Bama Rev-X Tuner by SCT with 2 Custom Tunes (11-14 Mustang V6)

Video Review & Installation

Hey, guys. It's Joe from AmericanTrucks and today, we're gonna be taking a closer look at the Bama Rev-X Tuner by SCT with two custom tunes, fitting all '11 to '14, 3.7 liter V6s. Now, this is gonna be a great option for you if you're looking to improve power end drivability out of your Cyclone with some great tunes, as well as some tools that come with a tuner like this for a budget-friendly price tag. So before we jump into the video here, let's talk numbers. We use 14 V6 with the manual trans 93 octane in-tank for both the baseline and after run and we got 245 horsepower as well as 243 foot-pounds of torque at the rear wheels. Then we put on our new Bama tune and we got 252 horsepower as well as 260 foot-pounds of torque, again at the rear wheels.Now, this is good for 7 horsepower peak gain as well as 18 horsepower and 26 foot-pounds of torque across the curve. Now, while these might not be groundbreaking numbers, really a rather small peak number 7 horsepower, what really matters and what you're really going to feel, that's going to be those curve numbers, 18 horsepower, 26 foot-pounds of torque. That's something you're gonna feel nice and low down in the RPM range, 3,000, 4,000 RPM, you're definitely gonna notice that difference.So let's talk a little bit on how you can get those numbers for your Cyclone V6. Well, first things first, when you buy this thing, Bama is gonna send you an email with a form to fill out. They're gonna ask you a few basic questions and they're gonna start off with some facts. Is your car an automatic or is it a manual and what is the computer code on your vehicle? After that, they're gonna ask you simply what mods have done, and that can be pretty much anything you've bought from us or have on your Mustang to begin with. Then, after that, they're gonna ask you what octane you want for your two tunes. If you could get it, obviously go with the 93. That's gonna give you the most performance gains. If not, 91 is going to definitely improve stock, and then 87 if you're just looking to go for some fuel efficiency. Once Bama has all your data, they're gonna write your tune. It takes them around two or three days to do so at which point they're gonna upload it to the cloud for you to download right to your Rev-X. Now, this is a huge plus of the Rev-X and of cloud tuning in general. You never have to connect this thing to your computer to get tunes on it or update it, which is a nice little bit of convenience. It makes things really easy and really fast.When you do bring this out to your Mustang, it's also going to pull your stock tune off and save it on the Rev-X first. So if you do ever need to go back, it's gonna be right there for you. On top of that, Bama also offers free tunes for life. Let's be honest, guys, the modding never stops, so if you do get a new mod that requires a new tune, all you have to do is fill out another form, send it over to Bama. They'll write you a new one, and in two to three days, you could download it right from the cloud and have it good to go for your Mustang. Couple of other features about the Rev-X, this one will also do data logging. If you do need that, you could connect it to a computer with this cable right in the middle here. And, on top of that, this thing also supports a three-inch full-color LCD screen which you could display in portrait or landscape mode, and that's a great feature because you can have eight readouts of live displays about your Mustang with stuff such as air-fuel ratio, intake, and cooling temperature boost. If you do have forced induction and timing as well, and that is a great feature. You could throw this thing right in your iPhone holder. The back is also magnetic, if you have one of those magnetic-style phone holders. This also reads and clears DCTs, diagnostic trouble codes, better known as check engine lights, for you guys out there that are diagnosing and fixing your Mustang.Now, pricing for this kit, gonna drop in right around the $400 mark. Now, that is definitely gonna be more toward the budget-friendly side as far as custom tuning goes and really to unlock some of that power left on the table by Ford as well as some great tools that come with this tuner. It really is a good return on investment. You get a lot for your money's worth with the Rev-X.The install for this is gonna be really, really easy. Plugs right into the OBD-II port and then once you have the tune uploaded, you can unplug it and throw everything right in the glove box. No need to open the hood, no need to plug this thing into a computer. Easy one out of three wrenches, should take you at most 15 minutes to get a tune uploaded. We're gonna show you a clip on one of our S-197 GTs. Keep in mind, the OBD-II port, it's gonna be in the same place for '05 to '14. So no matter what engine you have, it's gonna be the same exact process. Let's hop over to the car. We'll show you how it's done.Now, the first step, guys, for the tuning processes to grab the harness included in the kit, you're gonna plug one end into the OBD-II port under your driver's side dashboard and the other end into your Rev-X. I'm gonna go right under here, find that port to be just under your headlight knob, right around there. Right. Now we can grab the other end, plug it in here, shut the door and get the tuning. Now, from the main menu, I just wanna show you guys how to jump right into the tuning process. So from the main menu, hit Program Vehicle, confirm your VIN. Now, it's gonna let you know internet is required to move forward, especially when it comes to updates and pulling things off the cloud. So we've already connected to the internet, so we're gonna hit Continue, but if you haven't, you can use Device Settings to get into it or it'll connect through here. All right, so it looks like at this point it's gonna make an update. We'll come back when the update's done, but if you do need an update, make sure you don't unplug your device. You wanna make sure it's all complete before you do anything.All right. Once the device is up to date, you can press OK. Once the software update is done, it will begin a firmware update, so you have one more update if it's right out of the box. Again, guys, just have a little bit of patience and don't unplug the device. All right, update complete. Hit OK. Now, to ask for a cloud sync. Now, if your tuner, in this case, Bama, uploaded your tune to the cloud, you can access it here wirelessly, once connected to your Wi-Fi. Now, we've already gotten our tune file on the device, so we're gonna hit Skip, but if you haven't done so already, hit that Cloud Sync. Make sure your key is in the ignition in the on position, but do not start your engine. Press Continue. At this point, you can select your tune. Now, for this purpose, we're only gonna use the 93 race tune, so I'm gonna select that, but you wanna make sure you're selecting whichever tune you wanna flash to your vehicle.From there, it'll load up, sync your factory tune, your stock tune to the device. Save it so you can always revert back to stock at any time. And then it'll begin writing the tune. Before it does that, I'll let you know, this is gonna disable preloaded tunes so you can just take it from there. If you wanna make any additional tune changes, things like tire size, gear ratio, speed limiter, rev limiter, and so on and so forth, you can hit Change Now and go through that process. We're just gonna use that tune that we've received from Bama without any changes. At this point, it saves the stock tune and then tunes your vehicle. So, again, don't unplug your device until it's finished. Now, it may prompt you to turn your key off at certain points. In this case, you wanna follow that direction and then back on, but when it starts loading, you definitely don't wanna turn the key off unless it tells you otherwise.All right. At this point, it will let you know programming is complete. You can hit Done. It takes you back to the main menu and you're good to go. Now, guys, I wanna take you through some of the actual features other than programming your vehicle in the Rev-X device. Now, under Program Vehicle, you'll see Gauges and Datalog. If you click this, you'll actually be able to monitor live engine vitals on the fly if your key is in the ignition. What this basically means is you can monitor coolant temps, air-fuel ratio. You wanna make sure you're selecting your configuration. So if it's the first time you're using this, you have to go in and find your vehicle. So this is a 2014. So we wanna go down to Ford Gas, '08 and newer vehicles. You basically wanna start with the proper configuration and then from there, it monitors your engine's vitals.Now, as you can see, we have two gauges. This is super useful for guys who wanna monitor things, have adjustability without having to have a bunch of gauge pods on your dash or your A-pillar, and so on and so forth. Now, as you can see, we're tracking two things here, we have control module voltage and coolant temp. Now, say you want cool and temp, but you wanna change control module voltage. You're gonna click on that one, select Item. Say you wanted to monitor intake air temp, select it, hit Approve, and it changes that block. One other thing you can do is select our gauge layout. Instead of monitoring two vitals, we wanna monitor the max up to eight. So you can select that layout. You have eight gauges listed on your screen with the data you want. From there, you can datalog, you can start recording data, send that to and from your tuner, in this case, Bama. And if you wanna make revisions, you have free revisions with the Bama Tunes for Life program. And that's really useful to have here directly on the Rev-X. So if you wanna get out of it, we're just gonna hit Stop Data Log. From that menu, it takes you back to the main menu.Under that, Vehicle Functions, read and clear DTC codes, DTC being diagnostic trouble codes. So if your check engine light comes on, you don't need a different code reader. You can plug your Rev-X right into your OBD-II like we have here. Select Read Codes, it'll let you know the code and the description. Once you have it taken care of, you can clear the code and get rid of that check engine light. Special functions, most people won't use. You can use KAM Reset, KAM Relearn, things like that. We're not gonna need to go into that today.Now, Vehicle Info is useful if you're requesting a new tune or if you need access to your VIN number, your computer code, or your ECM strategy code, so that's everything you need for a new tune. Device Info gives you serial number for the device and you'll be able to see if you have the latest firmware versions, how many unlocks you have left and if your status is paired. Now, paired basically means that this Rev-X is paired to this vehicle. Unlocked being, that's how many times you can unlock it and go to a different vehicle. You're limited to three of those with the Rev-X device.Device Settings, four of the top options are super useful. Check for updates, cloud file sync, upload data log to cloud and Wi-Fi, which you'll need for the other three options. Check for Updates, I always recommend doing. When you get new tunes, you just wanna make sure your device is up to date. Cloud file sync's pretty obvious. When Bama sends you a new tune, they may put it on the cloud. You can wirelessly grab that from the cloud on your device with Wi-Fi instead of having to plug it into your computer to sync that way. Same thing goes for Datalog, but in reverse. If you datalog your vehicle on your device, you can upload it to the cloud wirelessly via Wi-Fi for Bama to grab and go for revisions. Under that, Brightness, Orientation, you can change the theme, the background theme. There's blue options, red options, white options. Startup function is pretty useful. You can start it up. When you plug your device in, it can automatically go to the Gauges and Datalog screen. If you, you know, always have it plugged in on a windshield mount, you can select this from the device settings. If every time you turn your car on and this boots up, you want it to go straight into your gauges. So that's pretty useful. Other than that, you can hit Exit, takes you back to the main menu and those are your features.That's gonna do it for my overview of the Bama Rev-X for all '11 and '14 V6s. For more great products like this one, keep it right here at AmericanMuscle.