AlexZTuned

Excellent, thanks!

RDOCA

Mostly the same but the m178 has a dry sump and has a different tune with less torque.

blaferty

Are sensors #2 & #3 noted as Intercooler outlets in the instructions actually Boost pressure sensors?

Dinian is solid company, but pricing seems to include Mercedes tax & Dinan tax.

Similar product primarily made by DTE & marketed by a few others provides equal performance
for less than half the price. I guess the 'warranty' is worth the difference.

digitalnav

Its pretty much the warranty thing. If my engine blows or turbos blow, etc due to the tune and Mercedes doesn't want to cover it, ill be glad i paid a little more for warranty from DINAN.

That said.. DINAN, do I need to remove the box everytime i take the car to the dealer? IM sure if they see it once theyll mark the car modded in the MBUSA system.

skim7x

With Dinan warranty, why does it matter if you get flagged or not. That's the beauty. Leave the piggy back in, and if MB says is piggy-back related problem, Dinan covers it.

18bora

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sound like "Dinan products" only warranted not the rest of the car, and "Dinan products" warranty is limited to the length of the manufacturer warranty. If so, there is nothing special about this warranty, every company out there "warranty" their own products.

amg8

How does work in terms of the modes we have? Will we essentially lose the comfort mode acceleration which I would like to keep. Or can this be targeted to only Sport+/Race mode?

vaelin

You stand corrected. Dinan's warranty mirrors the factory warranty in the case of issues the manufacturer refuses to repair due to the Dinan mods. Dinan of course will assess if the issue really resulted from the mod, and if so, will cover repairs.

So it *is* something special; few other tuning outfits do this.

vaelin

No change to the modes; I run Comfort while driving my kid to work and/or stuck on 101 traffic. Pop into Individual (basically set to Sport+ and Comfort suspension) for day-to-day, and Race when I feel.. frisky. Each has noticeable increase in throttle response/torque/power, but not at the sacrifice of the intent of each mode.

vaelin

This x1000.

Of course, this all assumes that you've had it properly installed and weren't doing something dumb like running 87 octane.

18bora

Since it's a piggyback, if something blows up under the "mirrored warranty", people will just yank it out and take it the dealer. The "warranty" is written to sound "special" when it's actually average product warranty.
If they warranty it on a car out of manufacturer warranty, now that's special. At any rate, this is a "mild" tune and chances of anything going wrong is very rare. I'm just pointing out the inflated "warranty"

vaelin

Dealers are a bit smarter than yester-years. There'll be evidence that you've had a piggyback, even if you yank it out completely. Our ECUs keep track of a lot of information and logs. In the case that the dealer does determine you had a mod prior that caused the issue, this is where the mirrored warranty comes into play. It's not 'just' a product warranty (workmanship, etc.). It's certainly not 'inflated', because it is a rider on top of your existing manufacturer warranty, and it's spelled out in the warranty terms. Perhaps you should read it in full. This is why there's such a level of excitement; the only other tuners that do this have been ECU bench-flash tunes (or Brabus' ridiculously overpriced piggy).

Yes, this is a mild tune, intended for those of us who aren't ready to take the plunge into FBO aftermarket without a safety net.

18bora

If the piggyback is designed to fool the ECU, will the ECU log actual numbers or the ones it was fooled to see?

vaelin

It logs that there was a delta reported by the sensors, and that it attempted to compensate. For example, ECU sent one value, piggy intercepted and boosted it, then a downstream sensor detected a delta from an expected value. I see it all the time with my OBDII scanner.

No actual harm or CEL, but it does log it. And you can clear the log, but it'll be obvious to the dealer that it was cleared. I've confirmed it in the past before with my dealer when I had another piggyback tune. My dealer is pretty mod friendly so they don't care and as long as you don't try to test their intelligence, they're actually pretty magnanimous about it all. In the end the dealer doesn't really care, it's MBUSA's warranty dept that does, and the dealer has to clear any warranty repairs through them.

18bora

Thanks for the info, but at this point and considering the price, might as well go for a full "proper" tune that will add more hp and remove the top speed governor. However, I can see the advantage of removing this afterward, selling it and recovering some of your money back.

vaelin

Yep, definite advantages to a full ECU bench flash tune over piggybacks. But that's a different ballgame altogether. No point to doing that unless you're going to have supporting mods that require it, because pulling the ECU is a PITA. If you're just doing mild mods like intake/exhaust (not DPs) a piggyback is more than sufficient. And this is the best one (yes, I'm biased) out of the bunch, in terms of gains and warranty.

amg8

Hey Vaelin, seeing how our cars dynamically adapt to our driving styles and tones it down if we granny it, does having this piggyback still do the same or does it stay aggressive from the day you installed it till now?

vaelin

It's still a fire-breathing monster. Turbo whine is way more pronounced. Exhaust pops are loud as heck. And I don't even have an aftermarket exhaust. Torque surges from 2k RPMs.

I'm more than satisfied. If I hadn't gotten to be the test platform, I'd still spend the 2.2k on this for myself.

ezatnova

Any data on what boost this is running (peak and across the band)? Sorry if I missed it, I did read through the product page.

Vaelin, I was curious about the exhaust sound/pops. So you think they got louder? Was thinking it could definitely mess with it one way or another via the fuel mix MB AMG is using in the “exhaust update” that causes the pops to return.

Periokid

I have a 63 not a 63S. Does the product yield the same final output regardless of S vs non S?

thadoggfatha

So happy to see Dinan enter the mod scene for MB, hopefully will drive the cost of parts down! Makes the wait towards getting my c63s even harder to bear!

KJ

One thing about a Tuner warranty is that you have to prove that their part caused the failure in order for them to cover the repairs.

If your turbo blows, the dealer will blame your Piggyback and the tuner will blame a faulty turbo. You'll be stuck in the middle with neither side taking responsibility.

skim7x

yup... Same engine, same map.

digitalnav

DINAN?

vaelin

Nate's on vacation until the 16th, per his prior post, so he's prob not going to respond until then.

But it's been outlined in the other thread and spelled out in the warranty details: If MBUSA decides to not warranty a repair, Dinan will have their authorized shops inspect and determine the reason for failure, then go from there.

In a rock/hard place world, yeah, it could happen. Once you start piling in various aftermarket goods from various vendors, it blends together. A chunk of that aftermarket filter could break, get sucked into the turbos that are running at higher pressures due to your aftermarket tune, causing them to fail. Who's to blame? The installer of the filter who overtorqued the box? The manufacturer of the filter? The tuner who increased the pressure of the turbos such that premature wear increased the likelihood of failure?

Or the person sitting behind the wheel knowingly installing this aftermarket stuff, but not willing to take any responsibility?

Gotta pay to play. Insurance policies (warranties) don't remove the responsibility from the owner.