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I ordered a DirectFlash for my Z4M a week or so ago from SonicMS and it arrived the other day. So far It's been about 24 hours with the software installed so I thought I'd give my first impressions.

Firstly if you're considering the DirectFlash as an option to quickly change between tunes - forget about it. It takes about 25 minutes to flash the ECU so loading up a tune quickly for race gas, valet mode, or whatever you might have in mind isn't going to work well. All of those tunes would have to come from ESS as well and they would charge for them.

The process is pretty straight forward, install some software on a Windows PC (I used a Windows VM on my Mac for this), update the DirectFlash and the software and then head to your car. You have to first read and copy the existing ECU to the DirectFlash to send the resulting image file to ESS. After that they will modify it and send you back an updated copy which you will then write to the ECU.

Both reading and writing the ECU takes about 25 minutes each time - so make sure your car is on a battery charger during this. The charger my car was connected to apparently wasn't working because after reading and writing my ECU I wasn't able to get the car to turn over - the battery was near dead. When the ECU was being written the fuel pump was running the entire time draining the battery. So be warned - if your battery died while flashing you would be at risk of bricking your ECU. I didn't have any issues thankfully.

Throttle response is noticeably quicker and I would describe it somewhere between sport and non-sport mode of the stock car. Sport feels unchanged. It's much more manageable and immediate, I felt the stock non-sport mode to be somewhat numb; as if the car was asking you 'are you sure you want to press the throttle?' Now it just goes like it should.

The car 'feels' faster overall mostly due to the throttle response improvements and has a noticeable boost midrange making the 1st to 2nd shift change feel more like a sportscar and the tires will spin easily if you're not paying attention under throttle.

I haven't measured on a dyno, or timed 0-60 runs or anything of the sort. The software was mostly an experiment for me, all my other BMW's have been Sharked or otherwise been software tuned and I've always felt afterward that they sharpened up the car and made them feel more immediate.

Bottom line, car feels better, improved throttle response, feels more fun. Not sure if it's worth the price of entry.