[SflBimmer8484]

Originally Posted by tdott

Is there an option to turn off the burble? Sounds terrible imo.

Yes when it comes to burbles you can turn it off completely, leave it factory or we can adjust it to your liking.

In eco mode we tame it way down and it gets louder when you jump into sport.

[dcmac]

Quick update:

Car was super strong at SCCA Track Night yesterday at High Plains Raceway CO.

It was incredibly hot for all three sessions (100deg+) and I pushed the car as hard as possible with no problems whatsoever with power, heatsoak, fueling etc.

Only issue I did have was the tire pressure monitor going off and locking me into Comfort mode for most of session two, which sucked. I deflated too far after first session and couldn’t reset until pitting.

Only other issue is my helmet is so insulated it dulls the glorious roar of the exhaust

Overall, very happy. The car is a beast. I am grabbing some GoPro gear off a mate tomorrow and will have some exhaust vids up soon.

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[beppeM3+123d]

Originally Posted by tdott

Is there an option to turn off the burble? Sounds terrible imo.

Nice burble but you have problem with kombi something in the coding is wrong, the gear is missing

[dcmac]

Originally Posted by beppeM3+123d

Nice burble but you have problem with kombi something in the coding is wrong, the gear is missing

Not sure what you mean?

[ceedawg]

Man this is one sweet write up!! Too bad the warranty issue haunts me too!

[FSociety]

Originally Posted by ceedawg

Man this is one sweet write up!! Too bad the warranty issue haunts me too!

Get a camry

[ceedawg]

Originally Posted by FSociety

Get a camry

Thank you Rob!,, Jeez

[beppeM3+123d]

Originally Posted by dcmac

Not sure what you mean?

I mean that this gear indicator is missing on your cluster and seems a problem of coding/software

[dcmac]

Originally Posted by beppeM3+123d

I mean that this gear indicator is missing on your cluster and seems a problem of coding/software

That’s not a coding problem, that’s a suggested upshift feature you can turn off via the iDrive menu. I got sick of BMW telling me which gear to drive in to save fuel, so I turned it off.

[beppeM3+123d]

Originally Posted by dcmac

That’s not a coding problem, that’s a suggested upshift feature you can turn off via the iDrive menu. I got sick of BMW telling me which gear to drive in to save fuel, so I turned it off.

Ah ok! I didn't know that you can remove I was thinking that know the gear in could be nice also in race use, the bigger info in F1 display steering is the gear.....!

[dcmac]

Originally Posted by beppeM3+123d

Ah ok! I didn't know that you can remove I was thinking that know the gear in could be nice also in race use, the bigger info in F1 display steering is the gear.....!

Yes I would like it if it showed the gear "in use" but unfortunately it usually shows the gear it "wants you to be in for fuel efficiency" eg... 4th when you're in 3rd, which I found highly annoying, like it was scolding me for wasting fuel.

A few times on track this week I would have appreciated a quick glance at the dials to see my gear in use, but of course it's no biggie... your hand on the shifter should be able to tell

[beppeM3+123d]

Originally Posted by dcmac

Yes I would like it if it showed the gear "in use" but unfortunately it usually shows the gear it "wants you to be in for fuel efficiency" eg... 4th when you're in 3rd, which I found highly annoying, like it was scolding me for wasting fuel.

A few times on track this week I would have appreciated a quick glance at the dials to see my gear in use, but of course it's no biggie... your hand on the shifter should be able to tell

I am pretty sure with coding you can remove gear suggestion and leave gear in

[dcmac]

Ok, so I took some GoPro footage today but the audio quality isn't great, which is to be expected given its mic is covered by a plastic case... the burbles sound tinny and are a poor representation of the deep crackle and pop you hear in reality.

But hopefully the clip gives you an idea of the tone of the exhaust under load. As with most exhaust videos, it sounds 1 million times better in real life

[Thescout13]

Awesome review. Love the guys at Active. They used my father's E36 back in the 90s to develop one of their turbo platforms. Growing up in Miami I would always swing by to see what they were working on as a kid. Great guys and owners.

[Lukeni]

Are there any 62-124mph / 100-200kph runtimes for this tune?

[dcmac]

Originally Posted by Lukeni

Are there any 62-124mph / 100-200kph runtimes for this tune?

I don’t have them but David@Active might

[fleetfoot]

FYI: this will be a detailed post to help anyone struggling with the at home flashing process

Purchase Process
I got my M2 used and it came with a Dinantronics tuner (which tricks the ECU into adding 2-4psi of boost, but doesn't do anything smarter). I used the Dinantronics for a couple weeks, and the extra boost was pretty impressive but after a 2 hour mountain run in 65 degree humid conditions, it threw a CEL, and I immediately removed it.

My M2 also has an Evolution Racewerks FMIC and charge pipe along with a Fabspeed sport cat. The stock M2 cold start is a little loud, but with the sport cat it's REALLY obnoxious and my neighbors were complaining. So getting the cold start deleted was my primary motivation for getting an ECU tune since I feel like my M2 already has too much power for driving on the street.

I've had a very reliable AA tune on the N52 in my 328i for 5+ years, so when I started to consider doing a tune on my M2, AA was top of my list. They developed their M2 tune using their track car in hot/humid conditions, which is how I intend to use my car as well, so AA seemed like a good choice. They're also one of the few that will do a cold start delete, which sealed the deal.

I considered having Harrison Motorsports here in Atlanta apply the tune for me since they are AA-authorized, but they were going to charge over $200 in labor and needed the car all day. So I decided to buy the $175 self-install option from AA and just do the flash at home. I'm a cybersecurity engineer and I've flashed my wife's Mazda, so I figured doing the work myself would be easy enough.

After a bunch of back and forth, I decided on the following setup:
-track power profile (less aggressive increases for more reliability)
-burble delete (they saw burbles increasing exhaust temps)
-cold start delete

Femto Install Process
Up until this point the experience had been great, but the flashing process wasn't quite what I was expecting. This was the full extent of the instructions I had received:
-Click the following link to download the software you'll need to read
and write to your BMW for tuning
-Once the enet cable is connected and the Femto software started, click
ZGW detect.
-The previously empty box in the top left will populated with an IP
address.
-Next click Identify, the VIN should load below, as well as all relevant
DME software info.
-Finally, click Virtual Read and save the file. If for any reason the
virtual read is not available, proceed with a full read. Send the file
to softwaresupport@activeautowerke.com.

I downloaded the software...and immediately got a Microsoft Defender Anti-Virus warning that there was a malicious trojan on my machine. Yikes! I reached out to AA and the next day they informed me that this was normal. A heads up on this would have been most appreciated, since as a cybersecurity pro this kinda stuff makes me nervous. After downloading the file again, and running it...nothing happened. I ended up having to create about 5 different exceptions in Windows Defender Anti-Virus for different files it thought were malicious. After creating all those exceptions, the software finally ran and the Femto user interface appeared.

Flashing Process
Next, I connected my battery trickle charger to my car. Then I plugged the AA OBDII cable into an ethernet port on my computer (note: this is NOT a USB cable) and plugged the other end into the OBD port under my dash. I pressed the "ZGW Detect" button in Femto...and nothing. Since this was running over ethernet, I went to cmd line and ran ipconfig and saw that the ethernet interface didn't have an IP address assigned. After this I tried a bunch of things including running a Windows network repair tool, but I'm not sure if this was necessary or not. I still couldn't get an IP address.

When updating my Mazda's firmware earlier this year, I had to put the car in accessory mode (press ignition once dash lit up and running lights on) so even though AA didn't mention anything about that in their instructions, I figured I'd give that a go. Once I was in accessory mode, and ran "ZGW Detect" it finally got an IP address. I quickly downloaded my current ECU file and emailed it over to AA. 24 hours later I had an updated file back from them, but no additional instructions.

I went ahead and did the same process from before:
1) attach trickle charger
2) turn on accessory mode
3) plug in OBD cable
4) run Femto
5) press "ZGW Detect"
6) press "identify"
7) press "write tune" (I think that's what the button said)
8) select the ecu file that AA had provided

And away we went. There are 4 stages to the install and it got through 3 of them very quickly. My car made a whirring noise the whole time (I'm not sure what from). But at stage 4, the whirring suddenly stopped, and then a minute later my lights went out, and then after another minute or so my dash went dark, and the process was stuck for about 10 minutes. I kept hoping something would happen, but eventually Femto popped up a failure message. Yikes again!!

Programming ECU, please wait...
Switching ignition, please wait...
Step 1 of 4...
Step 2 of 4...
Step 3 of 4...
Step 4 of 4...
ERROR: Socket closed

Switching ignition, please wait...
Error! Please disable any other coding/programming/diagnostic software and press "Identify" again.
A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host 169.254.103.85:6801

It appeared that the car had turned it self off mid-update, which is generally really bad since it can brick a computer. But I decided to try again and hope for the best. I remembered from the Mazda update that I had to press the brake pedal every few minutes to keep the car from falling asleep, so I tried that in hopes that it would work here too (even though AA didn't mention anything about this). Fortunately, it worked! I ran through the process above adding the brake presses while the files were uploading. There were numerous errors for "chassis calibration" and "parking sensors" on my dash during the update, but they all cleared. After about 7 minutes, it was done! This is the full list of status message for my successful attempt:

Checking, please wait...
Programming ECU, please wait...
Switching ignition, please wait...
Step 1 of 4...
Step 2 of 4...
Step 3 of 4...
Step 4 of 4...
Finalizing...
Restoring coding, please wait...
Switching ignition, please wait...
Done.

Driving Impressions
The car started right up, and the startup process is very quiet now so the neighbors will be happy I recorded a "before" video and once I have an "after" I'll post it here.

I have a manual transmission on all my cars, but the M2 shifts have always been a little jerky even after I did the CDV delete. This tune has totally solved that problem. The throttle seems a bit less sensitive but more linear so smooth shifts are a breeze.

Driving through the neighborhood, there's a bit of overrun when you let off the throttle but no extended burbles. Just what I wanted.

Out on the highway, I went into Sport mode and opened it up. The power in 1st and 2nd gears is impressive, but I wasn't able to push the car hard enough to say how much better it feels compared to stock. In 4th gear at 45mph with WOT, it didn't feel like there was the same overboost sensation I had while stock, but I'll need to test this again to confirm.

I've always felt like my M2 had some minor stuttering during hard acceleration (compared to my 328i). In my limited testing, this seems to have been resolved by the AA tune. But I'll have to do some more testing here too.

Conclusion
I feel good about my purchase, and I'm looking forward to pushing my car harder in the mountains and on the track to see what the new power profile really looks like. The cold start and burble deletes have made this car much more fit for daily driving. And I appreciate the smoother throttle.

However, I was pretty disappointed in the flashing experience, which I could have skipped if I'd paid Harrison to do the install and sat around all day. But I think AA has the ability to make this user flashing process a LOT better if they try. My experience was WAY more stressful than it needed to be from the virus alerts and thinking I might have bricked my ECU. My recommendations to AA would be:
1) Update your software so it doesn't get flagged as a trojan, or at least give your customers a heads up that this is going to happen so they aren't worried they just got hacked.
2) Provide more comprehensive instructions. I didn't get a full guide and I couldn't find one anywhere on the internet. Although there appears to be an old one for the Simon cable that AA used previously.
3) In those instructions, users should be instructed to put the car in accessory mode and make sure the car doesn't fall asleep by tapping the brake pedal every few minutes.

I'll post some more thoughts here after my mountain run this weekend. Hopefully all good things!

[mike@x-ph.com]

Thank you for taking the time and posting a detailed review

[AmuroRay]

I’d be interested in an actual dyno to see the shape of the power curve. I had seen very…unfavorable results on multiple platforms, including the E46 M52tu/M54 - where Active’s tune made less than the antiqued Sharkinjector, and on the N52 where is again made less power and torque than comparable tunes. I’m not even worried about absolute power, I just want to see what’s sold in comparison to the stock tune.

And for a company that’s so focused on a ‘track able’ setup, their intercooler is WOEFULLY inadequate.

[fleetfoot]

Originally Posted by AmuroRay

I’d be interested in an actual dyno to see the shape of the power curve.

I'm also very interested to see a before/after dyno as well. I think we'd see a dip in torque down low and an increase in HP up top.

After driving with my new AA tune for 2 hours in the mountains this morning, here's what I noticed:
1) Shifting smoothly is easier as the throttle is less "touchy". I asked AA if they messed with throttle sensitivity but they said no they just made the power more smooth...which is a bit vague. But I'm going to assume that they are making less torque down low, which makes the throttle smoother.
2) There doesn't seem to be quite as much midrange "punch" when the boost hits when punching the throttle at mid-range rpms. There doesn't seem to be as much of that overboost that used to provide that extra oomph the first time you go WOT in a selected gear.
3) Because of #1 and #2 above, the car feels less dramatic and frenetic. However the power delivery seems much more linear than before and builds impressively at the top end.
4) I had zero reliability issues on my drive today. Although I did still get some of that shuddering/vibration I felt previously with my stock tune. So I guess that's normal for the N55?

If you like having low-end punch for around town driving, the AA tune may take your N55 the wrong direction. But if you want an N55 with more predictable power and reliability during extended driving sessions in the mountains and on the track, then I think this tune is a decent upgrade. However, I think some of my M2's other upgrades have provided greater enjoyment/$ though, so I'd save this upgrade for last if funds permit.

[booya_45]

Good review. I have the AA tune as well. I track the car 6-8 weekends per year and the car has been very reliable. Unfortunately I did not get a before/after dyno, but could physically feel the difference post tune.

I do agree that AA should be more informative in their directions for installation as I had an issue as well due to incomplete directions provided. Issue was quickly and easily resolved via telephone.

[fleetfoot]

Originally Posted by booya_45

Good review. I have the AA tune as well. I track the car 6-8 weekends per year and the car has been very reliable. Unfortunately I did not get a before/after dyno, but could physically feel the difference post tune.

I do agree that AA should be more informative in their directions for installation as I had an issue as well due to incomplete directions provided. Issue was quickly and easily resolved via telephone.

Nice! I started tracking my e92 328i this year, but I'm planning to get my m2 out there once I'm more experienced. How much of a handful is the m2 on the track? The back end is so much more loose than my 328i rear end on the street, so I can only imagine that will be challenging on the track.

Also, do you feel that little sustained shuddering sometimes under full throttle or is that just my car?