Does BAMA Make the Best Tunes for Your S197 Mustang?

One of the first mods that Mustang owners buy is a tune, especially from BAMA Performance and American Muscle. I was curious about BAMA tunes. Reflashing your car with new engine calibration can make a surprising difference in performance. But are they the best? Here’s what I learned.

Is BAMA the best tuner for your S197 Mustang? BAMA Performance only provides premade strategy tunes designed for a generic customer. They will be inferior to a custom dyno tune. The only way to get the highest quality tune is with precise measurement and calibration on a dynamometer.

The whole point of modifying your Mustang is to go faster right? There’s a lot that goes into a high-quality tune to make sure the car has the longest life, highest possible performance, and best overall driving experience.

BAMA and Other Email Tuners Are Limited by Road Logging

This isn’t BAMA’s fault. They can’t be everywhere at once. It’s just the nature of the business.

Any time that you need to calibrate your car and the person who will be editing your ECU file is doing so either without a dyno or from a remote location, you’re going to have to do the uploading and test drive yourself. During the test drive, you use the device that you used to load the file into your ECU to take a log of how the engine is performing so you can send it back to that person to either confirm that the tune is working as designed or to get another revision.

The first time that I tried to have a reputable tuner build a tune off of my road logs, it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. I did some research online and I made a decision to go with a well-established shop with a great reputation. I paid online and then received their canned tune by email.

I followed their basic instructions and loaded the tune onto my SCT X4 and then, holding my breath and pushing zero buttons, loaded the tune into my car. So far so good.

The car started up, I drove it around the block, and it felt great. Given that I had also installed a brand-new cold air intake that came with the tuner as a kid, I was feeling pretty great about my purchase.

Tuning Software and Devices Are Not Easy to Use

In order to fully calibrate the engine, the tuner needs to know exactly how that tune affected your car so they can dial it in and get the most out of your engine. In order to build a log file, you have to select specific metrics that are to be recorded as part of that log file. Right off the bat, I’ll tell you I’m no fan of SCT’s LiveLink software. It’s ugly and hard to use if you aren’t familiar with it. If you’re not technically inclined and not on good terms with computers in general, be prepared to get more than a little frustrated.

The metrics that you need to choose for the log are, but not limited to, any or all of the following:

• air control temperature
• intake air temperature
• battery voltage
• coolant temperature
• battery voltage
• ETC angle actual
• fuel pump duty cycle
• knock center
• load as a fraction
• long-term fuel trim both banks
• MAF voltage
• O2 voltage both banks
• output shaft speed
• RPM
• short-term fuel trim both banks
• spark advance
• throttle position
• vehicle speed
• and a few others if you have an auto.

Miss one of these and your log is pretty much useless.

After you get all that set up, the tuner may ask you for a few different logs. They need to see how the car is running at idle, then again at a few different RPM ranges, and finally, you might get the green light to do a wide open throttle log.

Most tuners need the car in 3rd or 4th gear to make sure there’s enough work being done by the engine per second so any changes in the engine management can be shown on the log. Also, while it doesn’t matter too much on the road, it helps to have the transmission as close to 1:1 as possible to avoid tire slippage on the road or lugging the engine in a higher gear.

Speeding is Required to Get Good Log Data

Now, that may sound great, but not only is this a very time-consuming process running between your computer and your car (if you are not blessed with a laptop) but unless you are planning to get to the dragstrip on a test and tune day, you’re almost certainly going to be breaking the speed limit to do this.

Let me give you an example. My car is a 2014 Mustang GT with the premium package. It came from the factory with the MT-82 and 3.31 gears in the back. Here’s how fast the stock tire size will take you:

The end of third will take you to 100 mph! If you get pulled over by a cop in a bad mood, Aggravated or Excessive Speeding (24-34 over) in Illinois is an arrestable offense. Anything more than a 35-over conviction and you’re getting 50 points on your license and a 3-month suspension. “But Officer, my tuner needs the log to edit my tune” isn’t going to fly.

Get the Best Tunes for Your Mustang Using Dyno Measurements

You know what’s a lot better than going through all of that crap? Taking your car to a shop that has a dyno and a guy who has built tunes for cars that are a lot more difficult to tune than yours.

It’s loads faster than trying to send files over the internet to your tuner and easier than putting your license (or life) at risk doing a highway speed run.

Here’s a rundown about how easy this is:

• Make an appointment for a time that works for your schedule.
• Bring your car and your tuning device to the shop and hand the tuning expert your keys.
• Sit in the waiting room and watch Netflix or ask politely to watch the dyno runs (for Instagram, of course), or catch a ride back home.
• The tuner will get to work and start making calibrations, uploading, checking them with a dyno run, making more changes, checking those, and so on until he is satisfied that he has gotten every last bit of performance he safely can out of your car.
• Later, the tuner will say that he’s finished. Pay and take your car home with a brand new, perfect tune and a dyno graph of how much power your car actually made.
• Enjoy a tune that will be better than any generic tune that you can receive by email.

 That’s so much easier than the DIY method, right?

Related Questions

What is the best device to load tunes on your S197 Mustang? So far, the easiest and fastest way seems to be the HP Tuners nGauge tuner. Instead of removing the whole tune file every time it needs to get updated, it simply re-writes the parts of the tune file that changes since the last version. The SCT devices seem to take several minutes to load tunes, while the HP Tuners nGauge can do it much faster.

Who is the best tuner for S197 Mustangs? There are several reputable tuners in the industry that consistently perform well, in addition to offering high-quality customer service for revisions. These shops include VMP Performance, Lund Racing, Shaun Perry/AED, Li Tuning and Racing, and, of course, D Mark Performance.

Does tuning void the warranty? The ECU logs how many times the tune has been revised and a dealer will know if you modified it. If you blow it up and take it back to the dealer, they might try to use it against you. Most of the time, if you’re modifying anything serious, the dealer is not going to help you, anyway.