159: BMW Direct Injection on MoTeC: Genius or Headache?

Port-injected engines and aftermarket standalone ECUs go hand in hand—but controlling direct-injected engines is far less charted territory. Brett Strom from Strom Motorsport has been deep in the weeds mastering BMW’s B48 on a MoTeC ECU, and he’s here to break it all down—plus much more.

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In this episode of Tuned In, Brett shares his journey from young racing enthusiast to professional racer and engineer. He dives into the realities of building a career in motorsport and the rapid evolution of technology. We also get into ABS, traction control, and the strategy behind endurance racing.

We unpack Brett’s hands-on experience with racing and tuning, focusing on the complexities of direct injection. From injection timing to fuel pressure behaviour, he explains the intricacies and what really matters when tuning DI engines on a standalone ECU.

The conversation also covers choosing the right ECU for a particular application, dyno tuning versus real-world performance, the challenges of building reliable race engines, and why MoTeC remains his go-to platform.

Brett’s done a lot in the world of motorsport—and we’ve only scratched the surface. From racer to engineer to tuner and builder, his depth of experience makes this one a seriously compelling listen.

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Follow Brett Here:

Instagram: strommotorsport Youtube: strommotorsport WWW: strommotorsport.com

Timestamps:

0:00 BMW Direct Injection on MoTeC: Genius or Headache? 4:40 How did you form an interest in cars? 7:32 First car BMW E30 10:29 Advantages of spec racing series 13:59 What were you going to do for a job after university? 18:30 What was wrong with the BMW factory ECU? 21:59 Why did you pick MoTec? 27:25 You've done an EFI course, what happened when you started tuning? 32:21 How did your career as a racer develop? 41:23 Running a motorsport based performance shop. How hard is it? 45:59 Challenges of turning late model cars into race cars? 56:04 Is it not until GT3 level cars that they’re actually factory built race cars? 58:23 Motorsport grade traction control and ABS 1:06:41 What’s the challenges of controlling a DI engine with a standalone ECU 1:27:58 Are you adding port injection to these engines as well? 1:30:01 What is the benefit of Direct Injected engines and how do we tune them? 1:47:36 Do you need a complex standalone ECU and which one? 1:59:00 B48 engine swap into BMW E36 & E46 2:02:18 Final 3 Questions