Ryan’s 2009 Challenger R/T

Challenger owner happy he bought a PedalMonster, not a Pedal Commander

I bought my Challenger in 2018 when I traded in the Mercedes I was driving at the time. It was a 1.8L turbo that was fairly nice, but it had turbo lag on top of throttle lag which did a number on my enjoyment of autocrossing the car. When I test drove the Challenger, the naturally aspirated 5.7L V8 felt much more responsive. Not only was the car better looking but it had a manual transmission and a motor that had plenty of aftermarket support for more power.

Initially, I couldn’t believe people were talking about adding a pedal commander to the Challenger. I had tested the throttle response multiple times and everything seemed just fine to me. That is until I had an incident merging onto the freeway where I ended up stabbing the throttle to the floor and then all the way back off, twice, and the engine didn’t respond AT ALL! I immediately began researching my options.

Pedal Commander was an obvious choice but there was a lot of complaints about limp mode. I saw someone mention the Banks PedalMonster on the forum and checked out the website for more information. Fails to stock without limp mode? Awesome. Draws on an actual power source instead of relying on excess current? Sweet! Adjustable settings from an app on my phone? Nice! About the same price? Sold.

When the PedalMonster came in I went straight to the car and installed it. Installation was super easy. Unless you know what you’re looking for and dig a little, you can’t tell it’s there. Fired up the app, connected it, calibrated it, ready to rock. Drove around town at stock settings to warm the engine up and get a good baseline of how it felt. I pulled into a parking lot to come to a stop and adjust the settings. It’s go time! Sport mode, 7/10 is what I set it to. Just revving the engine I could notice a HUGE change. You don’t know how lethargic the throttle is until you feel it the way it’s supposed to be.

The Banks PedalMonster woke this motor up, big time. Stock, the engine acts lazy in the mid-range RPM despite that being the motors power zone. It was like someone gave it a dose of Adderall. That 5.7L is alive and ready under these modified settings. I recreated the double throttle tap that made me buy a throttle tuner in the first place and each stab of the throttle unleashed a pulse of shove-you-in-the-seat power I expected to be there.

Even under daily commuter duty, the setting doesn’t change. It is light enough that it is easy to control precisely and not insanely touchy as to be unusable on the street. I fully recommend the Banks PedalMonster to anyone looking to get more responsiveness out of their engine. This thing works! I have a whole new outlook and respect for the 5.7L Hemi. If you’re looking to mod your engine at all, I’d start here. All the power in the world doesn’t mean a bit if the computer won’t give it to you!