[James-335dx]

After 12 months of happy motoring in my 335dx and with a few cosmetic mods along the way I’d been contemplating whether I needed any additional performance? I say that as the standard car isn’t exactly slow and in the past 15,000 miles the only car that I couldn’t keep up with is the RS6, and lets face it, there isn’t much that could keep up with one of those anyway. However, after toying with the idea for a few months I decided to start making some enquiries to see what was available. I’d already seen the usual plug in boxes on eBay and didn’t want to go down that route and I’d also dismissed the many teenagers with laptops that could upload some generic software they’d downloaded from the internet. Fine for your average Vauxhall Astra Diesel I’m sure, but it wasn’t something I wanted uploading to my pride and joy.

So I began looking for people doing dyno tuning that ideally could offer something custom. Firstly I was a little alarmed by the few enquiries I made, being told they needed to remove my ECU and take bits out and solder in new bits in place! Eeerrr, no thanks! So again the remap was pushed to the back burner until out of the blue I was tagged in a Facebook post about a 335dx that had been custom mapped to over 400bhp via the OBD. The company in the post was DR or Durham Remaps and so I began to trawl through their posts to see what else they’d done.

I was pleased to see a rather large amount of BMWs featured and a lot of those were 335d’s and 435d’s and quoting some impressive figures to boot. So I got in touch and heard back from Ian almost straight away with some further information and pricing. Although Durham is a 200 mile drive I decided it was worth the trip to be putting my much loved 335 in safe hands. Something that was confirmed after reading other reviews of them here on the F30 Post.

May the 4th was the agreed date, which was quite fitting, and a time of 8:30am. Now that means a very early start from Leicester on a bank holiday weekend so I decided to head up Thursday night and stop over. I highly recommend the Marriott Royal Country Hotel to anyone thinking of doing the same? It was lovely and only a 5 min drive from DR’s.

So the morning finally arrives and I get to DR’s unit around 8:15am as they are just opening up. I sign their disclaimer (Standard stuff really but basically a waiver stating they aren’t responsible if my car explodes or ends up through the back wall of their unit) and it’s on the Dyno. Standard run shows the cars currently producing 316.4 bhp and 608.9 Nm which is pretty good for a standard 335d. Then the laptop comes out and they begin working their magic whilst I pop off to Tesco’s for a coffee. I arrive back a little after 10am and it’s all done! The last run showed a jump to 412 bhp and 730 Nm of torque!!! Even they seemed impressed at that considering the car is basically stock apart from the rear silencer delete. So an hour and a half later and I’m “good to go”
I settle up and apprehensively drive away heading to East Yorkshire to visit family. I did get a couple of very brief opportunities to mash the pedal a little from which I could instantly tell there was plenty more on offer than there had been on the drive up. Unfortunately due to the bank holiday traffic being fully underway I averaged a whopping 43 mph on the 3 hour journey to Beverly which was extremely frustrating to say the least.

Saturday morning soon came and I was on the road again for 11:50 as I needed to be in Hinckley to meet a fellow forum member S11NNY who had very kindly offered to code out the auto start/stop for me.

Traffic was slow as usual (I think in Yorkshire they believe a white circular sign with a black line across it means 45mph) but I finally reached the M62 and unleashed fury on the slip road. “Holy Sh*t!!” The car absolutely flew and in only a few seconds I was travelling at an alarming speed leaving the following traffic as specs in my rear view mirror. Now I’m already used to doing this as I’m sure most of us 335d drivers are, but this was on another level. No flat spots, no hesitations, just seat pinning acceleration right the way through to warp speed!
Fearing for my life and licence I quickly backed off and cruised along in comfort in the bmw lane passing all the middle lane dwellers sitting at 60mph.

All a bit boring until I reached the M18, whipping along at a fair rate of knots I see a lovely new Bentley Continental GT shooting up the slip road to my left. The 30 something guy driving quickly sees me and makes a b-line for the right hand lane. Now not wanting to incriminate myself I’m not going to mention speeds but let’s say I was travelling 50% quicker than the middle laners might have been.
The huge menacing Bentley is now hovering around my rear end with only a few feet of daylight separating us as I think for a split second. Move over, or punch it? I decided the latter would be my best option and what a good way to finally test my DR remap. In what seemed like the blink of an eye my speed increased another 50% (This is still in comfort mode I hasten to add) and I’m very quickly making progress on the following Bentley. First it’s a car length, then 2, then 3 and as the speed increases, 4 comes then 5!! I can’t believe it!!! I don’t think he can either? He’s obviously got the pedal mashed as he wouldn’t be so close at this speed otherwise! Both in shock, he finally flashes his lights, indicates and begins to move off to the left. I back off and give him a wave in response to his thumbs up as we level up and a mile or so later he exits onto the A1.

Well that was certainly a thorough test of the remap in my opinion and I honest still can’t believe I was able to pull away from a new 6 litre W12 powered super car. In fact the only thing that ran through my mind afterward was “no ones going to believe this happened” or they’ll say “well he obviously wasn’t trying” all I can say is, hand on heart it did and he was. Now obviously I’d have ran out of steam well before he would have done so inevitably I would have had to move over and he would have passed me. But I would have kept him at bay until I maxed out.

Off the line the car was never slow to begin with, but it’s certainly quicker now. However the real difference is in the low to mid range with the torque being there constantly regardless of speed or gear selection. I notice the auto also not kicking down like before as it doesn’t need to. In 8th at 70mph you push the pedal is it’s away with ease. Push it all the way to the carpet and the kick down comes, then it’s insane acceleration. I have to admit I haven’t even tried sport mode yet so I’m probably in for an even more eye watering experience!!

So in conclusion, if you want to transform your diesel rep mobile into a super car whooping animal then I’d certainly recommend a trip to the picturesque city of Durham.

[mikeoz]

Very good write up. Thanks.
Sounds like a good map indeed

[Jeff123]

Better than very good, that’s a great write up.

[DriveS]

Told you that you were in for a big surprise.

Some on here say the dyno is off. I cant argue with that as I am no expert. If they are I have no idea.
What I do know is I went from standard to top of the range tuning box, to remap 394bhp and went back for it tweaked to 415 and each time the 'feel' in acceleration matched the numbers given by the dyno.

My car is amazing now and I love it.

You will soon be in sport+ coming out of corners with little to no loss in traction. xdrive does the business when you have this amount of torque.

[KCH1984]

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/bentley...gt-2018-review

One of these 626bhp / 900nm monsters? It's a heavy old thing I'll grant you, but you're right, I don't believe he was flat to the floor. You'll surprise a lot of things with the power and torque you're now producing, and it does sound excellent, but I'd wager he had you covered. In any case, he probably didn't expect you to pull out a few car lengths even with a jump on him so sounds like he was still impressed.

[Kiddy1]

👌🏻I’ll be popping over there shortly to get my 30d mapped, can’t wait!

[James-335dx]

Originally Posted by DriveS

Told you that you were in for a big surprise.

Some on here say the dyno is off. I cant argue with that as I am no expert. If they are I have no idea.
What I do know is I went from standard to top of the range tuning box, to remap 394bhp and went back for it tweaked to 415 and each time the 'feel' in acceleration matched the numbers given by the dyno.

My car is amazing now and I love it.

You will soon be in sport+ coming out of corners with little to no loss in traction. xdrive does the business when you have this amount of torque.

You certainly did mate. I was expecting it to be a bit quicker but I wasn't prepared for it to be that much quicker. I've had tuning boxes on previous cars so expected something similar but I certainly underestimated the remap!

Certainly will! Although I might get some new tyres first before trying that, ha, ha

[James-335dx]

Originally Posted by KCH1984

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/bentley...gt-2018-review

One of these 626bhp / 900nm monsters? It's a heavy old thing I'll grant you, but you're right, I don't believe he was flat to the floor. You'll surprise a lot of things with the power and torque you're now producing, and it does sound excellent, but I'd wager he had you covered. In any case, he probably didn't expect you to pull out a few car lengths even with a jump on him so sounds like he was still impressed.

That's the one! But I'm sure you're right, I was still very pleased to have made up some ground though. I'm sure I was just a little bit braver (stupider) than him on the speed reached

[JNW1]

Pleased you're happy with the results and, if I was ever to go the tuning route, I'd certainly consider Durham remaps as they're less than an hour away from me.

However, a power increase of over 30% purely from a stage 1 remap on a 335d does seem on the high side; don't think I've seen any other tuner claim a figure starting with a 4 as a result of that sort of work and most are more like 370....

[James-335dx]

Originally Posted by JNW1

Pleased you're happy with the results and, if I was ever to go the tuning route, I'd certainly consider Durham remaps as they're less than an hour away from me.

However, a power increase of over 30% purely from a stage 1 remap on a 335d does seem on the high side; don't think I've seen any other tuner claim a figure starting with a 4 as a result of that sort of work and most are more like 370....

Very happy Although I agree with what you're saying about the power. Most claim around 370ish but looking at DR they are all around the 400 mark, either a little below or above. I have seen similar claims from another tuner down in Bristol I think they were. They also tune via the OBD2 rather than chipping so I wonder if that may have something to do with it?

[Junebug85]

Nice write up mate!

I want to get mine done but going to hold off till end of the year or even next year (but who knows )

Sounds like a lot of fun and its made a great car even better. Do they remove the limiter and adjust the sports dials?

Have you noticed any difference in fuel level usage etc?

[James-335dx]

Originally Posted by Junebug85

Nice write up mate!

I want to get mine done but going to hold off till end of the year or even next year (but who knows )

Sounds like a lot of fun and its made a great car even better. Do they remove the limiter and adjust the sports dials?

Have you noticed any difference in fuel level usage etc?

Thanks mate.

Yeah, you certainly won't regret it! I had the dials recalibrated to show the higher figures but didn't remove the limited although they can do that too.

Yeah I made my usual run to the office this morning which is 43 miles over both A roads and motorway. In traffic with the odd burst of speed I've been averaging around 40 or so MPG in comfort. This morning the traffic was heavier than usual getting onto the M1 so it took me an additional 10 mins to get there but similar driving style afterwards and average 47MPG today which was the best I've had on that run outside of eco pro. I averaged 42 on the way home and I certainly wasn't hanging about this evening!

Pretty impressive really. It's a shame we have a car tax system that's linked to emissions. We are all using more fuel because of it which I think kind of defeats the objection.

[chris-c]

He might have flashed you to say "that was fun" more than he gave up.

My neighbours were talking cars on friday night and the S6 owner said to the TT RS owner "so, you raced a mclaren the other day on the XYZ" to which the TTRS owner said "Yeah, I gave it full welly and.. well.. lost"

The TTRS is already a very powerful and lightweight car VS a very powerful and lightweight car but power wins.

Your heavy 335D vs a heavy bentley, power would still win imo.

Still remaps are hilarious fun

[James-335dx]

Originally Posted by chris-c

He might have flashed you to say "that was fun" more than he gave up.

My neighbours were talking cars on friday night and the S6 owner said to the TT RS owner "so, you raced a mclaren the other day on the XYZ" to which the TTRS owner said "Yeah, I gave it full welly and.. well.. lost"

The TTRS is already a very powerful and lightweight car VS a very powerful and lightweight car but power wins.

Your heavy 335D vs a heavy bentley, power would still win imo.

Still remaps are hilarious fun

Yeah I'm sure you're right mate, I think it was probably a flash of "okay, that's quick enough now, point made" ha, ha. Still lots of fun though. I'm sure I could beat an old super car though. Ferrari 355 maybe?

[335dxdrive]

I think someone with a Durham remap on a 335d should get it dyno'd else where, their figures seem so high. I may do when I'm back in the UK

[JNW1]

Originally Posted by 335dxdrive

I think someone with a Durham remap on a 335d should get it dyno'd else where, their figures seem so high. I may do when I'm back in the UK

Their post-remap figures certainly look high but if it's their Dyno that's at fault wouldn't you expect the pre-remap figures to look optimistic as well? However, the "before" numbers for power and torque on the OP's car both look sensible to me (as in not too far away from BMW's claimed figures for a standard 335d?).

[Techno 9000]

Agreed.
The pre remap measurement of 608.9 nm calculates to 449 lb ft, so a little under spec.
Unless people believe the rolling road settings were messed with between runs , there's little reason to doubt the post remap measurements.

The torque post remap calculates to 538lbft so again quite as may be expected.

Perhaps the exhaust has helped with the last few hp gained?

What is the configuration underneath? Is the back box deleted?

[James-335dx]

Originally Posted by Techno 9000

Agreed.
The pre remap measurement of 608.9 nm calculates to 449 lb ft, so a little under spec.
Unless people believe the rolling road settings were messed with between runs , there's little reason to doubt the post remap measurements.

The torque post remap calculates to 538lbft so again quite as may be expected.

Perhaps the exhaust has helped with the last few hp gained?

What is the configuration underneath? Is the back box deleted?

That was kind of my thinking too. 316bhp and 450 ft lbs is about right for standard so they would have to mess with the dyno to make it look better but then why bother? I have seen other tuners getting simular figures as well. Exhaust may have helped? It's back box delete, split into 4 tailpipes as pictured below.

[Dan930]

is there any difference in sound when doing the backbox delete?

[James-335dx]

Originally Posted by Dan930

is there any difference in sound when doing the backbox delete?

Yeah a little bit of a rumble from the rear on start up and tickover, if you are at the rear. Can't really hear it inside the car but then I have the Active Sound on mine so it sounds like an M3 anyway when you're on it

[mkizzo]

Great write up. Are you willing to share the cost?

[James-335dx]

Originally Posted by mkizzo

Great write up. Are you willing to share the cost?

Thanks. Maybe missed my calling as a auto journalists? Ha, ha
Yeah, sure. Remap at DR was £395 inclusive of VAT and I paid £50 extra for the sports display recalibration to show the higher BHP & Torque on the dials.
Then a bit on top for diesel, hotel, beers and breakfast