Serious Lag

Have you called BD about your problem? The tune could be wrong that is in you unit. Or another thought would be to return it since it is 'defective' and get a different tuner from either Diablo or SCT.

Most of us on here would reccommend a tuner that has custom tunes in it as they will be able to tune for your throttle body and anything else you put on there...

if you didnt have a custom tune written for that throttle body and cai you are destroying your motor by leaning it out. might as well have a cutting torch on your pistons

First thing get rid of your throttle body. The stock throttle body flows good enough and aftermarket TB cause more problems than they are worth. They do make a good paper weight. Second get a hand held tuner and Intake from breensppeed or American Muscle. Not many people in the mustang community use bullydog. Most use SCT or Diablo with SCT being the most popular hand held tuner.

Those mods require a CUSTOM tune... Not a canned tune, none the less from Bully Dog. Return it and order a custom tuned Xcal3 from VMP Tuning.

From what I have read, for the money aftermarket T/B do not produce that much gains. Also it has caused some people's cars to go into fail safe mode. That $400 could have went towards a SCT tuner and intake from American Muscle or Bamachips. I have not used any Granatelli products but a lot of people including other vendors will not give Granatelli their business.

SCT: Pros: Most tuners use this type of tuner and tunes can be readily found for this type since it is so popular. The SCT is more specific to your car's computer. ie. They have certain serial codes of whatever one you get for a certain number of 3v computer codes. It is a good tuner for datalogging etc. and easy to use.
Cons: There is only one in my opinion anyways, and that is that it has a certain number of locks and unlocks. When you install a tune it locks the device to your car and your car only. When you restore the stock tune it unlocks it. Once that number is used up I believe you have to contact SCT and they add more? Never got that far with mine and chances are neither would you.

Diablo: Pros: Pretty easy to use and also good datalogging capabilities. Almost the same as SCT. A couple parameters are different(don't know which)
Cons: Tuners for the Diablo are a little harder to find and makes it a tad more difficult if you have a problem etc.

In the end they really are technically the same. There are minor differences and such, but really all it boils down to is the tune that you are running.

So more on that. The 'canned' tunes in the device are ok for CAIs, but anything more than that, and even if you want to get the full potential of all of the mods you do put on your car, a custom tune is really where the power is at. Reputable tuners can either send you email tunes which you load into the device and then into your car. The email tunes are actually quite good and many times people have gone to get a dyno tune and when the tuner looks at the email tune they can't really get any more safe hp out of it. Maybe a couple hp. So for email tunes they are quite good and worth the 50-75$ that are charged. Good names are Bamachips, Brenspeed, Tillman, BBR, Brooksspeed, VMP etc.

Since you are close to Brenspeed I would highly reccommend them! They are a good tuner and when you buy from them they give a updated tune for free. So if you bought some LTs from them or cams they would update the tune you have for free. Other companies offer this as well. In the end it is up to you and what you want. You said low 12s so that means at a certain point you will need a dyno tune for sure! Also good datalogging capabilities. You could purchase the Trinity or the Livewire right now and have that for the future when you will need to keep track of parameters of your car, or you could just buy a handheld for now and purchase that later. Again up to you.

In my opinion and if I was in your place, I would purchase with the future in mind. A lot of people spend a lot of money on buying things twice. If you plan ahead then you won't or you will limit it a lot and save yourself time and money.

Good luck! Hopefully this helps a bit and there are more opinions than mine!

Honestly I wouldn't waste my money on a dyno tune unless you have cams or are supercharged. A good email tune will be just as safe and often safer than a dyno tune. A dyno tune might give you 2-3 more hp/tq but is that worth the extra money. A better use of the money is a SCT/intake package for Breenspeed or American Muscle. This will set you back about $600-700 plus you get 3 tunes. I know American Muscle will update your tune for free even if you buy parts from other companies. Brenspeed will also update your tune, but you have to buy from them. Either way it's better than a dyno tune at this point.

Who's going to do the dyno tune? Do not rush it otherwise you're going to be in the same position you are in right now. Tuning modular Fords isn't easy. Tuning modular 3 valves isn't easy! I agree with Gman though, it's kind of a waste. A custom tuned Xcal3 from VMP Tuning is $399. Don't trust just any place to tune your car even if it's a dyno tune or not. A dyno doesn't make someone a good tuner.

Wise words ryan. I know you want to get going on things, but tuning is definitely something to be sure of. If not, well kaboom is a good word

So what the name of your tuner and how much are they charging?

rochesterryan said:

Ok you guys are going to love this with some phone calls and some favors from friends I am getting in to see the kind folks at brenspeed!!! But we are not doing a dyno tune they are just going to custom tune my car for the cai the 62mm tb and the exhaust system for now. Now other than the mods listed what else can I do short of turbo, supercharger, or nos to help me get the mid to low 12s I am wanting?

Click to expand...

A set of stick tires. A few good choices are M/T ET streets, M/T ET street radials, or nitto NT 05R. Gears will help. Do a search on gears and make your own judgement. If your car is a d/d and no plans on getting a turbo or supercharger then 4.10s would be ideal. The most important is practice.

+100 on practice! I would just hit the track now with what you have. Keep plugging away at passes until you are as good as you can get with what you have and then get better. Ask for advice, throw some loops into to each run(ie rpms different, tire pressure etc.) Then when you get really good with just a CAI and TB then get some more stuff. If I could start again that's where I would go, to the track!

But all of it is my opinion and you can do as you please. Tires would be your best choice right now and then put your car on a diet and gears...