Torrie was able to get the requested tune files to me earlier and as luck would have it, my 3-bar MAP also showed up today as well! I first tested the 93-octane tune with the 2-bar MAP. There is, without a doubt, a difference in the power and the shift firmness. I am definitely a member of the sub-5 second 0-60 club now and the car continues to pull much stronger in the upper RPMs... in Mexico.
When I first purchased the car, I noticed a slight hesitation at lower speeds that almost felt like slack in the drivetrain. After having a TSB performed on the transmission, I thought it went away. Within the last couple of months, I started noticing it again, but it could be that it has been present all along and I may have just been suffering from placebo effect of the TSB. Anyway, with the addition of the 3-bar MAP, the hesitation seems to have been remedied. For me, that alone is worth the purchase price, but it gets better. Even though my factory BOVs are still plumbed, I can now hear the turbo blow off with the 3-bar MAP 93 octane tune. If those two things do not apply to you, and you do not plan on further performance enhancements beyond a tune, then you'll likely be happy with the 2-bar MAP tunes. Performance wise, the most I plan to do is a cat back and possibly catted down pipes. I'm not even sure that would warrant the 3-bar tune as many folks are running those same mods, very happily, with their 2-bar tunes.
I will be data logging as soon as I have a chance and I do have one thing on my list that I would like for Torrie to address. The initial 1-2 shift is a little firm for my liking. The other shifts are perfectly crisp, but I get a small amount of wheel hop on the 1-2 and it's uncomfortable. This is purely a preference issue and not a complaint. It's actually strange that I get wheel hop on the 1-2 shift, yet the tires still do not break loose from a 0mph start. Some of you guys have mentioned that your cars will spin all the way through an intersection and I can't get mine to spin from a stand still. What gives?! I did manage to get a tire chirp at 50mph... that was quite grin inducing!
In closing, if you are happy with your current 2-bar setup, the performance gain of a 3-bar may seem negligible to you. Although it may be slightly safer if your car spikes above 14.5-14.7psi of boost. I'm glad I sprung for the 3-bar because it seems to have addressed the hesitation issue I was having, but had that issue not been present, I probably wouldn't have went for it. I went into it with hope that the hesitation would be resolved due to all of the comments on the smoothness of the 3-bar and I was not disappointed in that regard at all!
As an aside, I would like to comment on the tune installation process. At one point during the installation, the X4 tells you to turn the ignition on without starting the car. I tried this three times and it gave me an error all three times. Finally, I decided to give it a few seconds before following the instructions and the installation continued without any intervention on my part. When it came time to install the 3-bar tune, I followed the recommendation of a couple members, which is to install the tune and then change the sensor without starting the car in between. When I finished the sensor installation and initially started the car, it threw a wrench. I shut it off and installed the tune again and all was well. The original tune installation may have very well just been bad, but we'll never know.
I'll report back again once I have a more refined tune! So far, I am very pleased!
