The 114i is the budget baby BMW…and also a truely brilliant buy, as it shares the engine with a much higher horsepower model. Here’s how we de-restrict, and tune…

BMW 114i ECU Remapping – They say the best things come in small packages…Well in regards to tuning that is certainly the case with the BMW 114i!

What if we told you we could nearly double the power of the 114i engine whilst keeping everything with in a safe and sustainable limit?

Well thats exactly what we have managed to do here at JF Automotive – the 114i shares the same engine as the 116i, and 120i. It’s limited due to marketing tactics, meaning that with the limiters removed there’s some huge gains available whilst remaining totally safe. I mean, we’re not even tuning the engine till it’s at 177BHP – just removing manufacturer set restrictions in the software.

Stock Dyno Run

After conducting some stock runs on the 114i engine we found that it produced 114BHP & 206NM from factory. Thats 14BHP & 26NM over BMW’s quoted figures and it just gets better from there.

ECU Drilling

Here at JFautomotive we are always looking for the most efficient way of doing to job correctly. The 114i engine is equipped Bosch MEVD17.2.5 ECU. Unfortunately at the this time the ECU couldn’t be tuned via the OBD port. This in turn required us to remove the ECU and bench tune it. When bench tuning an ECU we would normally have to open the ECU casing to allow for access to the SMD PCB (Surface-mount device printed circuit board). Due to the complex nature of the 114i ECU casing we decided to take a fresh approach in regards to accessing the ECU’s SMD PCB.

This lead to us investing in new equipment that would allow us drill a precise hole in the casing of the ECU. This ensured the we could both read and write to the ECU on the bench without having to remove the casing. Drilling a hole in the ECU casing may sound like a daunting prospect… not for the JFA technical team.

We managed to drill the ECU casing safely and then proceeded to write the tuned file accordingly.

Once the file had been written we resealed the ECU ready to go back into the vehicle.

Here’s a video we shot at the time to explain the process a bit better;

BMW 114 ECU Remapping – Tuned Dyno Run

After refitting the ECU we then conducted the tuned runs on our 2000BHP Mustang Dyno. This is where the BMW 114 ECU Remapping comes into its own. Once tuned this 114i engine made a staggering 206BHP & 305NM!

This was a huge gain of 92BHP & 99NM over what the vehicle was running stock!

Whilst running the vehicle we data logged ignition timing, boost pressure, IAT and fuelling to ensure that the vehicle was always running 100% safe.