Diagnostics

[Ahmedsinc 414]

Hi guys. I'd like to set myself up with some in-house diagnostic capabilities and the ability to recode an ECU in the future(fuel maps mostly). Plus I'm tired of borrowing friends oil service reset gadgets. Have found a couple of period appropriate ECUs to practice on before I plug into my own car so I'm in no danger of bricking my ride. While I hold no ambition to replace a BMW mechanic it would be nice to have a sneak peek at whats going on behind the scenes when things go wrong. I'll be hooking into an OBD1 E36 325i.

I'm in no position financially (nor intellectually) to invest in an IBM T30 and run one of the Siemens interfaces, but I am curious as to other peoples experiences with the USB dongles available on eBay that claim to run BMWTIS. Has anyone bought one of these before? Good experiences or bad? Any sellers you could recommend? Or are they a total load of shyte?

If I do go down this path the machine in will be running from is an Asus netbook. Not highly specced but seems to be stable. OS is win7 starter, worth installing XP?

TIA

[Allanw 1051]

I usually only PM this, but it does pop up a bit :

This guy called Jimmy reads another forum I read, and I brought some stuff from him: Jimmy's Cables They work great, and he's helpful/knowledgable (Very much so, when you consider the low dollar value of the items). There's probably cheaper ones arouund, but Jimmy will help, standby his stuff.

I've also got this: BMW Scanner 1.4.0, but it's probably not as much use on a OBD1 car. SOmeone on Trademe is selling these for about NZ$125..... not the NZ$40 ish you can get them for. I ordered mine from this exact company with no issues.

Both theses tools have been invaluable for my facelift E39, and apparently you can use WINKFP to update DME software etc with Jimmy's cable, though I've never tried it. Yet. I need a cheap M54B30, then I can do it :-)

[matt45 1]

I usually only PM this, but it does pop up a bit :

This guy called Jimmy reads another forum I read, and I brought some stuff from him: Jimmy's Cables They work great, and he's helpful/knowledgable (Very much so, when you consider the low dollar value of the items). There's probably cheaper ones arouund, but Jimmy will help, standby his stuff.

I've also got this: BMW Scanner 1.4.0, but it's probably not as much use on a OBD1 car. SOmeone on Trademe is selling these for about NZ$125..... not the NZ$40 ish you can get them for. I ordered mine from this exact company with no issues.

Both theses tools have been invaluable for my facelift E39, and apparently you can use WINKFP to update DME software etc with Jimmy's cable, though I've never tried it. Yet. I need a cheap M54B30, then I can do it :-)

Have you got this working with DIS by any chance?

[sp8s 1]

There is a lot of info on other BMW forums (check this) found this very helpful when I was mucking around.

[Ahmedsinc 414]

I usually only PM this, but it does pop up a bit :

This guy called Jimmy reads another forum I read, and I brought some stuff from him: Jimmy's Cables They work great, and he's helpful/knowledgable (Very much so, when you consider the low dollar value of the items). There's probably cheaper ones arouund, but Jimmy will help, standby his stuff.

I've also got this: BMW Scanner 1.4.0, but it's probably not as much use on a OBD1 car. SOmeone on Trademe is selling these for about NZ$125..... not the NZ$40 ish you can get them for. I ordered mine from this exact company with no issues.

Both theses tools have been invaluable for my facelift E39, and apparently you can use WINKFP to update DME software etc with Jimmy's cable, though I've never tried it. Yet. I need a cheap M54B30, then I can do it :-)

Looks pretty good, thanks when you do get that spare B30 can I yoink your old one? I have a theory pertaining to an M50 stroker I'm keen to explore

[Allanw 1051]

Have you got this working with DIS by any chance?

Only the one from Jimmy - DIS worked fine, but I don't use it. I've fiddled quite extensiely with BMW Scanner and NCSExpert.

The BMW Scanner interface doesn't work with other cables.

[Allanw 1051]

Looks pretty good, thanks when you do get that spare B30 can I yoink your old one? I have a theory pertaining to an M50 stroker I'm keen to explore

You want my M54B25? Sounds interesting :-)

I can't see it happening any time soon. It's only done about 125K and I can't see myself upgrading to the 3.0 until either something goes wrong, or I win some money. I spend most of my "car money" on other toy cars :-)

[Ahmedsinc 414]

You want my M54B25? Sounds interesting :-)

I can't see it happening any time soon. It's only done about 125K and I can't see myself upgrading to the 3.0 until either something goes wrong, or I win some money. I spend most of my "car money" on other toy cars :-)

Seems I shouldn't be replying to posts after 2 hours sleep - thought you were replacing your existing 3 litre, not upgrading Am doing the research on a supercharged M50B30 stroker, the main difficulty is working out how to run the engine management without spending a fortune on a Link. Will serve well to keep me occupied through the long sleepless winter nights ahead

[Allanw 1051]

Seems I shouldn't be replying to posts after 2 hours sleep - thought you were replacing your existing 3 litre, not upgrading Am doing the research on a supercharged M50B30 stroker, the main difficulty is working out how to run the engine management without spending a fortune on a Link. Will serve well to keep me occupied through the long sleepless winter nights ahead

furry muff.

Spend a fortune on a ViPec instead Same as a link, but often with more stuff for less money. Really is a link inside though - made in the same place