Executive Summary:
I'm at 6,500ft above sea level with poor 91 octane. I've always been happy with my Cobb OTS map (Drive Stage 1), but knew there had to be more there. PTF ran a group buy on another forum (PTF - run one here!) and I was lucky enough to get in for $200. Great investment - my only regret is not doing it earlier. Nishan was fantastic to work with, super responsive (it took 12 iterations) and found another 21HP and 33lbft of torque in my car all with a massive increase in area under the curve.
Full Review:
Car Background:
2010 335i, ZSP, auto, RWD, Cobb V2, BMS drop-in filter and Alpina flash. Roughly 50k miles. We have E85 available, but I didn't want to mess mixing, so we tuned on our 91 octane. Sucking in thin air at 6,500ft above sea level.
Purchase from PTF:
The purchase couldn't have been any easier. Each of the group buy members were given a unique code, we entered it and purchased our tune. Less than 24hours later, I had an email from my tuner - Nishan.
Process:
Nishan warned me upfront that my car would take some extra steps because of the altitude. He wanted to fine tune it carefully - something I greatly appreciated and respected. At the time, I didn't realize how many iterations it would take, but I committed to myself to turn around logs within 24hours. While Nishan never committed to turning around the revised maps in any specific timeframe, his response time was incredible. Even though they had a massive group buy they were working on, he still turned the maps around in 24-48hours. Very nice! In addition, he's clearly a car guy, even asking for a pic of my car so he'd know what he was working on. Very cool.
We started off with a baseline of the map I was already running - the Drive Stage 1 map from Cobb. We then started tweaking off of that. From the very beginning I knew I wanted to do a review of this process, so I found a closed stretch of road I could do datalogs on that always started at the same spot for easy virtual dyno comparison. I apologize up front for not having a "real" dyno, but this was what I had available and I controlled the variables (including temperature) for compares as much as possible.
Results:
Keeping in mind that I'm at 6,500ft, I ran a Stage0 log to see what my car would be like stock:
241HP
274lbft
My Stage 1 Drive map yielded:
282HP
320lbft
Quite nice for the Cobb OTS map. A gain of 41HP and 46lbft of torque over stock. This is why I love Cobb :D
But like I said, I knew there was more. After 12 revisions, tons of fine tuning and lots of hard work, Nishan's expertise gained me another 21HP and 33lbft and a massive bump in the area under the curve:
303HP
353lbft
Final Map vs. Stage 0 (+62HP, +79lbft)
![Click here to enlarge]()
Final Map vs. Stage 1 OTS (+21HP, +33lbft)
![Click here to enlarge]()
In the end, I'm super happy. My only regret is I wish I had done it earlier. Plus, as I add new parts to my car, Nishan and PTF can finesse out even more power.
Bottom Line:
If you've been on the fence for a PTF proTune (eTune), stop waiting and do it. You won't regret it.
-Rich
@dzenno@PTF @Jake@PTF
@nishan@PTF
I'm at 6,500ft above sea level with poor 91 octane. I've always been happy with my Cobb OTS map (Drive Stage 1), but knew there had to be more there. PTF ran a group buy on another forum (PTF - run one here!) and I was lucky enough to get in for $200. Great investment - my only regret is not doing it earlier. Nishan was fantastic to work with, super responsive (it took 12 iterations) and found another 21HP and 33lbft of torque in my car all with a massive increase in area under the curve.
Full Review:
Car Background:
2010 335i, ZSP, auto, RWD, Cobb V2, BMS drop-in filter and Alpina flash. Roughly 50k miles. We have E85 available, but I didn't want to mess mixing, so we tuned on our 91 octane. Sucking in thin air at 6,500ft above sea level.
Purchase from PTF:
The purchase couldn't have been any easier. Each of the group buy members were given a unique code, we entered it and purchased our tune. Less than 24hours later, I had an email from my tuner - Nishan.
Process:
Nishan warned me upfront that my car would take some extra steps because of the altitude. He wanted to fine tune it carefully - something I greatly appreciated and respected. At the time, I didn't realize how many iterations it would take, but I committed to myself to turn around logs within 24hours. While Nishan never committed to turning around the revised maps in any specific timeframe, his response time was incredible. Even though they had a massive group buy they were working on, he still turned the maps around in 24-48hours. Very nice! In addition, he's clearly a car guy, even asking for a pic of my car so he'd know what he was working on. Very cool.
We started off with a baseline of the map I was already running - the Drive Stage 1 map from Cobb. We then started tweaking off of that. From the very beginning I knew I wanted to do a review of this process, so I found a closed stretch of road I could do datalogs on that always started at the same spot for easy virtual dyno comparison. I apologize up front for not having a "real" dyno, but this was what I had available and I controlled the variables (including temperature) for compares as much as possible.
Results:
Keeping in mind that I'm at 6,500ft, I ran a Stage0 log to see what my car would be like stock:
241HP
274lbft
My Stage 1 Drive map yielded:
282HP
320lbft
Quite nice for the Cobb OTS map. A gain of 41HP and 46lbft of torque over stock. This is why I love Cobb :D
But like I said, I knew there was more. After 12 revisions, tons of fine tuning and lots of hard work, Nishan's expertise gained me another 21HP and 33lbft and a massive bump in the area under the curve:
303HP
353lbft
Final Map vs. Stage 0 (+62HP, +79lbft)
Final Map vs. Stage 1 OTS (+21HP, +33lbft)
In the end, I'm super happy. My only regret is I wish I had done it earlier. Plus, as I add new parts to my car, Nishan and PTF can finesse out even more power.
Bottom Line:
If you've been on the fence for a PTF proTune (eTune), stop waiting and do it. You won't regret it.
-Rich
@dzenno@PTF @Jake@PTF
@nishan@PTF