loonysup
Senior Member
- Thread starter
- #1
This review is from the perspective of a total noob in the world of car tuning. If you rank yourself in that category, I hope you find this helpful.
Background:
When I purchased my Ingot Silver Ecoboost Mustang three weeks ago, I had zero knowledge of "tuning" and what it could do to enhance the performance of a perfectly good brand new car. After joining this forum and becoming enthralled with reading other people's tuning experiences, I became obsessed with researching tunes and tuners. I work in IT so its my nature to like to tinker with things so this new world was very intriguing.
Choosing a tune/tuner:
If you spend any amount of time on this forum,you already know the major players that are out there - Cobb. Unleashed, Bama, Livernois to name a few. Based on my research, the two that were most appealing were the Cobb AccessPort and Unleashed Tuning utilizing the SCT Tuner. The Cobb AP is an impressive looking piece of hardware. Everything about Cobb looks extremely polished from the website to the presentation of hardware. If I had any intentions of permanently mounting the tuner in the car, the Cobb would be the way to go. Conversely, the SCT website and X4 device came off as more hackerish to me. Ultimately I decided that it wasn't necessarily the hardware that matters as long as it can reliably apply the tune to the car, it's the tune itself.
The Cobb comes preloaded with off the shelf tunes. While I'm sure one of these OTS tunes would have satisfied me, I found it more appealing to build a relationship with a tuner where we could work together to achieve the maximum performance/stability potential.
This led me to contact Torrie from Unleashed Tuning. Although a lot has been written about him on this forum, it's typically in the vain of "Torrie is awesome" or "Torrie is the real deal" without a lot of specifics behind it. When I emailed him the first time with preliminary questions about what I could expect from one of his tunes, he literally responded back in less than five minutes. Subsequent inquiries were answered just as quickly and I was starting to realize he is the real deal. I placed my order for the SCT tuner last Thursday and it was shipped immediately and arrived yesterday (Monday). Torrie sent me instructions on what to do when the tuner arrived and everything seemed pretty straight forward.
The upgrade:
The SCT X4 Tuner comes packaged with a standard micro USB cable, a cable to attach to the car’s data port and an SCT emblem so you can show the world your car is tuned. I proceeded to plug the unit in to my PC (I believe this is the only way you can power it on). Once powered on, I was able to connect the unit to the wi fi in my house and update the unit. There were 91 updates available, but it updated relatively quickly.
Once the unit was upgraded, I took it out to the car to retrieve the vehicle information that Torrie requested. This basically involves plugging the unit in, turning on the car to accessory and then just going to the vehicle info screen. I sent Torrie a screen shot of this info along with the particulars of my car. True to form, Torrie emailed the tune back to me in about 3 minutes.
I downloaded the SCT Tuner update software on my Windows 8.1 PC and it appeared to install correctly, however the drivers for the SCT unit did not install so the unit wasn’t accessible from the PC. I tried a second Windows 8.1 machine and got the same results. I ended up finding the correct driver and was able to manually install it. This allowed me to load in Torrie’s tune file.
Next it was back out to the car for the moment of truth. I plugged the unit back in and chose update vehicle. I then chose the custom tune file I had loaded (93 Octane - Performance). The entire process took about 10 minutes (maybe a little less). The SCT device does a pretty good job of keeping you informed of the progress throughout, however it is a little alarming when interior lights flash and error messages flash across the dash screen during the process.
The Results:
Full disclosure: The car was not dyno’d before the tune and probably never will be so all impressions are completely subjective. Holy Crap!!! What a difference! It literally feels like an entirely different car. The power delivery is so much smoother and stronger than before pretty much all the way to redline. The real beauty is the drivability of the car does not appear to have suffered one bit. If you want to drive it conservatively, it doesn’t buck or sputter at all. But lay in to it in any gear and the power is there. I absolutely LOVE it! This is the way the car should have come from the factory.
I had a co-worker that had previously driven the car, take it out again this morning. He was absolutely blown away by the difference.
All in all, I’m thrilled with the purchase. As others have said, Torrie and Unleashed Tuning are the real deal.
Background:
When I purchased my Ingot Silver Ecoboost Mustang three weeks ago, I had zero knowledge of "tuning" and what it could do to enhance the performance of a perfectly good brand new car. After joining this forum and becoming enthralled with reading other people's tuning experiences, I became obsessed with researching tunes and tuners. I work in IT so its my nature to like to tinker with things so this new world was very intriguing.
Choosing a tune/tuner:
If you spend any amount of time on this forum,you already know the major players that are out there - Cobb. Unleashed, Bama, Livernois to name a few. Based on my research, the two that were most appealing were the Cobb AccessPort and Unleashed Tuning utilizing the SCT Tuner. The Cobb AP is an impressive looking piece of hardware. Everything about Cobb looks extremely polished from the website to the presentation of hardware. If I had any intentions of permanently mounting the tuner in the car, the Cobb would be the way to go. Conversely, the SCT website and X4 device came off as more hackerish to me. Ultimately I decided that it wasn't necessarily the hardware that matters as long as it can reliably apply the tune to the car, it's the tune itself.
The Cobb comes preloaded with off the shelf tunes. While I'm sure one of these OTS tunes would have satisfied me, I found it more appealing to build a relationship with a tuner where we could work together to achieve the maximum performance/stability potential.
This led me to contact Torrie from Unleashed Tuning. Although a lot has been written about him on this forum, it's typically in the vain of "Torrie is awesome" or "Torrie is the real deal" without a lot of specifics behind it. When I emailed him the first time with preliminary questions about what I could expect from one of his tunes, he literally responded back in less than five minutes. Subsequent inquiries were answered just as quickly and I was starting to realize he is the real deal. I placed my order for the SCT tuner last Thursday and it was shipped immediately and arrived yesterday (Monday). Torrie sent me instructions on what to do when the tuner arrived and everything seemed pretty straight forward.
The upgrade:
The SCT X4 Tuner comes packaged with a standard micro USB cable, a cable to attach to the car’s data port and an SCT emblem so you can show the world your car is tuned. I proceeded to plug the unit in to my PC (I believe this is the only way you can power it on). Once powered on, I was able to connect the unit to the wi fi in my house and update the unit. There were 91 updates available, but it updated relatively quickly.
Once the unit was upgraded, I took it out to the car to retrieve the vehicle information that Torrie requested. This basically involves plugging the unit in, turning on the car to accessory and then just going to the vehicle info screen. I sent Torrie a screen shot of this info along with the particulars of my car. True to form, Torrie emailed the tune back to me in about 3 minutes.
I downloaded the SCT Tuner update software on my Windows 8.1 PC and it appeared to install correctly, however the drivers for the SCT unit did not install so the unit wasn’t accessible from the PC. I tried a second Windows 8.1 machine and got the same results. I ended up finding the correct driver and was able to manually install it. This allowed me to load in Torrie’s tune file.
Next it was back out to the car for the moment of truth. I plugged the unit back in and chose update vehicle. I then chose the custom tune file I had loaded (93 Octane - Performance). The entire process took about 10 minutes (maybe a little less). The SCT device does a pretty good job of keeping you informed of the progress throughout, however it is a little alarming when interior lights flash and error messages flash across the dash screen during the process.
The Results:
Full disclosure: The car was not dyno’d before the tune and probably never will be so all impressions are completely subjective. Holy Crap!!! What a difference! It literally feels like an entirely different car. The power delivery is so much smoother and stronger than before pretty much all the way to redline. The real beauty is the drivability of the car does not appear to have suffered one bit. If you want to drive it conservatively, it doesn’t buck or sputter at all. But lay in to it in any gear and the power is there. I absolutely LOVE it! This is the way the car should have come from the factory.
I had a co-worker that had previously driven the car, take it out again this morning. He was absolutely blown away by the difference.
All in all, I’m thrilled with the purchase. As others have said, Torrie and Unleashed Tuning are the real deal.
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