[Watsey]

Originally Posted by G50

Just bought the license and maps on the black Friday deal.
Apparently my battery is too low to begin the flash.

Has anybody successfully flashed it while connected to a trickle charger?

A trickle charger won't supply the current required to flash the AT. Either give the battery a full charge using the charger, or take the car for a long drive to bring the state of charge back up to the required level.

It's good that XHP (I assume) is checking whether the battery can support the flashing process. You really don't want that process interrupted.

[SantaEugence]

Originally Posted by G50

Just bought the license and maps on the black Friday deal.
Apparently my battery is too low to begin the flash.

Has anybody successfully flashed it while connected to a trickle charger?

What was the total with the discount?

[Techno 9000]

£227 for 8 speed license and map pack is showing.

[jackstrath]

I still have yet to see if XHP actually makes the transmission shift faster.
Coming from a E91 335d with the 6 speed ZF XHP on it was night and day, and the draggy times confirmed it was quicker.

The 8 speed ZF is a super box from factory, im prob going to bite the builet as im stage 2 mapped and could do with the gearbox torque limiters getting out the road but im really shocked i havnt seen any back to back testing pre and post flashing XHP.

[anielsen71]

Originally Posted by jackstrath

I still have yet to see if XHP actually makes the transmission shift faster.
Coming from a E91 335d with the 6 speed ZF XHP on it was night and day, and the draggy times confirmed it was quicker.

The 8 speed ZF is a super box from factory, im prob going to bite the builet as im stage 2 mapped and could do with the gearbox torque limiters getting out the road but im really shocked i havnt seen any back to back testing pre and post flashing XHP.

Hi there
I too had it on an E model, but a 330d.
As you said, it was night and day.
At the beginning I too thought the 8 speed was really good and fast. It is compared to the old 6 speed but it can be better.
I got xHP on it for the removal of torque limiters but learned that the 8 speed actually has some sluggishness also.
Bite the bullet and get it done, you won't regret it.

[jcdub]

Originally Posted by jcdub

I contacted xHP. Hopefully they'll do a goodwill gesture..

No luck work a good will gesture

[Silverlining_m2]

How much better is xHP than bm3's transmission flash? I know xHP comes with a lot more options, but for what it is (raised torque limits and quicker shifts), bm3 trans tune seems to be doing great for me. At no point does it feel like the motor is going harder than the transmission can pull it, and I'm stage 2. In comfort it's perfect amd smooth, and in any mode (never used eco even once) with the stick to left in sport transmission, it shifts hard and fast. I'm not comparing because I've never used xHP but I'm curious if anyone has tried both?

[winther1]

Originally Posted by Techno 9000

£227 for 8 speed license and map pack is showing.

Do you have a link?

[Techno 9000]

It's on the last page...

[gippy]

Originally Posted by G50

Just bought the license and maps on the black Friday deal.
Apparently my battery is too low to begin the flash.

i'm in the same situation, the discount i'd hoped for came, purchased it, whipped my multimeter out, only to read 11.85V at a fuse.
i'm gonna follow the keis motorsport vid and buy the cheapest 25amp charger i can find.
or use a 4amp charger i have lying around and wait for ages?

[winther1]

Can't you leave the car running?

[G50]

Originally Posted by gippy

i'm in the same situation, the discount i'd hoped for came, purchased it, whipped my multimeter out, only to read 11.85V at a fuse.
i'm gonna follow the keis motorsport vid and buy the cheapest 25amp charger i can find.
or use a 4amp charger i have lying around and wait for ages?

I think the issue for me was the car had been stood overnight at 2-4 degrees C and batteries don't like cold. I went for a 40 mile drive (to pick a trickle charger up from my dad) came back and decided to give it a go without the charger as it would be a pain to run probably two extension cords from the house to be able to put the charger on the car, leaving a door or window open at near freezing temps, and I like to live life on the edge

Anyway, straight after the drive I tried to flash and it worked, only took 5mins, no issues.

Stage 3, went for a bit of a drive, was definitely smoother shifting, mostly used manual mode as I wanted to give it a bit and my logic guessed that manual mode wouldn't effect adaptations too much. The biggest thing I noticed was how immediate the power was delivered from a standing start with the TC playing a smaller role.
Shifts were faster, but not night and day as its already a quick transmission, and in S+ I was expecting the up changes to feel harder than before but if anything felt smoother and slightly blurred which was weird.
Need to spend more time with it though, got some big journeys coming up and also waiting on my new sump and filter to be delivered so I can change the ATF.

winther1 No you can't flash with the engine running. A bit like you can't surf the Internet while changing the settings in the bios of your PC (for you old school overclockers)

[Watsey]

Originally Posted by G50

I think the issue for me was the car had been stood overnight at 2-4 degrees C and batteries don't like cold. I went for a 40 mile drive (to pick a trickle charger up from my dad) came back and decided to give it a go without the charger as it would be a pain to run probably two extension cords from the house to be able to put the charger on the car, leaving a door or window open at near freezing temps, and I like to live life on the edge

Anyway, straight after the drive I tried to flash and it worked, only took 5mins, no issues.

Stage 3, went for a bit of a drive, was definitely smoother shifting, mostly used manual mode as I wanted to give it a bit and my logic guessed that manual mode wouldn't effect adaptations too much. The biggest thing I noticed was how immediate the power was delivered from a standing start with the TC playing a smaller role.
Shifts were faster, but not night and day as its already a quick transmission, and in S+ I was expecting the up changes to feel harder than before but if anything felt smoother and slightly blurred which was weird.
Need to spend more time with it though, got some big journeys coming up and also waiting on my new sump and filter to be delivered so I can change the ATF.

winther1 No you can't flash with the engine running. A bit like you can't surf the Internet while changing the settings in the bios of your PC (for you old school overclockers)

After the flash you're meant to drive the car sedately for 50 miles, with lots of coasting.

The AT definitely goes through some adaptation changes during this period (and beyond) and you should be able to notice the differences.

[gippy]

well all is fine. I had a 20 min journey, reading was 12.2V. Left it 15 minutes, and it still read 12.15.
So i think its fine, a 20 min blast will do if the car has been standing overnight.
can't wait to to give this a go now!

[NanasBack]

Flashing the ecu doesn't take a lot of power.

The drain on the battery is caused by all the other stuff which is powered up.

The ignition has to be on. Nothing you can do about that.

But:-
Headlight switch to off.
Switch the DRL's off (if it's an option).
Close the doors so the courtesy lights are not on.
Switch iDrive display off.
Switch the radio off.
Switch the heater fan off.
Don't have anything plugged into USB ports.
Disconnect cameras if fitted.

Connect the trickle charger anyway, after a good run.

12.1V is not a very good state of charge.

[APJ]

Originally Posted by NanasBack

Flashing the ecu doesn't take a lot of power.

The drain on the battery is caused by all the other stuff which is powered up.

The ignition has to be on. Nothing you can do about that.

But:-
Headlight switch to off.
Switch the DRL's off (if it's an option).
Close the doors so the courtesy lights are not on.
Switch iDrive display off.
Switch the radio off.
Switch the heater fan off.
Don't have anything plugged into USB ports.
Disconnect cameras if fitted.

Connect the trickle charger anyway, after a good run.

12.1V is not a very good state of charge.

I'd also connect the seat belt or if you have a child seat and a seat belt extender, then use the extender on the driver's seat, that should stop the dash timing out. They are always worth having anyway for the odd time you do any coding, Ali Express do a seat belt plug for about £1.70, you can even get one with the M Performance or M Power written on.

[SantaEugence]

Think I'm going to have to bite the bullet on this.
No idea what my Alpina flash is playing at but in Sport+ it just doesn't like to upshift on full throttle. Just now it took the car to redline and just bounced off the limiter I had to manually put it up grr

[SkyJawa]

Originally Posted by SantaEugence

Think I'm going to have to bite the bullet on this.
No idea what my Alpina flash is playing at but in Sport+ it just doesn't like to upshift on full throttle. Just now it took the car to redline and just bounced off the limiter I had to manually put it up grr

This could well be a 330 thing, the alpina map is designed for a 335 engine which revs higher and has 345bhp....

Never had that in my 335d.....

[SantaEugence]

Originally Posted by SkyJawa

This could well be a 330 thing, the alpina map is designed for a 335 engine which revs higher and has 345bhp....

Never had that in my 335d.....

Yes I think it could be, it's mapped but still not Alpina power, although people with the 35d mapped don't have this problem so not sure.
I don't plant it in sport+ very often and I use the paddles when I do just frustrating!

[gippy]

Thought i'd write this to help the British find the cheapest way to flash xHP.

If like me you have a pixel3 or similar......you cannot use ENET because there's no way to manually set the static ip for the cable to work.

If like me you also don't want to spend £70+ on another obd adapter, or the stupid expensive bimmergeeks advertised cable (no. not paying 60 euros out of principle), then the mission is to find a DCAN cable that isn't overpriced.
I also didn't want to wirelessly flash anything in the car, wireless connections can be sketchy and you can never beat a hardwired connection for reliability (though i'm sure the wireless ones work fine...just not something i'd dabble with)

I found one that works.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-cable...72.m2749.l2649

There are tons more on amazon, but i couldn't find out whether any DCAN cable would work (with 232 chip/switch) or whether the chip had to be specific so that it would work with models in later years.
(would be good to know if anyone has the answer to this - maybe one of the amazon cables would work?)
went for the ebay one purely because the seller had literally titled it 'for xHP'......i sent him a message as i was a bit cynical, and he confirmed it would deffo work for my 2016 car.. and it did. So well done to him, and it only cost £20.

The next step was finding a cheap but adequate charger. The cheapest one i could find that could provide 30A was this
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-24V-B...72.m2749.l2649

And finally the other thing to be aware of - if your car is parked outside the house, which i assume everyones is...... then chances are your wifi speed on your phone isn't great unless your router is near the car. Mine wasn't, i had to dig up an old router, set it up as an access point downstairs, and connect to its network instead.......that increased my signal strength by about 20% and meant the app could then download the 30mb file it needed. Bit annoying that you can't just download it before going to the car.

After all that i could finally flash xHP.

1st flash took about 17mins, so the initial prediction the app displays was pretty accurate. It got to 92% then showed 'flash successful'.
A subsequent flash to change some custom settings took 3 minutes.
During the flash process, a transmission drivetrain error pops up on idrive and remains there for sometime, but appears to be part of the process and when the flash was over everything was fine.

During the process the ampmeter on my battery charge was hovering around 20A, fell to about 18A, and at around 85% the needle fell to 0. I panicked thinking the charger had tripped, but it hadn't...i think the battery was full so stopped drawing current. Car hadn't been used for over 18 hours so the battery charger did its job.

After the 'run-in' period i'm going to hook up my camera again and record the shifts to understand how much quicker the shifts are, working it out from the video frames. I've documented it in stock already so will be interesting to compare.
stay tuned!

[Watsey]

I wouldn't bother trying use a camera to work out any differences in the shift speeds.

The rev counter is electronic and only provides an indication of the gear ratio being used - it's not instantaneous and I often notice a distinct lag between the mechanical change of gear ratio and what's actually displayed in the dash.

[The Flasher]

Originally Posted by gippy

Snip

1st flash took about 17mins, so the initial prediction the app displays was pretty accurate.

Snip

Amazing the differences people find. Full install for me using my android phone and a wireless connection is 7 minutes. I hooked up my battery charger the first time but have never bothered since even for a full uninstall.