123 Tune+ Bluetooth…Take 2

A few years ago I was watching Wheeler Dealers and they were talking about this new electronic ignition system that was a distributor that you can program with a computer. I was like WHOA! How cool, except I’m a Mac guy and most things like this require a Windows machine and I refused to get a laptop JUST to put distributor curves into the 2002. Then someone said , “I heard they were working on a Bluetooth version for iPhones and iPads.” Again I said “WHOAH!!!” I contacted them in the Netherlands and asked if I could be a beta tester and in a few weeks, I had a Bluetooth version of the distributor on my doorstep. It worked great except we found out once the unit heated up you couldn’t access or modify the curves until it cooled down. They looked at the data and said it was a firmware issue but they needed the unit to update it. The problem is that the car ran so damn good with it, I didn’t want to remove it to send it back to get update! So with me getting to the bottom of my list of things to do on the car, I decided to just buy another unit and swap it out then when I get it back i’ll have a spare or dare I say one for another 02!

Install was easy. Find TDC, disconnect 3 wires. One screw holds the dizzy on the car. Pull the old one out. Connect 2 wires, set the car at TDC and then connect the third, then load in the advance and vacuum curves and then adjust the timing. BAM. Car runs great and now I can access the curves at any point. I’ll send this one back to the guys in the Netherlands and I’ll have a spare on the shelf if anything happens to this one. All in all a great day!  One bonus is this has an immobilizer on it and with my phone I can turn this on and it won’t start, so a little bit of theft protection.  I’ll take it.

Here are screeshots of the advance curve as well as the vacuum settings that are in the dizzy now.   These were put in by Ken Blasko from Vintage BMW Racing and he got things close when he did the motor refresh.  He was pretty frustrated getting locked out once the distributor got hot.  Now he can go back in the next time he has the car and really dial it in.