[Visconti]

Originally Posted by corbs09

If we tune our cars via the ecu swap method, can we pop the old ecu back in and take it to the dealer with simple coding or is it more of a "once its done, its done" thing?

You can swap back and forth

[NKGK20]

Originally Posted by femtoevo

Hello, first of all thanks to all the members of this forum for your interest and feedback.
Want to clarify some of the things.
"About the shipping thing"
We live in 21st century, where everything can be shipped to anywhere in the world easily.
Delivery services are smart enough not to loose their customers' packages "just because", so everything is delivered quickly and without the slightest damage.
"About stopping playing around"
We are not "playing around" unlike other "innovators" you can find on these forums. We've found a solution and we are constantly improving it since we want to help community to tune their cars, not just to shout out "we are the first and do what we want". We are always open for cooperation and answering all of the questions quickly and precisely.
We have a reasons not to share/license our solution to anyone.
First, and obvious - copy protection, we just don't want to give opportunity "to figure out" (actually - to copy our solution) for other sw/hw developers. Let them find this by themselves, fair enough, huh?
Second, most important - we want you to still be able to tune your cars in the future, just think how soon there will be a new revision of the software after control units with a 06.2020+ release date are unlocked everywhere and you will be forced to update your car's SW because of silly reason like "brake lamp works incorrectly" (brakes are serious thing, you can't ignore this, right?).

We have been working with Visconti for a long time, and they do everything quickly, flawlessly and with great attention to details.
For the haters - we're answering here with their approval, so we're not hijacking this thread.

PS: Some funny pictures attached. Just check the dates and draw conclusions.

My buddy sent his ECU to Russia and it got stuck in customs in Russia and they sent it back. So yes this is the 21 century however that doesn't mean much nowadays.

[Vic55]

Originally Posted by NKGK20

My buddy sent his ECU to Russia and it got stuck in customs in Russia and they sent it back. So yes this is the 21 century however that doesn't mean much nowadays.

100% There is inherently more chances for failure logistically with shipping and customs.

My exhaust was shipped from Italy and almost got lost in customs but my retailer did his job and found it just in time.

Im sure there are people here that will do it and I love the tech breakthroughs that are occurring early on so kudos to the OP. Ill personally wait.

[Visconti]

Originally Posted by NKGK20

My buddy sent his ECU to Russia and it got stuck in customs in Russia and they sent it back. So yes this is the 21 century however that doesn't mean much nowadays.

Not sure who your buddy is, but if you dont have the correct paper work when sending something international you can expect the same thing to happen to you.

We ship international almost everyday and twice a week to Russia - we dont have problems.

This is why when someone purchases the tuning from us we handle everything.

John

[Marshall@ViscontiTuning]

Originally Posted by NKGK20

My buddy sent his ECU to Russia and it got stuck in customs in Russia and they sent it back. So yes this is the 21 century however that doesn't mean much nowadays.

This is also why people who dont do it frequently, shouldn't tackle something of the sort on their own. After doing dozens upon dozens (as we use this method on the Supra as well) we have zero issues.

[NKGK20]

Originally Posted by Visconti

Not sure who your buddy is, but if you dont have the correct paper work when sending something international you can expect the same thing to happen to you.

We ship international almost everyday and twice a week to Russia - we dont have problems.

This is why when someone purchases the tuning from us we handle everything.

John

He owns a shop. He's not a newbie. Look bud I appreciate what you guys are doing. I trust everything you say is correct. All I'm saying is a lot of people don't want to risk the Russia thing. I'm sure you have some type of connection where it doesn't get lost or held up. Not saying anything like that. All I'm saying is it's happened to my friend, and another person I personally know. So we would all be on board if we didn't have to send it to Russia and it didn't cost an arm and a leg. But again not taking anything away from you guys at all. It's just my opinion.

[Marshall@ViscontiTuning]

If we went a 9.96 with a 6.12 60-130 , how fast is this 5.84 in the 1/4? 😈

Things are about to get spicy. 🔥 - This car is still Downpipes, Visconti Flex Fuel and Visconti Tuned on EcuTek. - This is still on the street at full weight!

[TexasEd]

It is incredulous to me that in the entire world there exists only one company (femtoevo) that has the ability to unlock this ecu. They are either extremely brilliant and capable, or they have an "in" with BMW engineers. Either way I give them kudos for their achievements to date.

[rmeitz167]

Originally Posted by TexasEd

It is incredulous to me that in the entire world there exists only one company (femtoevo) that has the ability to unlock this ecu. They are either extremely brilliant and capable, or they have an "in" with BMW engineers. Either way I give them kudos for their achievements to date.

This is actually way more common now than ever. Same thing happened on gm l5p ecus with hptuners. They are going to much greater lengths to lock these ecus

[SickGTR]

Originally Posted by TexasEd

It is incredulous to me that in the entire world there exists only one company (femtoevo) that has the ability to unlock this ecu. They are either extremely brilliant and capable, or they have an "in" with BMW engineers. Either way I give them kudos for their achievements to date.

Probably those same Russian hackers that keep messing with our companies and gas lines. Lol.

[0Camus0]

This is the new cold war, they have pretty good reverse engineers down there. Won't say names, but a lot of the security bounties are awarded to Russians.

Say you find a vulnerability or exploit in some driver, you have two options, make it public to gain recognition among other security researchers, or, go for a bounty, meaning, the company will pay you for finding the exploit and not disclosing it, so you sign a NDA, the company wins and the researcher wins.

Reversing ECUs is hard because the tools are expensive, the ECUs are expensive (you will brick some) and whatever exploit worked in the past, is going to be patched. It's not really surprising, but I guess more people will find a way, all it takes is time.

You are paying a premium to be the first to get these features, you could wait a year (maybe more, maybe less) for BM3 to catch up.

[Limegrntaln]

I'm not against sending my Ecu out to get tuned for someone to send it to Russia, to get unlocked. I just want the platform to mature a little before I jump in, head first, with a $30,000 motor. I come from over a decade of tuning DSMs and 4G63 motors, and while I don't expect this platform to be that mature before I get deep into it, I would just like it to be known exactly where the limits are.

The Redbull drift team, touted over 1000hp, and there were a bunch of articles about the motor being able to handle it, and then someone went just over 900 and the motor ate itself. No fault of anyone's, and I'm not placing blame. I'd just like a little more to be known about this platform, first.

[Visconti]

Originally Posted by Limegrntaln

I'm not against sending my Ecu out to get tuned for someone to send it to Russia, to get unlocked. I just want the platform to mature a little before I jump in, head first, with a $30,000 motor. I come from over a decade of tuning DSMs and 4G63 motors, and while I don't expect this platform to be that mature before I get deep into it, I would just like it to be known exactly where the limits are.

The Redbull drift team, touted over 1000hp, and there were a bunch of articles about the motor being able to handle it, and then someone went just over 900 and the motor ate itself. No fault of anyone's, and I'm not placing blame. I'd just like a little more to be known about this platform, first.

So the motor that blew up… who knows why it happened.

But we push Gen2 B58s all the time with no issues. Torque needs to be in check and tuning need to be spot on.

Theres a lot of thing people in the bmw community have done that I never agreed we with - batch fire port injection that's not controlled by the factory ECU.

integrated port injection, fuel pressure monitoring, advanced datalogging are musts, this requires a cloned ECU.

[BulkBen]

Originally Posted by TexasEd

It is incredulous to me that in the entire world there exists only one company (femtoevo) that has the ability to unlock this ecu. They are either extremely brilliant and capable, or they have an "in" with BMW engineers. Either way I give them kudos for their achievements to date.

I'm with you here, I'm kinda blown away too.

Let's take Pro Tuning Freaks for example. They are US based, their ENTIRE business model revolves around the BMW N, B and now S motors. yet they haven't produced a solution for unlocking the G80/G82.

They must have sold thousands of licenses at $600 a pop, so likely a few million in revenue minimum.

Surely they could have a few FT programmers working on this, and bring in other experts as required?

All credit to Visconti and Femtoevo working together. Given the logistical challenges they seem to have a workable product, which while not cheap is workable and looks well ahead of Pro tuning Freaks (who are yet to even release anti lag and map switching for the S series motors for X3/X4M's.

I'm still hoping that PFT and MHD get their act together, but I personally feel comfortable with the solution offered here.

- Side note, as an Australian watching on it is hilarious to see yanks get weirded out by Russia. The whole Trump / Putin thing then Hunter Biden / Ukraine debacle was in the news so much in Australia, I can't imagine citizens of each of those countries has much faith in the other.

[GixY2K]

Originally Posted by BulkBen

I'm with you here, I'm kinda blown away too.

Let's take Pro Tuning Freaks for example. They are US based, their ENTIRE business model revolves around the BMW N, B and now S motors. yet they haven't produced a solution for unlocking the G80/G82.

They must have sold thousands of licenses at $600 a pop, so likely a few million in revenue minimum.

Surely they could have a few FT programmers working on this, and bring in other experts as required?

All credit to Visconti and Femtoevo working together. Given the logistical challenges they seem to have a workable product, which while not cheap is workable and looks well ahead of Pro tuning Freaks (who are yet to even release anti lag and map switching for the S series motors for X3/X4M's.

I'm still hoping that PFT and MHD get their act together, but I personally feel comfortable with the solution offered here.

- Side note, as an Australian watching on it is hilarious to see yanks get weirded out by Russia. The whole Trump / Putin thing then Hunter Biden / Ukraine debacle was in the news so much in Australia, I can't imagine citizens of each of those countries has much faith in the other.

For me, politics plays a ZERO factor in my decision making process.

These are just new waters we're threading in where most of us have never sent an ECU to a third entity to "work" with. And I'm using the word "work" loosely here because I don't know if they are changing the software or cracking open the unit to solder a few 'circuits' to accomplish the intended results. However, lets be clear that so far, it's proven to work. And for this, congratulations are in order to Femtoevo & Visconti.

If I were to do this upgrade today, I'd would definitely go with these guys. What's stopping me is that I still need to learn a few terminologies used by the vendor that I need to get familiarized with before dropping $4Gs... And, and, justify to myself dropping said amount on a car that has a looming 'shell' recall on its head.

[Visconti]

Originally Posted by BulkBen

I'm with you here, I'm kinda blown away too.

Let's take Pro Tuning Freaks for example. They are US based, their ENTIRE business model revolves around the BMW N, B and now S motors. yet they haven't produced a solution for unlocking the G80/G82.

North America Based, but not USA.

Originally Posted by BulkBen

They must have sold thousands of licenses at $600 a pop, so likely a few million in revenue minimum.

Surely they could have a few FT programmers working on this, and bring in other experts as required?

Believe me when I say this, different companies have been working on this for a while now.

Even with Femto's solution, others are still working on it.

A company like EcuTek, MHD, or BM3 isn't going to figure this out.

What is likely happen is someone else will figure it out and sell it to one of those companies. But once the cat is out the bag, it'll be copied and Bosch will patch/block it. This is why Femto is only doing it in-house.

Maybe Femto will allow us to provide the service here in the USA for them.. that would save at least $500 my current price because I wouldn't have to pay DHL

Originally Posted by BulkBen

All credit to Visconti and Femtoevo working together. Given the logistical challenges they seem to have a workable product, which while not cheap is workable and looks well ahead of Pro tuning Freaks (who are yet to even release anti lag and map switching for the S series motors for X3/X4M's.

I'm still hoping that PFT and MHD get their act together, but I personally feel comfortable with the solution offered here.

- Side note, as an Australian watching on it is hilarious to see yanks get weirded out by Russia. The whole Trump / Putin thing then Hunter Biden / Ukraine debacle was in the news so much in Australia, I can't imagine citizens of each of those countries has much faith in the other.

Thanks!


I was also a little concerned with sending stuff back and forth to Russia.
Would the items get lost? Would there be poor communication from Femto? Is their real life turn around as quick as they state?

I have a new perspective and respect for Russian's.

They have really been a pleasure to work with.

Originally Posted by GixY2K

For me, politics plays a ZERO factor in my decision making process.

These are just new waters we're threading in where most of us have never sent an ECU to a third entity to "work" with. And I'm using the word "work" loosely here because I don't know if they are changing the software or cracking open the unit to solder a few 'circuits' to accomplish the intended results. However, lets be clear that so far, it's proven to work. And for this, congratulations are in order to Femtoevo & Visconti.

If I were to do this upgrade today, I'd would definitely go with these guys. What's stopping me is that I still need to learn a few terminologies used by the vendor that I need to get familiarized with before dropping $4Gs... And, and, justify to myself dropping said amount on a car that has a looming 'shell' recall on its head.

We have done mostly B58's so far (40+), you'd have to look on the Supra Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/3340...78508135981605

But as time goes on you'll hear from more of my G80 people.

S58 cloning is limited due to ECU supply, but our STG1 tune which can be delivered without a clone goes 10.5's on 93octane. STG1 E30 has been 10.17... Performance like this will please most.

John

[M0J0]

It sounds like we are just screwed and there will never be a cheap tuning option save a piggyback. This just might be the reality. I honestly am fine with it. I would have bought another car if I wanted something faster.

[frankiebones]

Originally Posted by Vic55

Fuck I wont even take mine out of the car; Ill bet out those that actually want to ECU tune their cars- hardly any want to ship it even around the USA.

I took it out of my first F80. This time I am waiting for ODBII unlock.

[Visconti]

Originally Posted by frankiebones

I took it out of my first F80. This time I am waiting for ODBII unlock.

It's right here and I'm local!

[frankiebones]

Originally Posted by Visconti

It's right here and I'm local!

you can unlock without ecu removal?

[chenry]

Apologies...I likely missed this in the thread.

Simple question is:

Can an M3/4 DME be mailed in and the exact same physical DME be mailed back unlocked?

ps- maybe I should direct this question to Femtoevo - don't want to take this thread too far off topic

[McLaren720s]

How is the tune affected by a dealer software update? What if the user updates iDrive via over the air software updates from BMW? Does the ECU need to be re-flashed/unlocked again?