Peter M. Jagielski asked about 96/97 M3 owner's experiences with Dinan's 'chip' upgrade.

I've had mine for about 3 weeks now. Indeed, Dinan removes the top speed limiter, makes the redline 7000 RPM in all gears and uses a different air-fuel map. Fuel consumption oddly enough is unchanged, despite my already lead-filled foot. More importantly, there is no change is driveability and there is a small but perceptible increase in top-end power. I haven't seen any dyno charts, but have been told by Brad at Dinan that its about a 10 hp bump at 6000 rpm or so. Maybe 4 hp around 3500 rpm. Overall, after installation, it was the visceral feeling you get when driving in 10 degree cooler weather.

A couple of months ago at Dinan's tech session, i met another digester, Brendon, who did some G-tech measurements and while i should let Brendon speak for himself, it was something like 1 or 2 tenths improvement in 0-60.

The downside? Well, Dinan needs your ECU or car for 2 nights for some reason. All this time to desolder your eprom, install a socket and their new chip. The upside? well, it doesn't void your BMW warranty. Was it worth it? for me, i had a small credit at Dinan so it was a no-brainer apart from the time. Besides, i was too impatient waiting for Jim C's solutionand as Jim posted about 2 weeks ago, it will be another 3-4 months. While Jim's solution is likely to be 'cleaner', and possibly yield more power, the issue of maintaining one's warranty on a new car caused me to go with Dinan for now. Besides, after one's warranty expires or one's lust for more oomph overcomes common sense, one can always, hopefully, opt for Jim C's solution.

YMMV,

dan
96 M3, with too many Dinan receipts