Installation Time
(approx) 15 Minutes
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
Installation Guides
- Customer Submitted:
- How to Install an SCT SF3/X3 Tuner on your 1996-2012 Mustang
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Hey, guys. Adam here with americanmuscle.com. Today we're taking a closer look at, dyno testing and installing the Mustang Bama X4 SF4 Power Flash Handheld Tuner with Custom Tunes which is available for all '96 and newer Mustangs, excluding the GT350. And for the purposes of this video guys, we're looking at gains for the 2015 to '17 GT, we've got our '15 GT strap down to the dyno. Now before we jump into all the details of the actual X4 device why don't we take a look at that dyno graph? We established our baseline run and then uploaded our tune, let's take a look at that number. All right, guys, so of course we established our baseline run with our '15 GT on the dyno completely bone stock with our stock tune and just 93 octane in the tank, we ran our pull at fifth gear which is our one-to-one, walked away with 382 horsepower, 355-foot-pounds of torque at the rear wheels. We then, of course, uploaded our new Bama 93 octane tune, ran it under the same conditions in fifth, walked away with 392 horsepower, 374-foot-pounds of torque at the rear wheels, good for peak gains of 10 horsepower and about 20 torque. Now, those alone are pretty respectable numbers but the curve gains are even more impressive and that's really what you're gonna feel out on the road. So let's look at those. At about 4,000 RPMs, a little over 4,000 RPMs, we're walking away with 28 horsepower and 35-foot-pounds of torque at the rear wheels. Those are very impressive gains. I'm really happy with that result because really what we're looking at is just a simple 93 octane tune. If you throw in any bolt-on power adders and you can really see that number start to grow. But right at that 4,000 RPM region, that mid-range, that's really gonna make a huge difference in daily driving. Now the X4 SF4 device from SCT is available with two custom tunes from Bama for your S550 5.0 and with those two tunes, you're getting a Performance V2 and Race V2. Now the Performance V2 is great for the daily drivers out there running any octane level on pump gas. Now that is gonna increase a lot of parameters for your Mustang. You're gonna get a better throttle response and acceleration. Of course, you can expect the horsepower and torque increase but something suitable for the street to give you a more enjoyable daily driver. Things like timing, spark, air-fuel ratio, shift firmness, especially for automatics, so on and so forth is all modified in the Bama tune to make sure that this is running optimally, giving you a good power bump but also good reliability. Now Race V2 tune is meant for the track that's gonna all out increase performance, it's really to go to for those higher octane's like 91 and 93 pump gas, that's what we're gonna look at today on that dyno as you saw from those numbers. That's really gonna maximize all of those parameters to get the most out of your Mustang especially when you have bolt-ons thrown into the mix. It's great for stock or modified Mustangs and it really does just wake up that vehicle. Now the device itself has a lot of other features you want to take advantage of. You're getting DTC code reader, diagnostic trouble code reader. For the guys, maybe you have your check engine light come on, you want to know what that's about, it'll read your code, give you a description, and you'll be able to clear it with this device without needing to pick up anything else. You're also getting access to Wi-Fi capabilities, wireless updating, there's data log capabilities and gauge monitoring. So you can monitor live engine vitals on the fly, right on this device, no need for six gauges on your A-pillar, none of that nonsense is needed anymore. Right on this device, you can take advantage of it. And it's got two slots on the back to mount on a windshield if you want to pick up the windshield mount. So a lot of features built into the X4. It's about the size of a smartphone, really easy to navigate with the buttons all over. I really do like the X4, it's a big upgrade over the previous X3 from SCT. Now this device comes in right around 400 bucks and you get two custom tunes with that for your S550, other tunes are available for different generations. Like I said, it's all gonna fit '96 and newer Mustangs but it's specific to your vehicle. The install, I'm gonna give one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter, anybody can tackle this in the driveway at home. You won't even need any hand tools, you're just gonna use the harness included in the kit to plug it right into your OBD2 port located under the driver side dashboard. I'm gonna walk you through every step of the process for tuning and we'll talk about all the details of the device itself. It's gonna take you 30 minutes from start to finish, let's get to it. All right from the main menu, I'm gonna take you guys through the process of tuning your vehicle. So select program vehicle from that main menu. Hit continue on the street notice. Put your key in the on position, don't start your engine and press continue. Now it'll give you a bunch of different options to actually modify any tune you select, we're gonna go with 93 race but select the one that you want to flash now. At this point, it'll move forward asking you if you want to make any additional changes, there's a bunch of menus relating to that. So make the changes you want, we're gonna keep our file pretty much the same that it comes with from Bama. All right. So you want to change anything you see on this menu and hit approve. Continue to special options including tire size, things like that. So did you change your tire size? We did not. Don't want to change gear ratio and no on the TPMS settings, confirm that it'll disable your preloaded tune to move forward. The key in the on position if you haven't done so already, and it'll save your stock tune to the device and then begin to flash. It'll load 0 to 100 a couple of times, just let it do its thing, don't unplug it and don't turn the vehicle off unless it directs you to. All right, at this point, it lets us know the download's complete. You can select done and you're good to go. Before we disconnect, I want to take you through some of the other features of the X4. So if you go under program vehicle, gauges and data log is your next selection, you want to make sure the key is on before you move any forward. What this will do is allow you to monitor live engine vitals on the fly at any time as long as your device is plugged in. Now it's more of a gauge pod but there's multiple pods, multiple gauges. As you can see on the screen we have two, they're both the same at the moment but they are customizable. Now if you go to the right, you can data log, can record a data log, select data log file, select gauge layout. I'm gonna change that gauge layout to something we can monitor three pieces of information with. Now we have boost and PSI, control module voltage and coolant temp, you can change those like I said. So in eco boost you might want to monitor boost. Control module voltage, coolant temp, those are all customizable. If I want to change coolant temp to intake air temp, we can hit approve on that and it changes that gauge. You can monitor up to eight at a time. If you want to select the gauge layout that monitors eight, this is the max. Now it's really useful for guys who want to take care of that information on the fly and again you can record data logs, send that to your tuner, make revisions, so on and so forth. If you hit stop data log, it takes you back to the main menu. Under that, vehicle functions, read DTC codes, clear DTC codes, and special functions. Now DTC being diagnostic trouble codes, so if your check engine light comes on, plug this device in, read the code, get the description and then you can clear it once it's taken care of, no need to pick up any additional device. Special functions, most people won't touch. CAM relearn, CAM reset, those we'll leave be for now, most people aren't gonna have to worry about that. Vehicle info. This is useful if you're requesting a new tune, if you need access to your VIN number, your ECU strategy code, that's gonna be on hand. Device info, similar, but for your X4, you'll have the part number, serial number, the firmware, and software version, how many unlocks you have if your status is married, so on and so forth. And then finally device settings, you can check for updates both plugged in or via Wi-Fi which I think is very useful. Wi-Fi, if you're in range of a Wi-Fi network, you can connect that to do everything wirelessly. The only big difference here between this and the newer Rev-X is there are no cloud capabilities, so everything's done on the computer as far as downloading tunes. But if you're not too worried about that wireless aspect of it, the X4 is still a really good device. The rest of the settings are pretty much simple for any handheld. Brightness, orientation, you can change the landscape, you can change the theme from red to blue, can change it to dark. There's a number of settings there, there's also audio. So every time you click a button, there's a little beep, you can turn that off here and that way you don't have to worry about that sound. Finally, startup function I think is very useful for guys who are always going to want to monitor those gauges that we looked at, the gauges and data log screen. You can select your startup to go immediately to the gauges screen. So if you have this constantly plugged into your OBD2 and you have it mounted on the windshield, this might be a good thing to take advantage of. Finally, factory reset. We hit exit, back to the main menu and that's your X4. Well, guys, that's gonna wrap up my review and install for the Bama X4 SF4 Power Flash Handheld Tuner with Custom Tunes for all '96 and newer Mustangs, excluding the GT350. Now if you want to pick this up, you can do so right here at americanmuscle.com.
Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
SCT SF4/X4 Power Flash Tuner Features:
Chip/Handheld: | Handheld | Custom/Strategy: | Custom |
Memory Size: | 4 GB | Custom Tunes Held: | 10 |
Year: | 1996-2020 | Model: | SF4/X4 Power Flash Mustang Custom Tuner |
Manufacturer: | SCT | Special Features: | Full color LCD display |
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 15 Minutes
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
Installation Guides
What's in the Box
Tech Guides:
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