how much have you paid for the flash in your S54 DME for a swap?

[MarkD]

Why so much to flash a S54 DME vs $250-$350 to flash a M54/M52/S52 DME?

Mainly because there is a lot to know about how to remove the fault codes that will show up. That's probably why nobody is actually doing this themselves in the USA. And I'm the only one doing it in Canada.

Are people flashing DME's for only $250 - 350 in the USA now? In Europe, DME flashes often cost 800 to 1000 Euros. The tools to flash the cars cost 5000 Euros for a master tool, and another 3000 Euros to buy an editor with a few checksums. Sure there are some people using hacked software and clone tools, but I don't have those.

[RobertK]

I ask because I honestly don't know enough about what's involved in the process.

Looks like a promising venture though.

[ZM Blue Devil]

Levent,

if you could sell them at that price that would be great. I'd set you up to flash the DME's at your location. You could be the sole flasher of the MarkD S54 swap tunes in the USA. There's absolutely no need to ship DME's to Europe when we can flash them over here.


Mark

We are ready Mark, will call to discuss live. Also need to discuss the chip sale.
L

[Andrew325is]

1100 euros.

[Wanganstyle]

I've been offered between 800-1.2K USD to have the OEM s54 DME hacked for transplanting. I have passed.


No reasonable scale of people will do this as a DTA S100 full standalone is retail only $1800-2100. Wiring installation is a hairstorm anyway you look at it regardless of DME choice (oem or standalone). Both are the same wiring and the standalone actually is easier to wire up and check.

E30's can "smog" in califorina with a standalone, the owner pretends the car is stock and go to your local smog. As long as its not retarded looking under the hood the a mundane smog shop would not know or care. My prior non-cali legal S54+DTA+e36M was never questioned by CHP for a standalone or engine swap, the man does not really care for engine swapped e30's as there are many bigger fish to chase.
Many evo's, Sti's, nissans also "smog" the same way. SMOG mapping on ECU allows many local Sti's to pass the sniffer and OBD reader plug in scan @ smog with upgraded turbos and all cats deleted.

Also, for those considering a Cali smog + S54, the twin catalysts of the S54 is in the headers. S54 headers will not plug and play into E30's with an original E30 crossmember/sway bar.

USA emissions issues forced BMW to put the cats in the headers for the US version S54, if you install cats in the downpipes and make custom headers to fit a s54+e30 you will not pass BAR, the position/quality/function of the catalyst cannot be altered. So then your "cali legal" swap would not be cali legal at all


if one was really into megasquirt a solution for s54 full double vanos would probably ~ $1k to have professionally built.

I will share full double vanos+alpha N S54 maps for $0 to somebody with the guts serious enough to play the MS game. I don't have those skills.

Reality of time is that the S54 has become a 4-5K starting powerplant unlike the 7K range prior. Stateside there are many many many S54 engines that are usable as-is or re-buildable.

Realistically the next hot swap will be the N54 with its HPFP and all those dragons. I wont give a rip about having 1 or 6 throttles at that point, as a high tech engine with electric waterpump system, mag alloy block and 2x or 1x single scroll turbo is really the icing on the cake.

if you are looking for an audience to pay a high premium for brain hacking, it would be N54 swap. or S85 swap, I'd pay 1.5K USD CASH for a S85 full en-able of OEM DME for a transplant. I can just roll to so-cal currently and pay ~$5k for it, out of the reasonable range right now as a Megasquirt can run a S85.

[MarkD]

1100 euros.

I assume that is not including the shipping.

1,100.00 EUR = 1,445.06 USD

1 EUR = 1.31369 USD 1 USD = 0.761216 EUR


So around $1445 USD today plus around $200 for round trip shipping would be about right? I was hoping those European guys charged more than that! ;)

[MarkD]

I've been offered between 800-1.2K USD. I have passed.

No reasonable scale of people will do this as a DTA S100 full standalone is retail only $1800-2100. Wiring installation is a hairstorm anyway you look at it regardless of DME.

But you have to buy the DTA and wire it up, then spend ages tuning it!

Installing an MSS54 DME and harness has to be much simpler! Plus there is no tuning to do, I've done it all. Very few aftermarket ECU's are even close to the power and sophistication of the OEM ones, where a huge budget was available to develop it. The MSS54 has two Motorola 68332 (32 bit) CPU's running it. It's also built for very high reliability.

So even if I sold the flash for $1900, it's just a matter of wiring in the s54 harness, splicing in some other signals to the instrument cluster and you are done, plus at a lower cost than the DTA. You can easily spend $1000 - 1500 tuning and still not have it right!

I am curious who is offering such a low price, it's much lower than I expected. But just as my chips are being cloned in a big way, I wouldn't be surprised if some people are hacking the work others are doing in this area.

[Wanganstyle]

But you have to buy the DTA and wire it up, then spend ages tuning it!

Installing an MSS54 DME and harness has to be much simpler! Plus there is no tuning to do, I've done it all. Very few aftermarket ECU's are even close to the power and sophistication of the OEM ones, where a huge budget was available to develop it. The MSS54 has two Motorola 68332 (32 bit) CPU's running it. It's also built for very high reliability.

So even if I sold the flash for $1900, it's just a matter of wiring in the s54 harness, splicing in some other signals to the instrument cluster and you are done, plus at a lower cost than the DTA. You can easily spend $1000 - 1500 tuning and still not have it right!

Have you tuned a DTA before? it does not take ages to tune, you are a professional tuner - should be able figure out a simple alpha-N map in an hour or so.

Big boys play with standalones and are prepared to spend money to tune.
I'm assuming you have to be a big boy to play the S54 swap game, my last one cost about $10k USD to do up.

S54 OEM dme has OEM limitations and OEM benefits. Installing a E-throttle pedal is NOT a benefit to me.

If you manage to sell them for $1900 I will ponder playing also; simply business.


There is a business/economic concept called: Make the pie bigger, not take a bigger piece of the pie.

who sells more oil/makes more money; Mobil or Amsoil?

I assume that is not including the shipping.

1,100.00 EUR = 1,445.06 USD

1 EUR = 1.31369 USD 1 USD = 0.761216 EUR


So around $1445 USD today plus around $200 for round trip shipping would be about right? I was hoping those European guys charged more than that! ;)

Euro guys in UK offer about $800USD for basic services, $1200USD or so for Alpha N. shipping is obviously on your own dime

USD is not the strongest right now, AUD is much stronger. AUD guys are big fans of running high end standalones, so many avail there and so many tuners!

[e30polak]

Euro guys in UK offer about $800USD for basic services, $1200USD or so for Alpha N. shipping is obviously on your own dime

USD is not the strongest right now, AUD is much stronger. AUD guys are big fans of running high end standalones, so many avail there and so many tuners!

I haven't seen anyone in the UK or Europe offer the hack for any less then 900 Euros, that's without a tune. As far as I know Epic and Evolve don't offer the hack yet, just tuning.

[MarkD]

I haven't seen anyone in the UK or Europe offer the hack for any less then 900 Euros, that's without a tune. As far as I know Epic and Evolve don't offer the hack yet, just tuning.

I'm curious why you and others call it the "hack" ?

My version will be a tuned file with error codes removed. Since the one vendor that sells something similar charges $3k with a short cable, my original plan to sell the software for around 2K didn't seem bad to me.

[e30polak]

I'm curious why you and others call it the "hack" ?

My version will be a tuned file with error codes removed. Since the one vendor that sells something similar charges $3k with a short cable, my original plan to sell the software for around 2K didn't seem bad to me.

I realize what you've done with the DME, it's just what it's been nick named I guess.

[FredK]

900 EUR for a HFM-based tune and return shipping was around 15 EUR.

Shipping to Canada via USPS is around the same price as shipping to Germany. It is a few dollars more using the USPS. Timely return shipping through Canada Post or Deutsche Post is within a few dollars of each other as well.

[MarkD]

900 EUR for a HFM-based tune and return shipping was around 15 EUR.

Shipping to Canada via USPS is around the same price as shipping to Germany. It is a few dollars more using the USPS. Timely return shipping through Canada Post or Deutsche Post is within a few dollars of each other as well.

That's odd, I just checked the USPS website and many of the shipping options to Germany are 45 to $75 one way. And I'd assume most people would want to send it using a trackable method.

[FredK]

Well, I spent around $800 shipping my DME to Germany--I brought it in my luggage when I went to Munich for Oktoberfest! :mrgreen:

[nando]

I never got a final # but when I was talking to Evolve it starts at $999 with an alpha-N tune and no O2 monitoring. They can delete EWS, DSC, etc - don't recall the cost but figure a couple hundred. It also comes with a cable (no shipping your DME), you can add mods later, and you can transfer it to different motors (costs money, but not a lot).

I really don't care for the "guy in germany" method. You don't know what they really did to it - also, some of these guys are flashing out the PWM fuel pump. Why? Makes no sense to me. Why would you want your FP running a constant 5 bar at idle?

And some fo them can only work on certain versions of MSS54. Like fredK's guy that told him you can't use MSS54HP - hah!

I would be interested at around that price range, from somebody that really knew what they were doing.