Who has the best bang for you buck tuner with the most hp gains

Not speaking of hard mods. I'm talking strictly tuning. There's the same amount of parts for the speed that there most other cars. I'm just talking about getting as much out of a tune as some of the other turbo cars. If the speed 3 is just that much tuned already and not much room to work, that's one thing, but I'm not sure if I buy that. But I have no tuning backround, so I guess I'll just have to do my hardware mods first and see if any tuners or chips come out that are any better when I'm ready to purchase mine.

Its the engine. Its a direct injection engine boosting high at stock psi that simply can't handle too much power or it will explode. Thats what it comes down to. There are several companies with speed 3/6 tuning options available. XEDE, CPE, COBB, and unichip.
 
When comparing the Speed 3 with the 335i, one important thing has not been mentioned, and it's a pretty big one in the comparison. The BMW is rear wheel drive, we are front wheel drive. That makes a huge difference in traction when trying to launch hard for quarter mile comparisons.

Adding more power by chip or with other mods does not change the way the power gets transmitted to the ground. Front wheel drive is just way more difficult for launch. The weight transfer is going away from the drive tires and decreasing traction. On rear wheel drive cars, the weight transfer from front to rear at launch helps traction.

So, if the objective is to get good 60 ft. times or even 0-60, the problem is not power for us -- it is traction.

Now if you are talking about highway performance, say from 60 mph on up, once you are in third, fourth, fifth and sixth gear, there are ways to make nice power gains with our engine with relatively modest cost. And the magic "chip" or tune option is only one way, and not always the best or most effective. I'm not criticizing those who have gone the tune or flash option, I'm just pointing out that there are other modest mods that produce good results.

We have the benefit of being much lighter than the 335i, which weighs a bit more than 3600 pounds, some 300-350 pounds more than us. Once we get in third gear, your ECU will let the engine produce full power. Full power and light weight can be a ticket to success. So how to tap into that cheaply and safely?

1. Good CAI or SRI -- 15-20 whp.
2. Get rid of the highly restrictive downpipe and second cat. Go with a good aftermarket DP/RP combo, catted, if you are in a test state, catless if not. Combined with #1 above, you should be getting about 40-45 more whp than stock, maybe a bit more.
3. One step colder plugs. These are not needed and not beneficial unless you upgrade to #2. They will help prevent ignition timing retard under full boost if you have the free flowing downpipe.
4. Leave the CBE alone -- no gains there until you are way north of 300 whp.
5. The stock ECU still has all the built in engine safety protection -- boost cut and fuel cut are still there if the ECU "sees" any condition it does not like.
6. Install a boost gauge or buy a Dash Hawk to monitor your mods.

There are other things that can be done, but this simple formula works and should be able to be done for about a thousand bucks, especially if you are handy enough and have the tools to do it yourself.

Net result: I can tick off 60-100 mph times all day long of 6.3-6.5 seconds, versus about 7.5-8 seconds for the stock BMW. At 100 mph, a second is ten car lengths. Think about that. Also, the OP's friend must have been learning to drive that BMW. Stock 335's easily hit 13.4's out of the box (Road and Track data). The BMW can put a hurt on us at the 60 ft. mark. With modest mods, we can wax him up top. So dipping into the 12's was not as much of a power gain as the OP's friend may have thought he was getting from that chip.

Even with the crappy launch problems with FWD, I can do 13.4 quarters. Many others here are in the mid to low 13's witb minimal mods, with or without tune.

If you are really interested in drag racing a FWD car, then the traction fix is DOT drag radials which will easily get you into the 12's.
 
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then why the fucck they do direct inject? what are the benefits of direct inject?

The 335i has direct injection too. DI makes power. The 335i also has a 30% larger engine and TWO turbochargers. I think we fare pretty well in comparison. Just open up the intake and exhaust.
 
Why are we even comparing our ms3 with the 335i. They cost almost twice as much than our car. And we shouldn't even compare the ms3 with the evo or sti as well IMO, they cost about $10,000 more than ms3 as well. I'm not really a 1/4 guy, but I do agreed that our car is lack of traction form 1st and 2nd gear, but once the car picks up its traction, it can keep up with many cars that's more expensive than ours.
 
Why are we even comparing our ms3 with the 335i. They cost almost twice as much than our car. And we shouldn't even compare the ms3 with the evo or sti as well IMO, they cost about $10,000 more than ms3 as well. I'm not really a 1/4 guy, but I do agreed that our car is lack of traction form 1st and 2nd gear, but once the car picks up its traction, it can keep up with many cars that's more expensive than ours.

So you say why compare the MS3 to other cars that are more expensive, then turn around and say that our cars keep up with much more expensive cars. I don't think it matters that price of the car, we are always going to try and make them faster. As for the quarter mile, I just used that as a reference to how much fast it made my buddies car. I didn't say I was out trying to run the 1/4 mile. I just want to get some good HP gains. I haven't had this car to the strip, and don't know if I ever will, but that doesn't change the fact the we are all trying to get all the power we can. I'd rather have the power to dig from the interstate personally, cause I'm not trying to chew up my tires at the track trying to launch.
 
Anybody tried this. Doens't look like it's been out real long


ichip Hard Wire Engine Management System: Mazdaspeed 3


Actual Product May Vary



Our Price: $480.00



Availability: Ships Immediately
Product Code: UNI-MS3 Qty:









Description


Unichip Plug & Play Engine Management System: Mazdaspeed 3

The Uni chip Qs versatility allows the tuners at Uni chip of North America to performance - tune anything from the most modest normally-aspirated 4-cylinder passenger car to the largest gasoline or diesel truck.Uni chip Speed3 Performance Tuning Chips
Our success in offering, amongst many others, performance chips for many 4-cylinder turbo-charged cars worldwide, including the VW 1.8T, Mini Cooper S, Mazda Speed 6, MazdaSpeed Proteg, MazdaSpeed Miata, focused our attention on the newest addition to Mazdas performance stable, the much acclaimed Speed 3. Development projects here at UNA begin with careful analysis of the design and safety features in the vehicles engine and engine management functions. With these guidelines quantified, tuning starts with hardwiring a Qmodule into the vehicle for extensive compatability testing.Once satisfied were successfully controlling the OEM signals we proceed to turn up the power according to trusted recipes developed in over fifteen years of tuning vehicles all across the world. When we got started on the Speed 3, we were really impressed when the dyno showed that Mazdas 2.3T was giving us power gains of 54.7 bhp and 71.8 ft/lbs of torque at the flywheel with the Unichip, on an otherwise bone stock car. The next step was developing maps for most of the popular CAIs and Cat/back exhausts such as C-PE, Injen and MazdaSpeed. When a couple of our development vehicles owners posted their cars power gains on the internet, we enjoyed but werent surprised by the skepticism that arose in some corners of the Speed3 community. Being pretty comfortable with the put up or shut up concept, we called another local dyno facility for some independent dyno testing. In mid-June we took one of our customers vehicles to a well respected tuning shop in Vancouver WA - Fast Specialties - www.fastspecialties.com, who thoroughly and objectively logged a number of runs to verify our power gain claims.

A standard progression for new products here at UNA is to release a trial run of hardwired chips to a select group of end users to allow them to thoroughly field-test the product under whatever real conditions they can dish out.

For the month of June alone weve released 10 such trial-run installs and have apparently started something because we have been inundated by Speed3 owners who want the power NOW!. Due to the fact that our Plug n Play harnesses take several months to design, test, and enter production, we seem to have no option but to hardwire install UniQs on the cars of those chomping at the bit. We guess there will always be a segment of the power-hungry community that has to have the performance add-ons before anyone else!

Our sales director, Mike Timmons, is currently compiling a special program whereby a UNA tuning team will travel nationwide to a select group of locations to install & custom tune UniQs in customers Speed 3s. If youre part of a group thats interested in putting one of these together, give us a call or shoot us an e-mail. We need a minimum of 10 customers in a location and will do the installation and verification tuning for $599.00 per vehicle which includes all parts and labor drive in, hang out, and drive out with an extra 25% more power. We have covered MOST aftermarket add-ons but if your car has gone a little further, well also be offering a full custom tune for an additional $200.00. We can, of course, also do the installation and tuning right here at our Portland OR facility. The work is normally done in a day to two days depending upon the task and appointments are required. As with all custom tunes done at UNA we will gladly source and install any aftermarket add-ons that customers may desire at very competitive prices. A special MazdaSpeed dyno day is also on the cards here at the UNA facility; details will be posted on the relevant forums and of course on our website.

The Unichip remains the best value for money as far as aftermarket electronic tuning options is concerned. There is no limit to the amount of times that it can be re-mapped, meaning a customer can have it matched at any time to any aftermarket add-ons that he may acquire later on. Furthermore the chip can be removed from a vehicle at any time , rendering the tuning on the vehicle stock. The UniQ can then be fitted to virtually any other make of vehicle, requiring only mapping to match the new host vehicle. So, should a customer sell his vehicle, he can keep the UniQ for his next vehicle !
 
all i know is the unichip and the exede systems both haven't been smiled upon too much by the various mazdaspeed3 forum communities - i'd stick to cobb or cpe
 
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