Has anyone thought of chipping the 250 in Canada or the US for even better power/fuel economy?

It looks like Brabus has a plug in ECU that gives an extra 31 HP and 60NM of Torque (413 Lb- ft)

It should get better Mileage as well...

 

even better if it disables the adblue requirement

 

Within some "limits" you can get a turbo-charged engine to produce as much power as you want. How long would you like your engine to last? That's the real consideration.

"It should get better Mileage as well..." - Do you really think M-B do not know how to get the best out of this engine - their engine?

 

Basically what chipping does is run it a little bit leaner and increases the boost pressure.

In most cases with Turbo Diesels - Chipping has led to better fuel economy - mainly due to running leaner - which yes can lead to less Engine Logevity - however there are so many sensors that the engine should be able to protect itself.

 

"Chipping" can lean out the mixture, raise the redline or increase boost. Running leaner does not typically increase power unless the mixture was overly rich. The sensors may do things to protect the engine and then will probably be defeating the purpose of "chipping."

In the early 80's BMW's Formula 1 engine produced about 1300 hp in qualifying trim. It was a turbocharged 4-cylinder 1.5 liter engine. Sometimes it lasted the entire 2 hour race. Sometimes it did not.

There is no free lunch.

 

In todays market chipping is fine, it is a remap and on most Mercedes diesel products they tend to get about 10% increase in power and torque, not 25% as with other makes. The thing is remaps are usually very safe, tuning "boxes" and other plug devices are not, they are not nearly as smart and interfere with sensor readings/maps without any safeguards or inout outside of the one thing they are changing. I doubt there are any products available in north america yet for the 250, it is just too new! They will arrive shortly I am sure from many different tuners. A good tuner can write anything you want into the reflash, ex different egr cycles or turn it off, adblue delete etc, dynamic idle (faster idle when cold), lots of neat things can be done with a good tuner that can really add to the enjoyment of driving the vehicle and prolong engine life (by keeping the intake cleaner etc). What you do with your own vehicle is up to you, anyone can blow up a factory tuned engine if they try hard enough, the flash tune has nothing to do with how you treat your engine!

 

You are correct in that there is no free lunch. However, the cost you pay is not necessarily more than the monetary price of the ECU remapping. Your point is well taken that operating outside the manufacturer's preset parameters can affect engine longevity. However, a reputable tuner can do impressive things without significantly affecting the engine.

You previously asked, " Do you really think M-B do not know how to get the best out of this engine - their engine?" I'm sure they do, and I'm sure they have reasons (as any car manufacturer does) for their decisions for a production car. That does not mean, however, that the engine and tuning they deliver to you is as perfect as it could be. There are wide safety margins, and while you "pay to play," it shouldn't be thought that nothing can improve on MB's designs without significant drawbacks.

I'm not sure what your experiences with ECU tuning have been, but mine have been excellent given the appropriate company. And based on the massive amounts of user feedback to be found in some of the tuning forums, it seems like I'm not an outlier. Granted, this forum does not lend itself to tuning as there don't seem to be many users with that interest here, but with other cars (and other sections of the mercedes forums), there's a lot of talk of this sort of thing.

I used to have a WRX and used a Cobb AccessPort (ECU remapping via complete flash with off-the shelf maps). Great results, and their legacy is firmly established now. So when they started support for the N54 engine, I jumped at it for my 335. Prior to this, I was using a plug-in (Burger Motorsports' JuiceBox+). Both methods have involved conservative changes, and more aggressive changes with the Cobb tune do require further hardware (FMIC, larger capacity oil cooler, downpipes). I researched both extensively and held off until I could take measure of the company, talked with their support, and read through reams and reams user discussion on sites like wrxtuners or bimmerpost (or n54tuning).

As houseofdiesel indicated, the 250 is too new for there to be truly tested tunes. But there likely will be tunes that will come out for it. If you do your homework, and you accept that you "pay to play," it's not something all that frightening.

Your tone made it sound like MB has done everything exactly right and there can be no improvement on what they've done (or that any "improvement" comes at larger cost). I think that's what I disagree with (respectfully). There are no guarantees in life, but I don't think ECU tuning is inherently dangerous. I also believe that you can have a tune that improves every aspect without sacrificing longevity. Simply put, M-B may have designed the engine, but that doesn't mean they are giving the best possible intersection of performance and engine longevity to the consumer. If you're a large company and want the least headache, you'll skew towards reducing performance even if the gains in longevity are only in the theoretical realm and not proven.

TL;DR: ECU tuning is safe from a reputable company. Car companies are super cautious with what they give a consumer.

 

Everybody has, and is entitled to, their beliefs :-)

 

well... a couple of things... if you consider "chipping" then you should have a shirt sleeves agreement with your dealer 1st - the MB diagnostic scan will kick back unrecognized as far as engine softrware updates... and one push of the MB button will reboot a fresh OE map and your tune could be out-the-window.

If you are going to chip - then wait - in about a year a "chipped? ECM should be down to $600 range or below.. all the tuning guys, including Brabus and Renntech are being beasty about their prices at the moment...,

 

Manufacturers have lots of reasons for doing what they do, and most car enthusiasts are not a good example of the typical mb customer. For example, changing the engine mapping to give it more power could result in it being not as smooth in it's power deliver. Or sometimes the torque curve won't be as flat. While this may result in a better quarter mile time, in regular every day driving for the average driver, it probably will be worse. If you want your GLK to drive like a sports car, then maybe it's a good idea. Most GLK owners probably prefer their car to drive like a smooth luxury car.

 

Another reason to reflash also for north american market vehicles is to get european levels of power, typically our market has detuned software due to lower quality fuels and longer maintenace intervals/less knowledgable owners. Sometimes this also involves hardware like a slightly different turbo part number or intake/exhaust tuning but usually software is the biggest difference. We get one option for engine power here, in europe there is often two or three different power options on the same engine, VW also does this in europe but not here. We always get the shaft on diesels with choices...atleast Mercedes is offering 4matic with diesels now but still no manual trans diesels in anything from europe (aside from a front drive Golf/Jetta).
To say throttle response is different or torque curves not as flat is not entirely true, that is usually the case with extreme tunes, but most off the shelf reflashes have similar driving experience on diesels, usually with a quicker throttle response over factory tune but no loss of torque or rough driving patterns, diesels respond very well to most tunes. Gas engines are entirely different, especially non turbo.

 

BMS Burger tunning has a plug and play chip that works with both v6 bluetec and the 2.1 I4.

 

Anyone have an update, im trying to convince my wife to buy one but she said it felt underpowered.

 

Here you go !

http://www.racechip.com/chiptuning/m...50kw/index.php

 

TriCore ARM is the only way to go for a MB... really...