My Bimmer Life Tuning Coil System Review

[Tony@VargasTurboTech]

Who knows if we could recommend them, we never got the chance to test them...

This pretty much speaks for itself. 11/16 I was told a couple days, 11/17 I said I was ready to make payment, never heard back... As you can see we made every effort to buy a couple sets for testing. We just like testing all options, as we enjoy it. We were more than happy with the PR's, but if there is other options we want to test them...

 

[ninjacoupe]

Who knows if we could recommend them, we never got the chance to test them...

This pretty much speaks for itself. 11/16 I was told a couple days, 11/17 I said I was ready to make payment, never heard back...

Yea that looks like sort of a business relationship. You were clearly reaching out on a business level. There’s more to it than old customer service. I see he wanted to be there personally for the testing. There’s probably more to it than a regular Joe looking to buy some coils. Maybe he isn’t ready to make the trip yet or who knows but this isn’t what anyone looking to purchase his coils as a customer would expect.

 

[matreyia]

My experience speaking with them was fine when they did respond. When you are trying to buy something, tell them multiple times, you are ready to pay whenever they are ready, and you never hear back, either A, they do not want to test them at the high power we are running, or B, its just bad business.

It took a long time to get my set. I did not get updates, but I did ask about recommended gap with my stock turbos and it was answered in fair amount of time. I am neutral on customer service since I did not ask for updates...though periodically touching base would have been nice. And as I stated before, one of the adapters delaminated when I test fitted into my stock plug and pulled out... but I did not call to ask about it, I just figured it would not affect the performance so I just installed it and sealed with heat shrink tubing and so far no issues. If there are any issues in the near future, I would hope it would not be a problem to get them fixed.

All in all, I am happy with the performance of the product.

 

[V8bait]

I had great customer service from Alex, including his noting that I was ordering for Z4 and making custom length. Everything arrived and looked great. While the PR are likely excellent, I prefer the more factory-like solution, and the dwell built into the coil.

Filippo

Dwell is still controlled by the DME but charging is routed through an additional transistor on the coil itself. IE don't check the PR box with BL coils or you'll melt them from the longer dwells the DME commands lol.

I do like the pencils for convenience, and Alex is a good dude. I'm interested to see how people will like the upcoming mounting options for the PR, they'll be cheap and easy swaps or add-ons to the stealth option. I think even more convenient than OEM but not stock looking at all lol.

 

[ninjacoupe]

Dwell is still controlled by the DME but charging is routed through an additional transistor on the coil itself. IE don't check the PR box with BL coils or you'll melt them from the longer dwells the DME commands lol.

I do like the pencils for convenience, and Alex is a good dude. I'm interested to see how people will like the upcoming mounting options for the PR, they'll be cheap and easy swaps or add-ons to the stealth option. I think even more convenient than OEM but not stock looking at all lol.

My biggest dilemma between the two is whether blue or red looks better lol. This is one of those tough choices that really comes down to details like you just mentioned. Slick mounting hardware/Hold down brackets and install comfort level.
I'm actually glad I didn't have to make this choice but if some sick options came out like you mentioned switching over would be pretty easy as the resale market for both is pretty good.

(disclosure: BL was purchased by me before PR had been announced)

 

[fmorelli]

Dwell is still controlled by the DME but charging is routed through an additional transistor on the coil itself.

Sorry for propagating misinformation. I swear I read dwell was internal on those, but I can't seem to find where I read it. Thanks for clearing it up, and appreciate your original assessment on coils some time back.

Filippo

 

[V8bait]

Sorry for propagating misinformation. I swear I read dwell was internal on those, but I can't seem to find where I read it. Thanks for clearing it up, and appreciate your original assessment on coils some time back.

Filippo

No worries! Lots of people think that. Some cars that's the case like old GM stuff, the old dual post coils that mount on top of the ignition module for example. The coils were technically dumb but they literally bolt to the module with the drivers, and the module got a rpm feed and calculates dwell independent of the computer. Good ol OBD1 days. Some smart coils have over dwell safeties as well like the LS, if you significantly overcharge it, the coil will fire itself. This can save the coil in case of a ground short, or be very bad for the engine in rare instances. The R8 luckily will melt before it discharges which is good IMO.

 

[Abacus38]

Dwell is still controlled by the DME but charging is routed through an additional transistor on the coil itself. IE don't check the PR box with BL coils or you'll melt them from the longer dwells the DME commands lol.

I do like the pencils for convenience, and Alex is a good dude. I'm interested to see how people will like the upcoming mounting options for the PR, they'll be cheap and easy swaps or add-ons to the stealth option. I think even more convenient than OEM but not stock looking at all lol.

because the pr coils are too close to the turbine housing for my liking lol

 

[STE92]

That was my issue, PR coils would melt for sure next to the turbine.

 

[fmorelli]

No worries! Lots of people think that.

Okay not to be a dead horse, but at my age I start to think I'm going senile! lol ... yesterday I went looking for the reference to internal dwell, and as I mentioned, I could not find it. I apologized for the misinformation and moved on. It was still bugging me today so I did a few more searches:

From this thread: https://bmw.spoolstreet.com/threads/my-review-for-the-bimmerlife-coil-upgrade.1963/

The key in my mind is coil dwell time. The Precision units are much more robust mechanically. But they are dependent upon mapping within the car's engine management software. And despite excellent performance thus far on the PRs, I am not at all convinced the current DME tuning software is a contributing factor.

If I'm right, then it's significant that the "smart" coils bring their own dwell time to the party. They might actually be producing a stronger spark than is currently possible on the DME-dependent PRs.

That's what stuck in my head and I thought, well it makes perfect sense to have dwell built-in, since it is a function of the coil as my feeble brain understands it. ... but the net, is the above quote wrong, or am I misunderstanding what it says?

Filippo

 

[V8bait]

Okay not to be a dead horse, but at my age I start to think I'm going senile! lol ... yesterday I went looking for the reference to internal dwell, and as I mentioned, I could not find it. I apologized for the misinformation and moved on. It was still bugging me today so I did a few more searches:

From this thread: https://bmw.spoolstreet.com/threads/my-review-for-the-bimmerlife-coil-upgrade.1963/


That's what stuck in my head and I thought, well it makes perfect sense to have dwell built-in, since it is a function of the coil as my feeble brain understands it. ... but the net, is the above quote wrong, or am I misunderstanding what it says?

Filippo

You quoted Doug? Don't ever quote Doug lol. He was arguing that we may not have full dwell control despite clear evidence we do. Anyway, the smart coils and the dumb coils are both fired the exact same way by the DME. The DME sends a 5v TTL signal to a transistor. On BMW, that transistor in INSIDE the DME, and the ground "signal" it switches runs to the coil through a long wire. On a smart coil system, that 5v TTL runs through a long wire to a transistor on the coil itself, and the ground that is switched is about 1cm from the coil. In both instances, the DME controls the dwell with the 5v TTL. All you are doing, is moving the transistor from the DME to the coil.

On the BL side of things, since you aren't opening the DME, they need to reverse the signal back to a logic signal. If you removed the DME from the picture for dwell control you're also removing it from spark control entirely and it would be a major step backwards. Basically Doug's logic was wrong (surprise surprise). Ironically he did almost make a point though. The R8 coils have way less resistance than the OEM, so they actually run nearly the same dwell time as OEM. But they pull more than double the amps and that's why they are more powerful. So you don't really need dwell time control for them on our cars at least, you just need to adapt the signal and remove any codes it may cause (although OEM dwell may be a bit long for them). If you run the R8 smart at OEM dwell you get full output from the coil. If you run a LS smart coil at OEM dwell you get about 1/2 the output, because the DME still controlls dwell. PR at OEM dwell is about 1/2 output as well. Doug was wrong :-(

 

[Tony@VargasTurboTech]

You quoted Doug? Don't ever quote Doug lol.

 

[The Convert]

Okay not to be a dead horse, but at my age I start to think I'm going senile! lol ... yesterday I went looking for the reference to internal dwell, and as I mentioned, I could not find it. I apologized for the misinformation and moved on. It was still bugging me today so I did a few more searches:

From this thread: https://bmw.spoolstreet.com/threads/my-review-for-the-bimmerlife-coil-upgrade.1963/


That's what stuck in my head and I thought, well it makes perfect sense to have dwell built-in, since it is a function of the coil as my feeble brain understands it. ... but the net, is the above quote wrong, or am I misunderstanding what it says?

Filippo

Doug is the most unreliable source you could possibly believe/quote. He made a living in the VW/Audi world by falsifying compressor maps for garbage Chinese turbos that he sold and peddled as built in house units.

People shit on Tony for stuff all the time, but Doug is on an entirely different planet.

 

[Rob09msport]

I just wanted to say I did to have little confusion on how to order bl coils but now that website let's you order I paid and waited 2 wks sent pm asking eta Alex responded right away and sent 3 days later as he said he would I had a problem installing Sunday night at 8pm he responded within 20 min Told me what to do to get car running temporarily and sent a replacement connector overnight and also helped me in other ways I think he went above and beyond also the r8 coils do have higher voltage than pr coils that is why if you look at all consumer reviews they tend to run larger gaps on bl coils

 

[Rob09msport]

I also an curious if their is or will be an upgraded lambo/r8 coil that we could use the bl harness to run them with and achieve even greater spark but I doubt their is any need to. I also think pr coils are great but personally I would disable multi spark and run eldor coils and compare to the pr coils to see how much of a difference they make with both tuned I know they help without tuning changes but i would think they have to be increasing load on dme without any tuning changes

 

[NoGuru]

Just curious if anyone knows the life expectancy of these?

 

[cloud9blue]

Just curious if anyone knows the life expectancy of these?

It has been out for less than a year... Dunno what do you expect lol.

In any case, the coil itself is super cheap. You can find them in a lot of places for $20 a pop.

 

[NoGuru]

It has been out for less than a year... Dunno what do you expect lol.

In any case, the coil itself is super cheap. You can find them in a lot of places for $20 a pop.

Yes I know this system is new, but the coils have been out for years.

 

[cloud9blue]

Yes I know this system is new, but the coils have been out for years.

Tons of info about these on the VW forums. You can form your own opinion from that if you just Google...

 

[V8bait]

Just curious if anyone knows the life expectancy of these?

Other VAG platforms used to say they were very unreliable. Alex has had good luck with them and feels whatever issues they used to have are improved with current offerings as long as you get them from the dealer and not an OEM.

Torture testing backs this up somewhat, the advance auto coils would get damaged after around 1 to 2 minutes, the VAG ones lasted more than twice as long. The cheap ones would completely fail whereas the VAG seemed to just weaken. Compared to OEM BMW coils that last around 30 seconds before they weaken and fry completely after like 2 minutes max it's significantly better even with the cheap ones.

Coils were stressed at their individual max, the BMW wouldn't be able to test at the same level as the R8. And the R8 tested under the BMW settings would have lasted considerably longer. I didn't simulate engine or turbo heat or anything like that just high voltage and high RPM (all near coil max voltage and 7000rpm simulation). Don't know if that helps but yeah.