How PedalMonster improves a tune
- PedalMonster works with your vehicle's custom tune
- PedalMonster has 30 Master Torque Response Curves, your tuner can only give you one
- 5 levels of Launch Trim allow low-speed adjustment
- PedalMonster knows speed and gear, a custom tune doesn't
A Banks PedalMonster and an ECM tune are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one improves on the other.
When you bought the tune for your car or truck, the odds are good that you didn’t get one that’s completely bespoke and unique to your truck unless you paid a lot of money and spent a lot of time on the dyno. We’ll explain.
What is a tune?
A vehicle “tune” is a combination of a lot of changes to a lot of variables. For a modern common rail diesel truck, for example, a tuner will go in and change the fueling. This means they adjust how long injectors stay open and when they inject, aka timing and air/fuel ratio. These changes aren’t just a single fixed value across the whole engine’s working range. The engine demands more fuel when cold, for example, so there will be different changes there than there will be for light-throttle, low-load cruising. These changes are expressed as a map. It looks a lot like this:
A stock vehicle can have hundreds or thousands of individual maps to make sure that the owner gets the smoothest, most reliable driving experience possible. For example, when Banks developed the ECM for the engine in the Army’s JLTV program, those maps featured over 30,000 parameters that needed to be set, tested and re-tested for flawless drivability.
Depending on the vehicle application, a tuner may program multiple maps in a single tune. This is handy for the end user because you may not always want your vehicle set on max power. You may want a more conservative map if you’re towing or trying to eke out the most fuel economy on a long trip.
When you get multiple maps in a tune, you’re not necessarily getting four or five tunes for the price of one. In these cases, most times, the tuner will spend the bulk of their time dialing in the max power tune. This is because the horsepower and torque increases are what’s going to sell the tune to prospective customers. It's also what theoretically puts the most stress on the engine and has the least room for error. From that max power tune, many tuners will torque limit the subsequent maps or power levels. It’s the same overall vehicle behavior, just with the torque turned down.
But my tuner changed my pedal, right?
Probably not. Though, sometimes – and this isn’t the case for every vehicle – a tuner can adjust the relationship between your accelerator pedal and the way the vehicle delivers its torque. This can be a nice benefit, but it’s a one and done sort of adjustment. The end user has no way to change this variable after the tune is loaded into the vehicle’s ECM.
If you love that particular throttle setting, then great. If, like many, it leaves a lot to be desired and doesn’t work well in every situation, then you need a Banks PedalMonster.
Unlike a tune, PedalMonster works independently of anything going on inside your ECM. It modifies the signal from your pedal before it ever goes into the computer, allowing you a lot more freedom to change torque delivery to suit your preferences and your situation.
PedalMonster offers 30 Master Torque Curves in three different modes: City, Sport, and Track. Those Master Torque Curves can then be customized further with Banks’ Launch Trim. Launch Trim allows you to modify the Master Torque Curves at speeds below 10 mph. For example, if you like driving around in Track level 7, but you find that it’s a little too aggressive around town, you can soften the torque delivery at low speeds making the driving experience smoother.
Launch Trim is a game changer for folks who tow, drive a manual transmission and experience jerky clutch engagement, or drive on slick surfaces. It also means that PedalMonster offers 150 possible combinations of Launch Trim and Master Torque Curve. Nobody else comes close to that level of customization.
Many tuners, like Chris Nelson in Colorado, prefer using PedalMonster to making pedal adjustments in a tune. An in-tune adjustment can cause issues where the vehicle detects that something isn’t right and goes into limp mode. In vehicles like the C8 Corvette, it can cause communication issues between the engine and transmission.
“Most times I prefer to just not mess with it,” says Nelson. “It opens up the possibility of issues with the vehicle’s computer, especially in some GM models. PedalMonster offers way more choice and customization for the customer and none of the risk of changing things at the ECM level. It’s what I recommend to most of my customers.”
Safety first (and second)
Changing throttle behavior in the ECM is also less than ideal, because it’s on all the time – including in reverse. Because PedalMonster uses your vehicle’s OBD (Onboard Diagnostics) system to determine gear position, it knows when you’ve shifted into reverse and will seamlessly revert to stock torque delivery. This prevents an overly sensitive pedal and stops you from accidentally backing through a garage door as competitive devices are known cause. They have no idea what speed or gear the vehicle is in, let alone that they’re even in a vehicle
PedalMonster also actively monitors itself and the vehicles for faults or errors in the system. If it detects one, it bypasses itself and reverts to stock torque delivery. This means you don’t run into any situations where your pedal stops working, which isn’t uncommon in “throttle response controllers” like Pedal Commander.
The right stuff
So, in summary, if you’re tuned or deleted and tuned, then PedalMonster is going to allow you to custom tailor your driving experience like nothing else. It gives you the freedom to dial in your vehicle precisely how you want it. Get one now at BanksPower.com.
