[type-dRew]

The first time I drove my car, I hated how it shifted. I got xhp, I hated how it shifted.

I couldn't figure out why this car, seemingly built well and having the ability to be tuned so much, would have such piss poor feeling transmission shifts.

I couldn't understand why when I drove my car it felt like it was being shifted by someone learning the drive a manual, with long pauses in between gears, whether partial throttle or full but way worse WOT.

I thought for sure someone out there had a solution to fix how poorly this thing went through the gears. Nope, engine tuners just tune around it and its accepted that you just accelerate while pausing for each shift. I couldn't understand it. Every turbo car I've ever driven has been complimented by an automatic box because it flows power through the shift, its one of the biggest benefits to having an automatic turbo car. But no, not us, cut all that power off at the knees every time it clicks up. I hate it.

I finally found someone who is big into the 335/X5 diesel market, Rod Sutphin @ www.sutphintuning.com or you can contact him on facebook through the Suphin Tuning page. He claims he can make the ZF 6 speed auto perform how I want. But he only tuned diesels and apparently, the gas cars are completely different. Lots of diesel guys say his tune transforms their car, I want in.

I begged the guy, I asked him a few times this year if he would consider working with me to try and get the tune ironed out for these cars. He finally caved and said he would give it a shot. He sent me a base file and here we are after countless revisions later with something thats damn near perfect and ready for consumption. He wasn't wrong, its a completely different tuning process from the diesel cars. We went through a lot getting this thing right. Believe me when i say, if you aren't happy with something, he will work with you to make it right. It is not a 'canned' tune, he will customize it to your liking and to your specific vehicle setup.

He even found some never before touched tables in the engine tune that helps cohesively blend the trans tune and engine tune even further. But if you're using a locked tune like MHD OTS or similar, unfortunately he can't taylor it perfectly for you, but he can get you damn close. Luckily my RFP OTS and my new RFP custom file are unlocked so he was able to tweak it a little bit to make it do what he wants, so between that and his absolutely fantastic transmission tune, it is damn near perfect, basically exactly what I wanted this car to do the first time I drove it, what I expected it to do, it now does.

Instead of it pulling sometimes -25 degrees(!!!!!!) every shift up, it pulls nothing, it just flows into the next gear with no hint of lost power and the shifts click of firmly without complaint or any jerkiness. Its just smooth constant power, like youd expect in a turbo auto car(just not the platform, until now).

Example of normal shift timing loss with mhd ots and xhp stage 3:

https://datazap.me/u/typedrew/v5-e40...8;data=3-22-27

Notice over 20 degrees between gears is the norm.

Now, with my custom transmission tune, most current revision. Which still pulls a minor amount of timing 4-5, but nothing on every other gear; 1-2-3-4. We are working on 5th gear at the moment, but it is a complete world of difference compared to before.

https://datazap.me/u/typedrew/14-mil...8;data=3-22-26

It drops down to the appropriate timing for the given rpm in the next gear, but does not pull timing(or power in any other way) between shifts. You'll notice the largest dip is when it clicks 5th, which looks large but its only -2 degrees. A major improvement over before and thats after most people 1/4 mile run anyway, so its not a huge deal. But we will be working to eliminate it altogether over time.

This isn't even saying how much better it is driving every day, the partial throttle might be even better than WOT. If you don't have open intake or loud exhaust, you won't even notice it shifting. Heavy pedal but not wot almost feels like a cvt, smooth and rolling through the power.

Video of my car running through the gears(for folks with good ears, you can actually hear the distinct difference between every other gear and the 4-5 where a minor amount of timing is pulled instead of carried, again, he is working on that);

He has been tuning my car and a dozen others during this time with one of them making almost 750whp, no complaints only praise. Even if you don't mind the way these cars shift, i still think once you experience this, you won't want to go back. If anyone wants a ride, i'm in SE Michigan and willing to let you try it.

All this being said, his tune, just like XHP will bring out any maintenance or worn parts you may need to service or replace. My car has 170k miles almost with no known service history and has tolerated this process and this tune perfectly, but that doesn't mean it will be the same for anybody. Mods and tunes are not a replacement for proper maintenance or service, so make sure the car is up to the task or at the very least, be ready for if it isn't and you need to do some work to get it right. Most cars could do with a fluid, filter and solenoid change given their age at this point even stock, so just keep that in mind for in the future.

[RoughKnight]

I don't think i've ever seen a datalog that was +timing on shifts...that's pretty damn amazing

[type-dRew]

Originally Posted by RoughKnight

I don't think i've ever seen a datalog that was +timing on shifts...that's pretty damn amazing

Yeah, the drive is completely transformed, I love it.

[Sgop335]

Throttle wide open during shifts, no boost mean spikes, looks great.

[blaster3500]

Glad to see his is working with this platform. I have seen nothing but praise for him on the diesel groups!

[NoGuru]

This is really awesome work and a move in the right direction.

Now if the DCT could get more love

[type-dRew]

Originally Posted by V8bait

That first picture the engine tune has most of the factory ignition timing and torque management features enabled, they are there to allow the trans to fully shift and prevent slip, minimizing wear. The second picture you've simply disabled those flags in the tune. That's fine in most cases and more performance oriented, it's how I tune these cars generally, but realize the is a reason for those drops. On cars pushing the trans limits, utilizing the timing and torque management can be the difference between completing the shift into 5th and winning a race, vs the trans being unable to complete the shift and your motor bouncing off the rev limiter, which can damage motors. You can get away with this trick until around 550-600 torque.

Glad to see someone digging into the trans tune though, I agree 100% there's room for improvement on that side. The way I fixed it was by adding a third pedal, problem solved!

We have ran with adjustments only to the engine tune and brought timing loss on shifts down to about -15 degrees at best. It will 100% not do what we are asking it to without touching the transmission tuning file, removing those flags only reduces the timing drop marginally.

Trust me, I have about 65 tuning revisions showing its not 'just disabling flags and removing torque management'. The approach to this has been seriously in depth, more than I bargained for really when i asked for help, but its been enlightening.

The first tune is a standard mhd file and standard xhp stage 3 file on my car, basically what most people will be running as an example.

And yes, its all done with caution. Rod knows the limits of these cars very well, he is versed in the mechanical side deeply and knows what changes to make and what will cause what problems. One of the reasons he has left the E clutch on the 4-5 shift with still having a minor timing pull is because of this knowledge.

The diesel cars he is used to make upwards of 700lb ft with turbos alone and he keeps those 6HPs in one piece with his tuning, so he knows how to work around power levels.

From what we can tell, using the hard timing cut and torque management actually presents much harder wear on components than what we are doing now.

EDIT: woah, I replied to a ghost

[Ilma]

Wow.....even no boost spikes between shifts.

Both timing and boost stay directly on target.

I also have an RFP map. Do you provide him with both TCU stock map and your RFP map to tune together?

[type-dRew]

Originally Posted by Ilma

Wow.....even no boost spikes between shifts.

Both timing and boost stay directly on target.

I also have an RFP map. Do you provide him with both TCU stock map and your RFP map to tune together?

With an unlocked map he can do that, so yes I did. A lot of people won't have the option.

He is talking about working with some tuners on his findings so that they might implement his work in their files.

[IllSic_Design]

Whoa, awesome. Thanks for taking the time to work with the man and get him onto this engine platform!! I will definitely be hitting him up after the new year some time to work on getting a tune.

[riczon.335i]

Count me in on this too! I'll be contacting him shortly

[Ilma]

So I contacted Rod about a day ago and I already have a new transmission tune and he also made updates to my RFP tune to optimize torque management.

I installed the files and everything updated fine with no problems.

Unfortunately it was snowing so I didn't get a chance to step on it....but Rod recommended taking it easy in D mode for about 10 miles before dropping into S or M mode.

For the the first mile the tranny was adapting and ran a little rough, but by mile 2 it started to smooth out and I could feel how the car kept pulling forward through the shifts rather than pausing in between - just like OP described.

Service and turnaround time were outstanding and some of the technical questions I had about the tuning tables were answered directly and intelligently without being evasive or trying to keep information proprietary.

Hopefully dry roads tomorrow and I will get more throttle time

[type-dRew]

Awesome. I'm glad some people are getting their feet wet with this. It's only going to get better now that Ken @ Wedge has been working with Rod and acknowledged how good this programming is. Can't wait to see what's around the corner.

I made a more in-depth review on spool street so I figured I should /copy paste here;

Originally Posted by "V8bait, post: 86684, member: 24"

[USER=3398]@typedRew[/USER] can you be specific in what you didn't like and what is different? Shift timing is one, did he change the behavior for gear selection during normal driving or anything else? Just interested what places you felt needed help.

I did try to go over this in the main post, but ill try and satisfy the question better here. To be clear when I got with him, I initially said, I just want him to flow power through gears at wot, I dont want a cut in power. I basically said, xhp without power interruptions.

But thats not what I got, because he cannot build of an existing xhp file, they are locked. So this is a fresh file, all from him. That being said, stuff I never even knew I wanted, he made better. Examples;

Cold map.; I hated how the car held gears too long and shifted rough when cold. Basically making my drive through the neighborhood at 5am unnecessarily loud and my drive out feel much more rough.

He built his own cold map that almost mirrors the hot map, with that, I dont feel like its hanging gears too long and doesnt hit the next gear harder than it needs to when cold.

Partial throttle, normal driving; First off it doesnt rush into 6th gear. Which i hate in every tune i've used(stock, alpina, xhp stage 3), even after screwing with the driving map, I never got the timing right.

While lightly accelerating, if you dont have a loud intake or exhaust, you would be hard pressed to notice the shifts unless staring at the tach. As oppose to stock and xhp, where each shift you get a noticeable bump and minor pause in power up to the next gear.

Accelerate a little harder, say 30% power and it does the same but starts doing its best impression of a cvt. No interruptions in power as it changes gears up and the revs hang a little more in its happy spot rather than falling off as hard. Its my understanding that this is TC tuning. This behavior multiplies with more throttle, honestly feels crazy. Never knew I wanted it to feel this way but im glad it does.

He modifies the torque converter behavior and it multiplies power harder when it needs to and has a looser feel when it needs to. To note, this worked fine without touching the DME tune, we only recently delved into the engine tune side to try and work more out of it. We ran the TCU tune on mhd, rfp and shoup tunes without issue.

Also my transmission stays cooler after more pulls than before, or cruising. Tells me its making less heat in the trans and thats a big postive for me. I could find 200 degrees fairly easily. Now even after multiple pulls, its rare for me to see 180.

The behavior for downshifts is different, i asked him to make it a little more difficult for me to commend a downshift, but that can be tailored to preference, only took 1 revisions for that to be dialed in.

And wide open i've covered but even after everything else, I feel like what you're getting compared to what we are used to is just far and away so much better, its hard for me to keep it to myself. Which is why i wanted to let people know there are options if they want their car to act a little different and pick up some time. So even if some people see no reason to change the way(inlets weren't supposed to make a difference, right?) its currently being done, for those that do, they'll probably start enjoying their car all over again.

I'm sure im missing something, ill edit this when I recall more. Theres been so much its hard to pinpoint everything.

/end copy paste

[Ilma]

Originally Posted by type-dRew

Also my transmission stays cooler after more pulls than before, or cruising. Tells me its making less heat in the trans and thats a big postive for me. I could find 200 degrees fairly easily. Now even after multiple pulls, its rare for me to see 180.

This makes intuitive sense.....if the line pressures are higher (as Rod states) then there should be less slippage of the clutch packs = less friction = less residual heat.

[blown07]

I would think there has to be a balance between allowing some slippage and dropping some power vs no slippage and no drop in power during a shift for transmission longevity. It would be the equivalent of power shifting a manual...yes the car will be a little quicker but the friction material will see a much higher load. I just can't see how a 50ms (guess) shorter shift making any difference in tranny temp also. I have the XHP stage 3 and only use manual mode but use the custom shift points to let it shift at around 7k rpm. I don't feel any delay and have a hard time believing it could shift any faster... at least something that could be measured. I hope i'm wrong here cause I'm always looking for that extra fraction of a second in the 1/4 and if it can be done with no change in reliability than I'm interested.

[iqraceworks]

Isn't the reason the stock transmission tuning (and xHP tune) closes the throttle a split second during the shift to keep all of that torque off of the transmission while it's completeing the shift so that it's easier on the clutch packs? It keeps the shock load down.

It would be interesting to hear from someone at xHP as to why they keep that same logic (back off throttle between shifts)...even with their stage 3 tune.

I'm guessing they do it for a reason.

Aren't the ZF 6HP21 transmissions only rated for 300-ish torque anyways? I would think that you would kind of want to baby them with the 450+ tq people are pushing through them.

[type-dRew]

Same logic could be applied to an mhd tune over custom.

If there was more power to be had safely why wouldn't mhd just have in their tunes?

Your logic is reasonable but flawed. It's an off the shelf tune made for everyone. They keep it safe sure, but there's always more to be had safely with a custom file when it comes to anything.

[type-dRew]

Originally Posted by blown07

I would think there has to be a balance between allowing some slippage and dropping some power vs no slippage and no drop in power during a shift for transmission longevity. It would be the equivalent of power shifting a manual...yes the car will be a little quicker but the friction material will see a much higher load. I just can't see how a 50ms (guess) shorter shift making any difference in tranny temp also. I have the XHP stage 3 and only use manual mode but use the custom shift points to let it shift at around 7k rpm. I don't feel any delay and have a hard time believing it could shift any faster... at least something that could be measured. I hope i'm wrong here cause I'm always looking for that extra fraction of a second in the 1/4 and if it can be done with no change in reliability than I'm interested.

Where are you located? More than welcome to drive my car and compare.

Like I said, I ran stock, alpina and xhp. There is no comparison and yes it can absolutely shift faster. I plan on doing a back to back dragy pass first with this tune and then xhp flashed on the same day to get an exact comparison.

But without that I can absolutely guarantee you will make your car faster to the 1/4 with this file, so if you are chasing tenths. I'd start here.

Also, are you stock turbo? If so a 7k shift point is killing your times.

[Ilma]

Originally Posted by iqraceworks

Isn't the reason the stock transmission tuning (and xHP tune) closes the throttle a split second during the shift to keep all of that torque off of the transmission while it's completeing the shift so that it's easier on the clutch packs? It keeps the shock load down.

It would be interesting to hear from someone at xHP as to why they keep that same logic (back off throttle between shifts)...even with their stage 3 tune.

That's weird....I just checked one of my datalogs on xHP and I never get throttle closures between shifts.....it just drops timing in between gears.

I love xHP over the stock transmission, but it can give some pretty brutal shifts where I can feel the car drop back - slam into gear - and then pull forward. You can actually feel the car going back and forth during a hard shift.

Maybe that is minimizing clutch slip?

If you check out Rod's website you will see that he historically has tuned BMW diesels.

Diesels make a ton of torque - more so than gas engines and that is where he has been applying his skills.

They say that it's torque that kills engines and transmissions.

[type-dRew]

Originally Posted by Ilma

That's weird....I just checked one of my datalogs on xHP and I never get throttle closures between shifts.....it just drops timing in between gears.

I love xHP over the stock transmission, but it can give some pretty brutal shifts where I can feel the car drop back - slam into gear - and then pull forward. You can actually feel the car going back and forth during a hard shift.

Maybe that is minimizing clutch slip?

If you check out Rod's website you will see that he historically has tuned BMW diesels.

Diesels make a ton of torque - more so than gas engines and that is where he has been applying his skills.

They say that it's torque that kills engines and transmissions.

Yeah the cars don't close throttle on shifts , if it's closing on shifts it's just because it's a ots map and is over boosting and closing throttle to fix it.

[RoughKnight]

Originally Posted by type-dRew

Yeah the cars don't close throttle on shifts , if it's closing on shifts it's just because it's a ots map and is over boosting and closing throttle to fix it.

Wedge is working on a fix, it won't be a problem soon enough. and xHP is revisiting the 6HP cars in the summer so we might get updated maps/shiftpoints this coming 2020.

[type-dRew]

Originally Posted by RoughKnight

Wedge is working on a fix, it won't be a problem soon enough. and xHP is revisiting the 6HP cars in the summer so we might get updated maps/shiftpoints this coming 2020.

All ots maps have this issue, it's not new. V7 did the best for it, but it left power on the table, which is why v8 maps always overshot and closed throttle, it closes throttle but gives a better feel and more power. But throttle closures aren't a huge deal and typically don't affect power.

The tunes are not built for a specific car so it's impossible to fix without setting targets way below what would make the car feel quick.

Just get a custom tune and a custom trans tune and call it good. Ots is no fun, stop waiting for scraps and dial your car in. well worth the cost of entry.