E46 Fanatics Forum banner

My Evolve tuned VF570 M3 & stock M3 DYNO results

13K views 17 replies 10 participants last post by  bluewater87 
#1 · (Edited)
Wanted to share the experience of getting both my car and my dads car tuned by Evolve.

I myself was part of the Evolve tune group buy recently. During this time my dad and I were looking for a solution for his emissions test coming up this year (he is catless).
I noticed in the options list of the group buy tune the "Catless O2 ready tune", so i started looking into this for his car. After some researching/PMs/calls/making a new thread (Evolve live dyno tune - how does it work?), and finally locating a dynojet with the "datalink" module, we decided to purchase: BMW M3 E46: Evolver ECU Tune + Alpha-N SuperCharger Tune

I then took my car to dyno (that i had previously dyno'd on last year stock), to see what i was now putting down with the evolve tune.
There were some gains, but overall it wasn't as an increase as i had hoped for. But with no monitoring of IATs or anything, there could be numerous reasons why these results as a comparison could be skewed.
After some discussion with Sal, we decided to take my car to my dads dyno day and put it on the dyno to do a better comparison. I loaded up the stock tune so i could dyno it first.

When dyno day arrived, we left bright and early for our 2 and a half hour drive to the dyno shop. We got my car strapped down, and after some delay in getting the datalink module working properly, we did some pulls, sent the logs* to Sal, and 15 minutes or so later I downloaded/loaded the new tune, and made some very impressive gains. I was very happy with these results (stock tune vs final evolve tune).

Note: afr sniffer was not in the exhaust for the stock tune run.

* Dynojet logs (drf.) included whp, wtq, iat, spark advance, afr, engine/coolant temps. (many more were selectable, but these are what Evolve were looking for)

With my car all done, we then strapped down my dads car. His power mods are: VF stage 2 (making about 9 psi at peak), Evosport Headers, CPI RT section 1, and RE El Diablo muffler.
I won't get into the specifics of VF tune, but now i know why the gas tank is always on empty :shifty:.
Sal then sent us the first evolve tune for this car. The numbers were amazing. Looking at the logs, everything looked great. We decided to dial it back just a tiny bit, and this is what we ended up with: (stock tune vs final evolve tune)


Peak gain of over 50whp!

Doing some partial throttle tuning next week.

I haven't driven his car since the tune yet as we encountered a LCA issue at the dyno shop, but from what my dad says he can definitely feel more power and better driveability.
Will provide more feedback as the miles go up.

Want to thank Sal and company at Evolve, as well as Mike at DL Motorsports in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
 
See less See more
3
#3 ·
Evolve didn't show the afr's on the graphs of my car they posted, so i didn't show them either.
I'll leave it to the tuners to give away the details of their tunes.
 
#7 ·
OP updated with afr's.

Sal at Evolve made some comments (he is referring to the supercharged tune):

"Please ignore the stoichometric running at low rpm. This is where the DME goes from closed to open loop and the AFR catches up. If we measure AFR closer to the headers it looks very different.
The AFR also goes momentarily rich but again, this is just to do with catching up of the integrators.
High rpm we run around 12.8 AFR and because we are running such low ignition targets (16-18 degrees Maximum) the exhaust gas temperatures are nice and low. There is no need to run much more rich than this.

I am sure someone will say it's all too lean :) Before you say this... remember, under 5000rpm these kits make next to no boost at all. The cylinder filling is not great, EGT's are very low and the engine just doesn't benefit from using any more fuel. All that happens is that the fuel flies out of the exhaust and actually bogs the car down.

The tuning is based on getting the correct fuel, nice low ignition timing and altering the valve overlap so that the 'boost' is used properly.

This is also a chance to say a few things which are important:

1) I did ask for this dyno session to be ideally not on the forums. The kit manufacturers do not like this and I do like to respect their feelings. No one has ever retuned any of our hardware better than us so I have not yet experienced what it feels like.

2) People think we get more power by tuning more aggressively. We do not. The power comes from not running them overly rich and then the valve overlap changes. Ignition timing is extremely low. More power is available than this also but at the expense of the possibility of knock as you venture into the low to mid 20's ignition targets. It just doesn't take into account what happens when things start getting too hot and another sensor is not working.
What we are essentially doing is improving efficiency. It's a little like taking a stock S54 and removing timing. Power drops by say 15rwhp. It's a little too far out on the calibration side!!"


Sent from BimmerApp mobile app
 
#14 ·
My Evolve tuned VF570 M3 & stock M3 DYNO results

Got kind of lazy for the dash vids, i just recorded the go pro vids playing on my tv with my iphone. Rear mounted one is true gopro hero 3 black 720p.
Remember, this is a heavy a$$ vert.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJoHbzpPA4E"]E46 M3 vert 486whp 2nd gear[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWV35HMPN_g"]E46 M3 vert 486whp 3rd gear[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLy8GAffeFU"]E46 M3 vert 486whp 4th gear[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joU6PPIpltI"]E46 M3 vert 486whp[/ame]

couple old pics




Sent from BimmerApp mobile app
 
#16 ·
Got kind of lazy for the dash vids, i just recorded the go pro vids playing on my tv with my iphone. Rear mounted one is true gopro hero 3 black 720p.
Remember, this is a heavy a$$ vert.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJoHbzpPA4E"]E46 M3 vert 486whp 2nd gear[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWV35HMPN_g"]E46 M3 vert 486whp 3rd gear[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLy8GAffeFU"]E46 M3 vert 486whp 4th gear[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joU6PPIpltI"]E46 M3 vert 486whp[/ame]

couple old pics




Sent from BimmerApp mobile app

bro...you still enjoying this kit and tune? I'm eyeing the VF570 kit and have been waiting for the Evolve SC kit to be released. Just wondering how you feel about you kits after all this time.


Sent from BimmerApp mobile app
 
#15 ·
489 whp 346tq with my vf stg2 tuned by evolve , 5th gear mustang dyno

Mods :vf stage 2 , ss v1 headers , ss catless sec 1 , hamann catback , evolve tune

My catback restricting the air air flow I will get more HP if I changed it
 
#18 ·
Since the evolve tune, the car has been running better than ever.
I had a coil go out, but got it replaced and everything was good to go.
The M3's have been in the garage for the winter, excited to get them out when the weather warms up.

I am happy with the VF kit. Their hardware is good quality, but their tunes (in the past anyways) leave something to be desired.

If i were to do it now, i wouldn't hesitate going the same route.
I would however wait for evolve to release their kit though.


Thanks Nick, i see you're 500+ now :clap:
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top