Pulley and a tune.

 

I am going to skip that and go straight to a new blower =D

 

Geeze, tough break on getting a GT500. . I do believe there are cai's and tunes out there for them as well.

 

That'll work too.

 

Got my SCT tuner yesterday and I programmed the 93 octane tune. I notice a big difference in response to the gas pedal. Haven't really been able to test it much besides that yet. One thing I wish it came with was instructions. It came with absolutely no documentation. A sheet of paper with the specs I supplied would be nice to verify that the correct axle ratio, tire size, etc was programmed in and a few insutrctions on how to use the tuner would be nice.

I do have a question on octane. If I load 93 octane gas and load the 87 octane tune, will that work good? I ask because today, while I still had 93 gas in the tank, I loaded the 87 octane tune and the engine started doing funny things like irregular idle and abrupt speed changes. I went back and loaded the stock tune and then the 93 octane tune again. Tomorrow I'll see how it is running.

Joe

 

Brenspeed does GT500s too....

 

How much did the tuner cost you? Was it worth the money?

 

Uh yeah i would say thats not normal to have that issue. As long as your using the same or higher octane you should be good. I would call them and see whats up.

 

Pretty sure it is said that the slighty erratic behavior is normal when you first flash them as the new tune takes. I would be concerned if it keeps on doing it.

On topic:

I have been in contact with both Brenspeed and Bama. I think I'm going to pull the trigger with Bama since they seem to beable to get the CAI I want and you get 3 different tunes instead of one.

 

you need to be at as low of a fuel level as possible, and then fill up with the desired octane before changing the tune

 

SCT X3 tuner from Brenspeed was $379, free shipping and I got within 2 weeks. Regarding rather or not it was worth it, I am still evaluating it.

One nice thing I like about having a tuner is being able to datalog the car while it is running, being able to read and clear engine codes and the like, besides being able to reprogram the engine.

Unfortunately Brenspeed doesn't tell you what each tune does like Bamachips. Bamachips says this tune is for torque, this is for highend, etc. I have only tried the 93 octane tune. I need to experiment with the 87 and 89 octane tunes to see what they buy me. Then I will have a better feel for rather it was worth it or not.

Joe

 

When I had my Bama tunes for my 05 GT all I ever used was the 87 octane tune. It woke up my car and made a bear out of it.I was very pleased and the price of regular jumped up and down for a long time so I didn't use the other two tunes that came with it. I'm sure they also would have been awesome.

 

I thought with Brenspeed you only get 1 custom tune and there other 2 were off the shelf tunes? Brenspeed told me they don't do the 3 tunes as they are just marketing!

 

?? My tuner came with 3 custom tunes, 87, 89 and 93 octane. However, I seem to be having a little trouble with them and I called Brenspeed today. They are going to get back to me tomorrow with their tec guy.

Joe

 

Please keep us updated on this as I am planning on ordering from brenspeed very soon

 

Really....I guess they need to get whoever responses to emails up to speed on things, that makes pretty much everything they told me incorrect.

What problems were you having? I'm still trying to wait on a good review before I put money on one of the mail order tunes.

 

I'll tell you my experience, it was well documented on the forum until the big crash, but it's lost now.

Tillman has some major customer service problems (don't know about Bamachips, never went through them) as they don't have enough people working there (this may be Doug's problem, too, don't know). Chris Rose is their main tuner guy, and he's flat swamped most of the time. Shows you how popular they are, as they just can't get to all of them efficiently. Many guys here have had similar experiences, and there have been many posts regarding this. Their web site is new and much better than before, but still doesn't have everything on it, and I'm not sure if it's not just ported to Chris Rose's inbasket, so may still have some promptness problems. They're well aware of the problems and complaints, but it's hard finding a guy of CR's talents to supplement or supplant him.

Brenspeed has amazing customer service and some very nice and easily accessible guys working there. I called one day trying to get something figured out, had a working tune 2-3 days later. Their tunes are definitely good, wake up the car and make it behave like it should have from the factory. They also have good prices and a great web service.

All this being said, when I finally did get a Tillman tune (long story, but I originally bought through Tillman and had problems with their first tunes, had to go to Brenspeed to get a tune I could get to work w/ the Steeda CAI, and then CR wanted me to give him a try again before throwing in the towel with them) it was head and shoulders above the canned Brenspeed tune (which is supposed to be much better than standard X3 or Steeda or whoever's canned tunes). There was that much of a noticeable difference, and to be honest it surprised me. Definitely worth the wait to go through Tillman if you can. Not saying Brenspeed isn't good, but my experience was the Tillman tune was better.

So that's my experience, take it for what it is.

 

That's what they told me too. I do have the three Bama tunes and two (Torque and Performance) are worthless, or at least not worth $400. The race tune WAS wonderful until my car started idling poorly. I can't imagine how this could suddenly be caused by the tune but when I put the stock tune back, it is fine. (Anybody have any opinions there, I'd love to hear them...). Of course, Bama won't answer emails or phone so I called Brenspeed.

Aside from the fact I don't understand why it takes 5-7 days to EMAIL a tune, they were at least very friendly and seemed knowledgeable. So we'll see what their tune does in a couple days...I hope.

I'll tell ya this...I can't stand driving around with the stock tune.

 

Reccomend cleaning your throttle body. Race tune moves the throttle body plates a lot quicker than the stock tune. So if dirt and oil get in there the plates won't be albe to respond as fast as the race tune wants them to and the engine gets momentarily starved of air.
This 2007 post from doug (bamachips) explains: https://themustangsource.com/showthread.php?t=450158

On the rough idle after new tune, it's normal for the idle to be little wierd on the first start up after a new tune load. It should even out after a start or two.

On octane, it's ok to run an 87 octane tune with 93 octane gas. It's never good to run 93 octane tune on 87 octane gas. Higher octane means the gas has higher combustion resistance. Among other things, 93 octane tunes advance the timing which puts 87 octane gas at risk of combusing before the spark plug tells it to.

 

Well thanks spike. I sure hope though that the TB isn't dirty enough to cause this with only 4500 miles on the car.

I had changed tunes recently when I started noticing the weird idle. Just curiously trying the other tunes that came from Bama. Maybe I need to do the process where the ECU relearns the idle strategy as mentioned towards the end of the thread you posted. I'll give it a try.

THANKS!