Banks PedalMonster vs Pedal Commander – Safety Matters

00:00 [Music] [Applause] [Music] For those of you who are new, my name is Seth Engelhart. I’m the creator of Dirt Road Discoveries, and tonight we are going to install this Banks Pedal Monster. I’ve been doing a little research online trying to figure out which one would be the best for me—Pedal Commander or the Pedal Monster. Banks has been around for quite a while. That’s what I used back in the early 2000s when I was setting up my trucks in high school. But Banks Power, I think, is going to be a better fit for us. There are a lot more safety reasons behind my choice, and I’ll get into them in just a little bit. But anyways, let’s get started. Let’s get this thing hooked up and see what it’ll do. [Music]

01:25 Once you get your OBD plugged in underneath the dash, you’ve got this four-pin to a six-pin connector. That way you can plug it into the Pedal Monster itself. Once you get this plugged in and plugged into the Pedal Monster, you then unplug the connector on the back of the pedal. This end is going to clip into your plug that’s already connected to your pedal, and this one here is the one that’s going to clip into the top of your pedal.

01:47 I’ve got the female plug plugged into the top of the pedal where the factory plug was, and you can see the male plug connected into the factory plug that was originally on the back of the pedal. Everything’s plugged in now—time to hide the wires. [Music]

02:06 Reverse auto detect recommended. This is where, when you put it in reverse, it recognizes the gear so it doesn’t just back you up as fast as possible. It’s doing the auto detect for reverse switch.

02:34 [Music] It says the reverse gear found is on option 17. The settings have been updated. To start calibration, the vehicle must be in park and in the “on” or “run” position before pairing. So let’s do this. Start calibration. Depress pedal, wide open throttle. Calibration is complete.

03:36 Now you can see it shows your OEM foot position versus the Banks output. When I let off, both bottom out. When I press the pedal, the Banks ramps up faster—giving a pretty good boost. When you’ve got power going to it you can’t change modes, but when you let off you can. That keeps you from being full throttle all the time in sport mode.

04:03 Let’s try track. That gives it a lot of pickup. Just barely touching the pedal and it’s already responding. It depends on how touchy you want it—it’s a throttle response chip, that’s what you’re really getting out of it.

05:10 I like sport mode. The Pedal Monster is hooked up and I’ve been testing it. Now we’re pulling into a parking lot to test reverse. With Pedal Commander, people say it backs you up way too fast. Let’s see what happens with Pedal Monster.

05:45 Pulled in, Pedal Monster on, city mode selected. Pulling forward feels normal. Now into reverse—it shows “reverse safety active.” [Music] It backs up just fine, power cut off. [Music] I’m very glad because I have a camper hooked up, and backing up too fast usually causes jackknife.

06:38 Check out some of these clips of Pedal Commander users—no safety system. [Clips play: sudden acceleration, reduced power, check engine lights, trucks flashing warnings, near accidents.]

07:46 Now a clip from Rick Young, Banks’ electrical engineer, comparing the Pedal Monster to the Pedal Commander. He’s opened both units. The Banks Pedal Monster (top) has a relay for safety—a positive failure mode. If the board fails, the relay closes and the system reverts to stock operation. Pedal Commander has no such relay or safety feature.

08:15 The Pedal Monster also has a CAN bus interface. That means it knows the vehicle, year, make, model, engine, transmission, and gear. For example, when in reverse, it reverts to stock to prevent lunging backwards. Pedal Commander has no CAN interface—it doesn’t even know what gear the vehicle is in. From an engineering standpoint, the Pedal Commander is simply inferior.

09:03 Price comparison: the Pedal Monster is $295. The Pedal Commander runs about $299, maybe slightly undercut.

09:21 So, now you’ve seen the differences. For me, the safety features make Pedal Monster the clear choice. If you don’t care about safety, maybe you’d consider the Pedal Commander—but I’ll stick with Banks. Hope you enjoyed the video. Let me know in the comments if you’re going Pedal Monster or Pedal Commander and what you think about the safety features. We’ll catch you next time to see where the dirt road takes us on Dirt Road Discoveries.