Video Review & Installation

Hey, guys. Adam here with americanmuscle.com and today, we're taking a closer look at installing and dyno testing the Bama Rev-X Custom Tuner with two custom tunes available for the 2015 to '17 Mustang GT. Now, before we jump into things, guys, we wanna talk dyno numbers right off the bat. We scrapped our 2015 GT down to the dyno bone stock with 93 octane in the tank to establish a baseline run. We walked away with 382 horsepower, 359 pound-feet of torque at the rear wheels. We then, of course, uploaded the 93 race tune from Bama from our Rev-X, walked away with 403 horsepower and 383 pound-feet of torque at the rear wheels running it under the same conditions. That's good for peak gains, 21 horsepower and 24-pound feet of torque. Those numbers right there are pretty good right off the bat, but curve gains are even more impressive.Under the curve, we're seeing gains as much as 32 horsepower and 39 pound-feet of torque at the rear wheels. The biggest torque curve is going to be right at the low end there which is really gonna make such a huge difference on the road, using that 93 race tune from Bama. Higher-end at the RPM band, we're seeing really good horsepower gains, but all across the RPM band, really impressive numbers altogether.Now, let's take a look at the Rev-X tuner here with those two tunes. Now, Bama includes an 87 octane and that 93 race tune that we just saw in action on the dyno. Now, the 87 tune is gonna be a great option for the daily driver, or even a weekend warrior out there, just looking for a little something extra out on the road without having to go with a 93 or more expensive pump gas. Just gonna give you a little bit more out of the vehicle making it a little bit more fun to carve corners and a little bit more fun on that daily commute.If you're really looking to maximize the performance, of course, 93 is gonna be the way to go. Now, you need to use the higher octane fuels for the 93 octane tune from Bama. Of course, that goes without saying. Now, basically the 93 tune is gonna maximize the gains and it's gonna take a number of things into consideration. Bama is gonna tinker with the air-fuel ratio, spark, timing and a number of other parameters while keeping safety in mind for your vehicle to give you what you need out of the Mustang. Now, aside from the tunes themselves, there's a number of other features on the Rev-X that you wanna take advantage of, including the DTC code reader, diagnostic trouble code being your check engine light. If that ugly check engine light comes on on the dash, plug this guy in, you can read the code, get a description and clear the code right on the device without needing a separate OBD to dongle, you can do it by yourself in the driveway.Now, in addition to that, there's the gauges and data log screen, gauges being you can monitor live engine vitals within arm's reach and the eyesight of drivers. Now, those parameters, things like air-fuel ratio, coolant temp, intake temp sensors, and so many more, you can customize what the gauge screen looks like, monitor anywhere from one up to eight options at once. You can also data log, right, on the device. Now, anytime you wanna check your performance, you can run a data log, you communicate that back to Bama. You can either communicate it using the cloud feature on the device, the cloud being essentially wireless capabilities, you can upload your tunes to the cloud, receive tunes from the cloud from Bama, including any revisions that you have made. You can send your data log to and from the cloud and all you need is Wi-Fi access. Wi-Fi capabilities are on the device as well for wireless updating, for the software and firmware for your SCT device.SCT occasionally throws up a new update, so you can periodically check for those without even needing a laptop or a computer. With this device and any Bama tune that you purchase, you're automatically enrolled in the free Tunes for Life program from Bama performance. What that basically means is anytime you add or remove a power adder, such as a quarter intake, long tube headers, or even a cat-back, what you have to do is hit up Bama, they'll revise your current tunes to include or remove whatever changes you've made to maximize your vehicle's performance free of any additional charge. All included in the kit, the kit itself comes in right around 400 bucks, so it's a hugely worthwhile value.For the install, I'm gonna give one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter. Anybody can tackle this in the driveway at home with about 30 minutes from start to finish. No real hand tools are needed, just what's in the kit, and I'd recommend picking up some sort of windshield mount to mount this guy within arm's reach. Now, I'm gonna show you guys how to upload this tune inside of our 18 EcoBoost, but know the process is exactly the same regardless of if you have an EcoBoost V6 or a GTS550. I'm gonna show you guys right now, so what do you say we head over?Guys, first step, grab the harness included in the kit, and you're gonna plug the OBD II side into the port onto your driver side dashboard on the left-hand side. Once that's plugged in, take the other end, plug it into the top of your Rev-X. Now, we're good to start tuning. All right, from the main menu here, guys, we have a lot of options, but I wanna take you straight into actually tuning your vehicle. We're gonna start by selecting Program Vehicle from the top, confirm your event. Now, if you're pulling something from the cloud, internet will be required. Or if it's the first time you're booting up your device, you wanna connect to the Wi-Fi. So, that's gonna be something we're gonna connect to right now and we'll come back when we begin to select our tune.All right, from here you wanna make sure your key is on, but the engine has not started, and press Continue. Then from here, we're gonna select 93 race and move right into tuning our vehicle. Now, you'll have a couple of different options 87, 91, 93. We wanna focus on the highest octane, so 93 performance or 93 race, but from here you wanna select whichever tune you wanna move forward with. Confirm that or disable that pre-loaded tune that says, "Your device is not paired." Press Confirm to pair it. If you wanna make additional changes to your tune, you can do so now. But we'll hit Skip and move forward with that bass file that Bama has written for us to. We'll press Continue. From here it moves on to save your stock tune to the device. And then after that, of course, it'll move into writing the tune itself. At this point you don't wanna unplug the device or turn the vehicle off unless it tells you to.Just keep an eye on the device. It may tell you to turn the ignition off and on a few times. You wanna stand by and let it do its thing. All right, at this point, it's instructing us to turn the key off, back on. All right, programming complete. You can hit Done, take you back to the main menu. At this point you can unplug your device and you'll be good to go. Now, instead of us unplugging this, I wanna take you through some of the other features of the Rev-X while we're here. So, aside from Program Vehicle at the main menu, Gauges and Datalog is your next selection. Now, this is gonna be great for the guys who wanna keep an eye on live engine vitals on the fly and you, maybe, wanna take advantage of data logging right on the device without needing a laptop or another, you know, set of devices. From here you wanna select your proper configuration. So, we're working on an 18, so you wanna scroll down and find Ford Gas '08 and Newer. It's a gas vehicle. It's newer than the '08. That's the one you want. It's more of the baseline that it starts off with.Now, it scans the data log, and it'll bring up your gauges. Now, right off the bat, there's two you can track. You can change this to track up to eight vitals at once. So, in this case, it's tracking boost and control module voltage. But say we wanna change control module voltage to coolant temp. And select that, hit Approve, and it replaces that with coolant temp. Now, we have boost up top, coolant temp on the bottom. You can go to the right and select gauge layout, and you can change how you track those vitals. So, again, it can track up to eight, so this is gonna be our biggest viewing screen. So, we have boost power, so on and so forth. Air-fuel ratio bank one, there's so many things you can track, you can replace any of them and as you can see, there's just a number of different things you can track. RPM, spark advance, so on and so forth. So, really useful for guys who wanna track this, if you have a windshield mount, if you wanna, you know, track this within arm's reach, you can mount that that's always a good way to go.And then finally, you can start recording a data log, you can stop recording at data log, and you can select the file to either upload to the cloud to send to your tuner, or if you wanna download it, you can do so here. Now, if you hit Stop Data Log, it'll take you right back to the main menu. Under that vehicle functions will give you a DTC code reader, diagnostic trouble code, otherwise, your check engine light. If that comes on plug this device in, you don't need to go to your local auto parts store, you don't need to pick up a code reader, it's right on this device. It'll give you the code, a description, and allow you to clear it here. Special Functions, more like Crank Relearn, KAM Reset, those things most people won't need to touch but it is there. Now, if you go down here vehicle info and device info or two very similar. Vehicle Info is gonna give you your VIN, your ECU strategy code, a number of other things relating to your vehicle's ECU. So, if you ever need to request a new tune, Vehicle Info will give you some of those pieces of data that you need.Device Info, same thing before your device, serial number, device number, the update software that you're on, the firmware version, and so on and so forth. And then Device Settings, the top four are gonna be pretty important. So, you can check for updates, which Rev-X or SCT does often put out updates for the Rev-X. You can do that here wirelessly, or you can plug it into a laptop and use a device updater. Cloud File Sync allows you to either pull tunes from the cloud that Bama has placed there for you, so you can download that wirelessly or you can upload your data log files that we just went over to the cloud here, view them and give them to Bama or your local tuner. Now, Uploading Data Log to Cloud, just like I said, that is the selection there, and then Wi-Fi allows you to do those things wirelessly. So, if you're trying to connect to the cloud or check for updates, you wanna be in access of Wi-Fi. Under that, very simple, device things, you can change the brightness orientation, if you wanna change it to landscape.Theme, you can change that from dark red to light blue. It just changes things up a little bit right on the fly. You can go light red, if you wanna go with a white background, whatever is easier for you. There's a number of different ways you can view this. Finally, Audio, there's a beep every time you hit a button, you can turn that off. And you can select the startup function. If you want this to automatically go to your gauges screen or data log screen every time you plug this in, you can set that so every time it turns on, it goes straight to that screen. You can do a factory reset. And then, finally, back to the main menu. So, that's all your Rev-X. That's what you'll need to know. It's got some really important features that you can definitely take advantage of.Well, guys, that's gonna wrap up my review, install and dyno test for our Bama Rev-X device with two custom tunes available for the 2015 to '17 Mustang GT. You can pick yours up right here at americanmuscle.com.