[mister2d]

Alright, here's my initial day one review of the OFT after taking a chance in purchasing one this month.

Mods:
* OEM gutted cats
* Resonator delete
* Charcoal filter delete
* K&N air filters, but I'll be going back to stock paper soon.

Tune used: 660whp_600lbft 2x1 to 530 Stg 2 v2.0 93oct_CSoff_CMoff...

The first initial flash of the ECU took about 30-35 mins. I'm approximating because it seemed to take a long time as I was browsing forums to kill time. It did appear to be done after a "verify" phase when I was about 15 minutes in, but then it started writing again to the ECU. Silly me, I have two ECUs. Glad I didn't panic.

Onto starting it up. The cold start delete is very underrated. I absolutely HATE the way this car starts up cold without cats. Now it sounds normal again.

Driving. I am extremely pleased with throttle response and feel. Stock feeling always felt like crap to me. It's just something about BMW turbo cars that don't feel right in the throttle response department. I don't get that feeling on AMGs or Porsche. With the tune there is an improvement. Not too dramatic in terms of how I like it, but I would hate it if I went back to stock.

Is the car faster? Oh yes. Especially in 3rd gear where there is just a wallop of power smoothly delivered from out of nowhere. 1st and 2nd gear are actually pretty tame and refined. Openflash states that they "...limited permissible torque output in 1st gear by nearly 40%, second gear by 30% and 3rd gear by 10%. Full torque from 4th gear and up". I believe it because that's what I can feel. It gives the feeling that you can beat on this car all day long and you'll be fine. However, I am on my second S63 so we'll see this time. lol

I am happy with the performance of the tune. It's exactly what I hoped for. Limited and flat torque with increased power and smoothness. Gear changes at higher revs are even better now.

Now, onto what I don't like.

1) Customer response time. When $800 USD changes hands the expectation is that you'll be there when you say you'll be there. Openflash's posted hours are: 10am to 4pm M-F Excluding All Major Holidays. I only wish that were true!

2) I was disappointed at how "connected" I had to be to read and write flashes. One of the touted features were: "Vehicle and DATA security! — You have all files present on your device. No cloud systems or databases that can be hacked and manipulated!"

While true, your files are on your OFT device, but in order to get them there the OFT Manager software has to go through its gyrations of self licking and updating every time you use it which requires the Internet. Only after you load all your tunes onto your device are you truly free.

3) Technical requirements of using the OFT attached to your Windows laptop. For starters, you will run into checksum problems if you connect using a USB 3.0 port. Of course I didn't read all the way through the FAQs, but this is a non starter until you resolve this issue. Hope that your laptop or device has a USB 2.0 port instead. The two laptops in my possession (which are 6+ years old) only have USB 3.0 ports. As a workaround I had to find a local Best Buy that had a USB 2.0 hub that I could purchase. Fortunately I found ONE USB hub in my immediate area.

Finally, after you successfully get Windows 10 to stop turning "Realtime Protection" back on will you obtain ultimate success in flashing your tune.

I hated these technical issues. Mostly attributed to the architecture that Windows is, and the other issue with having a USB 2.0 dependency. I have to admit that I became very frustrated after waiting for so long for this tune to ultimately be held up by stupid stuff like this.


So to wrap it up. Does Openflash have a solid tune? YES

Does the Openflash tablet provide additional value? YES. You can datalog, read ECU codes, and other nice things. I wish it could reset DCT Adaptations! Extra value can be had if you bought another car like a 911 and Openflash released OTS tunes for it. You could have those tunes for free by requesting them. No extra cost. Kind of nice I think.

Would I purchase from Openflash again? NO (maybe) They are resource and customer service challenged. So much so that it's probably enough to have a permanent negative reputation amongst certain enthusiasts.

Stay away if you don't have the patience. Give it a try if you do.