PedalMonster Devours the Commander
Performance enthusiasts can’t scroll through their Facebook feed without seeing ads for the Pedal Commander. But just because the Turkish-based throttle booster company knows how to place ads on social media, doesn’t mean their device is safe. One example of this is Michael Gaither and his Camaro. “I have a 2020 Chevy Camaro 2SS 1LE with a 6sp manual transmission. I can’t say what the Pedal Commander would do on an automatic, but it was really glitchy on my car.”
“One of the things that stood out to me was that it didn’t know what gear I was in, so it didn’t have any idea when it was in reverse. It was like full-throttle backing up! The box had no idea that the car was in reverse because it’s not connected to OBD. But for some reason, it would go max pedal sensitivity in reverse. I’d be backing out of the supermarket parking lot and all of a sudden it was in the highest setting. It was super dangerous. On top of that, my drive wasn’t all that fun because it made the car herky-jerky, bucking at certain RPMs.”
Full Video Transcript
00:00 are you unhappy with your throttle response out of the hole mid-range top end if there’s room for improvement I have the solution I’m Gail Banks what happens when an engine guy or even better a turbo guy does a throttle booster the new pedal monster is the throttle booster with a brain it’s the
00:20 most intelligent and safest throttle sensitivity controller available here’s the reality we spend most of our time coming off the line merging with a trailer out back maneuvering in traffic at part throttle or working some cool stretch of Mountain Road till now you’ve
00:39 been the victim of some group at the factory and their predetermined pedal profile here’s what’s cool pedal monster allows you to precisely select just where the power comes in and at what rate today’s cars and trucks are dri by wire when you push down the pedal it
00:57 sends a signal to the computer to open the throttle the problem with drive by wire is that manufacturers often build in what we call sponge pedal looking for that last tenth of a percent of fuel economy in doing so they soften up the response and take away 50% of the fun
01:17 pedal monster gets rid of that lag oh yeah oh this is fun let me explain first you select the transmission type stick or automatic IC then you choose your driving mode City sport or track Each of which have 10 pedal profiles here’s how it works the pedal monster intercepts
01:41 signals between the pedal and the vehicle’s computer then it modifies those signals based on the mode and pedal profile you choose you know there are quite a few throttle boosters on the market and almost all of them have something in common they’re not safe the biggest safety issue with modules like
01:59 these is that if something goes wrong you’re instantly left with no pedal it’s like you took the pedal and threw it out the window well hell I guess we don’t need this pedal this is where pedal monster is different it utilizes the same active safety Health monitoring circuitry that
02:22 we use in all our inline tuners all pedal sensors send two or more signals to the vehicle’s computer one rising and one falling this redundancy is done for safety pedal monster is constantly looking at these signals if it sees something out of spec it Returns the
02:41 pedal to stock another fatal flaw with other throttle boosters is that they draw current to power the module by tapping into the pedal circuit itself in many vehicles like mopark cars and trucks for example that 5vt circuit doesn’t have enough electrical current
02:59 overhead to safely power any additional circuitry apparently some of our competitors have a problem with this so we’ve got the check engine light on the truck just said engine power reduced what do we do to this thing bro what did you do I didn’t do anything oh maybe this pedal Commander wasn’t a
03:20 good idea we solve this by supplying this guy an OBD cable powering pedal monster via 12 volts from the OBD port where there’s ample current capacity since we’re on the OBD port and capable of communicating with the vehicle’s computer we added vehicle speed sensing
03:41 giving us adjustable lows speeed trim and on stick shifts smoother clutch engagement and selected gear sensing gives us reverse safety these are important safety features no other throttle device has this is called speed based trim so you can select kind of that that response and the level of
04:02 response under 10 m hour so I don’t want to CH have to disable the system every time I’m loading the back of the the bed up or towing a trailer I can select this set it and forget it under 10 mph stock throttle response and because pedal monster knows what gear you’re in it
04:21 automatically returns to stock pedal sensitivity when you’re in Reverse reverse is not something you want to get too spicy in modules like pedal Commander have no clue what speed you’re at or what gear you’re in so they’re just as Twitchy in Reverse as they are
04:38 in Drive easy a 2-year-old could do this and when you combine it with an ID Dash data monster or ID Dash super gauge you can control the pedal monster right from the gauge and if you’re wondering will this affect my warranty if that’s a concern when you remove the pedal
04:56 monster it doesn’t leave a footprint we’ve got them for cars we’ve got them for trucks we’ve got them for naturally aspirated supercharged and turbocharged and it’ll put a smile on your face I swear it’s so responsive now I barely even touch it if this sounds fun
05:16 hit us up at bankspower.com or reach out to one of our hundreds of installing dealers this is City what sport
“After six months of dealing with the Pedal Commander, I saw a video about the Banks PedalMonster. I watched Gale go through everything, and his wording and examples made more sense. When I switched to the PedalMonster it was a completely different experience. Clearly the Pedal Commander never knew what gear the car was in, but the Banks does. The power curves are super smooth and responsive, making the car an absolute blast to drive. Pressing the pedal and knowing the sensitivity is going to be consistent makes driving so much more fun.”
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