intake and after i ordered it, i got an email from them stating that they gave me a refund. apparently, California CARB made BMS stop selling their products unless it was for strict competition use. I'm glad I at least got the tuner before CARB started enforcing this upon BMS. I'll need to figure out a way to obtain the intake through other means...just a minor inconvenience.