Video Review & Installation

Jake: Jake here for AmericanMuscle. And today, I'm taking a look at the C&L Throttle Controller for 2007 and newer Chargers. If you're tired of that annoying delay in your Charger between when you push the accelerator pedal down and when the engine starts to respond, then you need to get yourself a throttle controller.This one from C&L offers you a discreet, easy installation, as well as multiple different modes and lots of further adjustments, all at one of the lowest prices in its category. It's an easy plug-and-play modification that's gonna give you a noticeable improvement in the way your Charger drives and responds.Let's get something out of the way first, though, this is not a tuning module. So, this is not going to increase the power output of your engine at all, rather this is only gonna control the responsiveness of the accelerator pedal. So, this is perfect if you wanna change up the driving experience of your Charger without going all the way to a tune. The goal here is to decrease or eliminate the lag you feel when pressing the accelerator. And like anything with an electronic throttle, which is pretty much every vehicle these days, there isn't quite any response when you put your foot down. But the benefit to that is that you can tweak those throttle pedals for a lot more or less response.Now, this comes with eight different presets that you can cycle through using the buttons right here. H1 is comfort mode, which is gonna give you a nice balance to improve responsiveness slightly while keeping the pedal easy to modulate and not ruining your fuel economy. H2 is sport, and that's gonna improve the response time even further, making this a great setting for your daily commute or a nice trip down your favorite backroad.Now, you've got H3 which is race, and that's going to eliminate any delay in the pedal completely for the shortest and fastest response time and the most aggressive throttle response. EC is economy mode, that's going to actually decrease the sensitivity, give you a lot of additional control over the pedal itself so you can hypermile with ease. NOR stands predictably for normal, and that's gonna be your factory setting, so it will be just like your car was when it drove off the showroom floor.Then you also have SNO or snow, which is antiskid for adverse weather condition. And that's going to delay the response even more drastically to help decrease tire spin. You've got one last mode and that is OOO, which is Intelligent. And that is going to match the setting automatically to your driving habits. So, what you can do is just leave this plugged in, drive it like you normally would, and the unit will then learn your usual driving style, and then it will adjust itself accordingly.Last but not least, we have LOC or anti-theft or lock, if you will, and that's gonna lock out the pedal completely. So, even if a thief manages to get the car running, the pedal is gonna be non-functional so they won't be able to drive away with your car. Now, each of those drive modes can be further fine-tuned with nine different levels of sensitivity by using this little adjust button here. So, you get a ton of extra adjustments in addition to the presets that are baked in. And though it's not quite infinite levels of adjustment, you are gonna be able to make some really minute changes to how your Charger drives and responds, get it that to the goldilocks or just-right setting.Now, as far as construction goes, I think this thing is pretty neat. It's small, it's unintrusive, and can be easily mounted out of the way. Having the buttons on here with a very simple screen makes this super easy to navigate through the different modes once you learn it.And when it comes to the price, you're looking at just about $100, and that is about the least expensive option out there for a throttle controller. And while you don't get completely infinite adjustability or some of the higher-end features like Bluetooth, for the numerous modes and all the adjustments you do get, plus that anti-theft feature, and the overall difference that this can make to the driveability of your charger, I'd say it's absolutely more than worth the price.Installation-wise, this could not be much easier. A one out of three on our difficulty meter is where it's going to fall, and it should only take you about 20 minutes to get it in and working. You're just gonna plug these in down at your throttle pedal, plug the other end of the cord right into the module itself, and then you can just mount this display wherever you want it. Really couldn't be much easier. In fact, you've got double-sided tape on the back to make it really, really simple. And to show you just how to get this done, let's head over to the install bay.Man: The tools required for this project is a trim removal tool and the supplied zip ties in the kit. Installing a throttle controller is a pretty straightforward process. It's just a matter of unplugging the throttle connection from the throttle pedal and plugging in the controller itself. But in order to do that, first thing we have to do is remove the cover panel underneath the dash and then get to the plug itself on top of the throttle pedal. So, let's go ahead and get started with that.To remove that cover panel, we'll be using our trim removal tool. So, our two push pins are located one here and one here. So, we'll just use our trim removal tool, pull that out, and then we can just pull our panel down and get it out of the way. Now our plug is right here, all we have to do is push in the locking tab and pull it out to unplug it. Now, what we have to do is just plug it in, plug in the wire harness in there, and then push down on the red locking tab to secure it into place.Now, at this point, they give you plenty of cord in order for you to be able to run this through and mount it where you want to. So, we're just gonna run ours up underneath the steering column. Now, at this point, we've got it all hooked up, except for the actual controller module itself. So, all we have to do there is just plug this in and decide where you wanna mount it on your vehicle. Now, we're not going to permanently attach this to ours, so you can figure out where you want it to be on your vehicle, and then you can go ahead and use the supply zip ties to go ahead and secure the wires out of the way of any heat or any moving objects.Now, to mount this, as you can see, we've got some double-sided tape on our control panel. All you have to do is pull off the red backing and attach it where you want it. Once you've decided where you're gonna mount it permanently, then you can go ahead and make sure that you zip-tie everything up out of the way of any extreme heat or moving items. At that point, you can go ahead and reinstall that bottom cover and you're ready to go.And by the way, when you fire up your car, that's when the controller will light up and show you the different modes and different options you have for the controller. Now, once you fire it up, the control pad automatically turns on. And with this controller, what we have is eight different modes ranging from things like normal or sport or comfort or even race mode. And almost every one of those modes has an adjustment level from one to nine. The higher the number, the more sensitive your throttle is going to be.So, if we press the mode button here, now when it's on lock, basically that's your anti-theft mode. Your throttle will have zero response at that point. So, you definitely do not wanna make that active while you're driving. Then we have H1, which is like your normal mode, H2 is sport mode, H3 is racing mode, economy, normal, snow or slippery situations, and intelligent mode.So, if you choose your adjustment level, depending on how you drive, that will determine where you wanna set that. So, depending on how you drive, your adjustment mode will determine how sensitive your throttle actually is. So, the only thing that you need to do now, once you fire up the vehicle, is make sure that there are no check engine lights and you're ready to go. All of this can be explained with the included instructions and user manual, so you won't have to remember everything about this, just refer back to the user guide.Jake: That's gonna wrap it up here for our review and install of the C&L Throttle Controller for 2007 and newer Chargers. Thank you so much for watching. And remember for all things Charger, be sure to keep it right here at americanmuscle.com.