Hey, guys, Justin with AmericanMuscle.com here with my detailed review and Dyno test
of the Cobb Accessport V3, available for your 2015 and up EcoBoost Mustang.
So the Cobb Accessport is going to appeal to a wide variety of EcoBoost owners out there
for a few different reasons.
Now first and foremost, it's going to be for the guys who are looking for the one of the
most capable handheld tuning devices on the market today.
In addition to that, it's going to be for the EcoBoost owners at home who want to take
advantage of Cobb's preloaded tunes for stock to lightly-modded EcoBoost rides or use the
Cobb device to deliver a custom tune for more heavily-modded setups, and I'll be sure to
breeze over all the features of this thing here in a minute.
In order to see what kind of gains are possible using Cobb's off-the-shelf 93 Octane tune,
we ran our six-speed EcoBoost behind me first to establish a baseline run and then reran
the car with a 93 Octane tune uploaded.
As for those Dyno numbers, guys, well here's what you're going to be looking at.
Now, our baseline pull using our six-speed EcoBoost Mustang gave us 257 HP, 280 feet
of torque at the rear wheels.
With the 93 Octane Stage One tune uploaded from Cobb, the car's now making 281 horsepower
and 367 pound feet of torque at the rear wheels.
Now that's good for a peak gain of 24 HP over those baseline numbers, but get this, guys,
gains as much as 47 horsepower and 88 pound feet of torque underneath the curve.
So what does that mean for you?
Well, obviously let's start with the big story first, and that's that huge gain and torque
down low.
Now, this is what you're really going to feel red light to red light, basically merging
onto the highway, things like that.
I mean, that's a huge number down low and that's really going to put you back in your
seat, but the story doesn't end there, guys.
If you drive an EcoBoost Mustang, you know these things tend to fall on their face roughly
around the 5000-5500 RPM mark, and the Dyno numbers depict that pretty accurately.
But with a Cobb tune loaded now, this car pulls all the way strong to red line, you're
picking up over 50 horsepower up near 6000-6500 RPM, So this thing has really wakened up that
upper RPM range, and as you can see, it's doing its job throughout the entire RPM band.
So the car overall should feel great down low but pull pretty hard up top.
Now before I really start dissecting the V3 here, I do want to quickly mention the unboxing
process.
Now rarely does that really mean anything when it comes to buying car parts, but Cobb
makes it really nice here with the Accessport.
You are getting the V3 itself which is about the size of your Smartphone at home.
You are getting a few different faceplate options here which is going to allow you to
change up the look a little bit.
They're throwing in a nice mounting bracket.
You can mount it to your windshield, dashboard, whatever you want.
Different cables here getting this thing hooked up, and finally they're even throwing in a
nice little carrying case just to allow this thing to be stored without getting scratched
whenever it's not in use.
Now again guys, I really do think this thing has some features other handheld tuners do
not, but first let's quickly touch on some of the basics here with the V3.
For starters, you're going to be looking at a bright, full color LCD screen, easy-to-navigate
button layout and this thing can hold up to 100 tunes at one time which is definitely
a standout feature for me.
Hand-read and clear those diagnostic trouble codes or check engine lights as well.
Now this thing can also read a bunch of information from your car's ECU, display it in real time
on your tuner here in the form of gauges, up to six at one time, as a matter of fact.
Old favorites such as RPM, intake air temperature, boost, things like that, and many, many other
features.
Now one thing I do really like here with this is that it does feature a shift light option
which is pretty cool, very easy to see as well, I do want to point out, especially depending
on where you have this thing mounted.
The V3 can also be used as a performance evaluation device which is essentially the same thing
as your Mustang's track apps.
Here you can measure your zero to 60 time and your quarter mile time in trap speed.
Now if you ever did want to take your Mustang back to stock, the Cobb does have a nice uninstall
feature which will return your car's ECU completely back to stock.
While all those features are nice, I do want to talk about some of the stuff that separates
the Cobb from some of the other options here on the site in my eyes, and I'm going to start
with my favorite, the on-the-fly mapper tune switching.
Now, this essentially allows you to switch between five different maps on the fly without
having to shut the car down, reload a different tune which on other devices can sometimes
take a good amount of time.
With this you can actually set it up using your cruise control buttons on the steering
wheel without having to dive back into the tuner while driving, making things a little
safer in the process.
Another thing or things I like about the Cobb Accessport here is that manual cars do have
access to a launch mode in addition to a flat foot shift mode, although both manual and
automatic cars can play with a burnout option.
Basically this is just going to limit you to around 5000 RPM when doing a big smoky
burnout.
Now again, these features are very cool and unique to the Cobb.
With most of the features pretty much covered, let's quickly talk about the tuning process
because as I mentioned at the top of this video, Cobb does offer you some preloaded
or off-the-shelf tunes as Cobb calls them.
Now two of these tunes are not even performance-related but they are pretty cool.
One is an anti-theft mode which will not allow the car to start even with the key, so if
you keep it stored for a long period of time this might be a good option for you.
And the other non-performance-related tune is a valet mode which basically is not going
to allow the car to rev past 3000 RPM or go over 30 miles an hour, so very handy if you
valet your car a lot.
Basically, it's not going to allow anyone to beat on your car.
In addition to those handy tunes, you are getting some performance-related tunes.
There's a Stage zero which is especially a factory equivalent tune.
A Stage 1 91 octane, and a Stage 1 93 Octane, depending on what kind of fuel you have available
in your area.
Now these Stage 1 tunes are essentially going to be for a factory or light bolt-on car,
basically, your cold air intake, your exhaust, things like that.
However, once you start getting into some bigger mods, such as catalyst down pipes,
larger inner coolers, you're going to want to step up to a custom tune.
As far as the install process goes, guys, it really couldn't be easier, one out of three
wrenches on the difficulty meter, and you won't even have to get your hands dirty.
First, locate your car's OBD tube port which on the S550 is going to be on the lower left-hand
side of the dash.
Plug the tuner in and wait for it to power on.
At that point, it's going to prompt you to install or marry the tuner to the car which
will take you roughly 20 to 25 minutes.
It's going to be the longest part of the process, but after that, the flashing process is much
quicker.
Either way just follow the instructions on the screen, and you should be good to go.
So to finalize things here, while you will be spending a little bit more money initially
for the Cobb device, I think you're going to be getting more bang for your buck in terms
of unique features and again, those preloaded or off the shelf tunes are definitely doing
their job.
So be sure to learn more about the Cobb device for your S550 here at AmericanMuscle.com.