In this installment of What's Up With That, we're getting scientific and breaking out
the robots to explain the mystery of throttle response devices.
Now in today's video, we plan on tackling the very popular topic and one that's been
heavily requested by you guys for a What's Up With That episode.
And that is the topic of throttle response or throttle enhancement devices.
Now it seems like a lot of you guys have a pretty good grasp on what these things actually
do, but there's still a lot of people out there who really don't know what they do.
And as a result, I get questions on the daily about what these things are, what they do
for your truck and what they don't do for your truck.
So hopefully by the end of this video here today, you guys will be a little bit more
educated on the subject.
And if guys aren't familiar with what these things are, well they go by many different
names here on the site including Pedal Commander, PedalMAX, throttle booster, and finally the
throttle response controller from SEC10 which is the option I currently have on the table.
Now, no matter what you call them, they all exist to serve that seen common purpose and
that is eliminate the lag between the pedal being pushed and your truck reacting caused
by your truck's drive by wire system, and what is that?
Well up until 2003 Ford used a more conventional method on their F-150s known as a throttle
cable, right?
Connected the throttle pedal to your throttle body and couldn't have been a simpler design.
You put your foot to the floor and your throttle body opened just as quickly.
Pretty simple stuff.
Now in 2004 and newer, Ford implemented what is called a drive by wire system on their
F-150s which as technology has a way of doing, tended to overcomplicate things just a little
bit.
Instead of that throttle cable acting as a direct on-off switch to your throttle body,
now with the drive by wire system, there is an electronic connector on your throttle pedal
which sends an electronic signal to your truck's PCM via voltage, which at that point sends
a signal to your throttle body telling it to open and by how much.
Sounds a bit excessive, right?
Now the reality is most of these drive by wire systems are completely seamless and most
people don't have any complaints.
However, if you're watching this video, then chances are you've noticed your truck can
be a little laggy at times and at that point you might want to consider adding a device
to help cure the issue.
So now that you know the root cause or issue on why these things exist, let's talk a little
bit more about what the throttle device will and will not do.
Again on the table guys, we have the SEC10 throttle response controller and now my trusty
SET handheld tuning device.
Which leads me to probably the biggest question I get on these things all the time.
And that is, is a throttle enhancement device a tuner?
And the short and sweet answer here guys is, no.
It does not tune your truck nor does it add any horsepower.
Instead, again, this thing does tap in your truck's throttle pedal just like we talked
about and manipulates that voltage.
The tuner, on the other hand, going to tap in your truck's OBD2 port and completely rewrite
the calibration or tune on your truck.
So because of that, again, the throttle device does not have any bearing on horsepower or
torque whatsoever even though it might feel that way because of the added throttle response.
At the end of the day, if you want power and more throttle response together, a tuner will
ultimately be your best bet.
Now the flip side to that point is that because these things don't physically flash or tune
the truck, they are virtually untraceable and leave no footprint on your truck's PCM,
much like a custom or canned tune might.
Furthermore, they are super easy to remove if you ever wanted to uninstall it out of
your truck for whatever reason.
Now, some guys might say you can stack these things with a custom or can tune, use them
in conjunction, but my advice to you guys would be just a reference your tuner first
before pulling the trigger just to make sure there won't be any issues.
All right, now comes the fun part.
We're gonna install the SEC10 device onto the F-150 behind us and attempt to physically
show you guys the difference in voltage and throttle angle between the different modes.
This does include stock, sport, performance, track, valet, and eco.
Now we are gonna be using our SCT device to simply monitor and track the data, but we
will not be flashing the truck whatsoever.
Also, guys, keep in mind we will be doing this testing with the truck off to not rev
the heck out of this thing, but also because the data will be exactly the same with the
truck on or off.
So with all that said, let's get to it.
All right guys.
So we're in our Ecoboost truck here for our experiment to show you guys what's actually
happening with the throttle device plugged in and the difference between the different
modes.
I'm actually really excited about this, to be quite honest with you.
My buddy Thomas behind the lens brought in some gear that he had at home to help us do
a very controlled experiment here if you will.
So behind me is essentially a linear actuator.
It's a motorized camera slider, and what we can do is set the exact same start and stop
location on the slider.
So it's very repeatable.
Basically, we'll have the throttle move the exact same distance each time in each mode.
We'll reference our SCT device here to see the difference between voltage in addition
to the ECT angle, which is basically the angle of the throttle body and show how much or
how little it's actually open.
So that said, we're gonna start our first test here with the SEC10 device shut off completely.
As you can see, here's our controller.
No colored light on.
That means we are currently stock.
So we're gonna initiate our movement and see what happens.
All right, so there you go guys.
So right now it's showing 2.35 volts as far as voltage in addition to our throttle angle
actual being about 44 and a half degrees, again completely stock.
So we're gonna reset our actuator, enter our first mode, which is going to be sport, we'll
initiate our actuator and see what it gives us.
All right, so now for our pedal position voltage, we're looking at about 2.5859 and the throttle
angle is about 50.9 degrees.
So we've already picked up a little bit of voltage, nothing crazy.
Again, that's what sport mode's all about.
Small difference in that pedal field, but the angle as well has increased a little bit
going from 44 degrees stock to 50, about 51 degrees here in sport mode.
So we'll clear this out and we'll get to our next mode which will be performance.
56.9 is what our throttle angle is now in performance mode.
Voltage is 2.8.
So things are increasing but it's increasing in minor increments.
Again, sport mode, a little bit of a bump up in pedal feel over stock, performance gonna
take that a little bit higher.
Next up is going to be track and that is designated for off-road use only.
So that means pedal inputs are going to be extremely touchy and if I were to guess these
numbers are gonna skyrocket given where we are currently at.
All right and yes we are seeing some differences here.
Not as extreme as I would have thought of originally, but pedal voltage is now 2.98,
throttle angle actual is about 61 degrees right on the nose.
So given the same pedal input that throttle's open considerably more and that's why the
truck is gonna feel basically a lot faster given the same kind of input.
Now we're gonna go in a different direction though.
We're going to try valet.
And this is a cool mode because again, you valet your truck, you give it to your friend
or maybe your kid and you don't want them to beat on it excessively.
Valet is always a great choice, right?
Because essentially it's supposed to dumb the truck down enough so it's not giving you
full throttle or full power at all times.
So we will enter valet mode, which is the blue color, initiate our test.
All right, well there you go.
I mean it's clear as day our pedal voltage now is 1.62 volts given the same amount of
movement and the throttle angle actual is 25 degrees.
So we essentially cut those performance and track numbers in half given the same pedal
movement.
So Valet is doing its job.
Given the same amount of pedal movement you are completely neutering the truck for lack
of a better word here, and as a result, it should feel kind of like a dog given the same
amount of pedal movement or gas pedal input.
So that's fun.
Now we got eco mode, which if I were to guess is probably gonna live somewhere between these
numbers in valet and maybe performance or sport modes.
The nice little shade of teal means we are in eco mode.
Let's start our test one last time.
All right, as advertised and as expected, pedal position voltage is now 2.3 volts and
throttle actual angle is 43.7 degrees.
So looking at our sport numbers, we are coming in below that for voltage and throttle actual
angle is actually a little bit less than what our stock angle was.
It's kind of taken the stock mode of the truck and kind of taken a little bit of the edge
off it and essentially maybe saving you some gas as an eco mode would in addition to maybe
just keeping this thing a little bit more tame all around town.
So there you go, guys.
That is our part throttle testing here with the SEC10 device.
Between the modes, things are happening, right?
You can see the difference in voltage.
You can see the difference in throttle angle, so it's not a mystery.
That's what this device does.
Changes the voltage and in essence, changes how much or how little that throttle is actually
open given the same amount of pedal input.
Now we just want to have a little bit of fun.
We're gonna program this device to go 100% throttle.
See if there's any difference between those modes and check them out.
All right guys, so we reset our actuator to 100%, basically full throttle here with our
truck.
We're gonna rerun the test in each mode.
Full disclosure, I feel like a lot of these will be very similar because let's face it,
open is open, full throttle is full throttle.
However, I do anticipate maybe some differences between the Valet and eco modes compared to
basically the track or performance stuff.
So either way, let's run it back.
Here we are stock first, so 3.84 volts and the throttle actual angle is 82 degrees.
It's important to point out that even though the full throttle or the pedal is pressed
the entire way, that's never gonna read 100% right?
Because it's not a percentage.
It's actually a matter of degrees.
So that's important to note, but that is full throttle in stock, 3.84 volts and 82 degrees.
So put it back to zero and start with our sport.
Okay, so there you go.
We are seeing a little bit more voltage but the throttle actual angle, no big surprise
here is also still at 82 degrees because again, like I said earlier, open is open.
You can't make the throttle open any further with one of these devices given 100% but what
you can do is crank that voltage.
There you go for sport mode.
Now in performance mode.
All right, so there we go.
Again, this is kind of what I anticipated.
Voltage and angle were the same both sport performance mode, what I can do is actually
hit the button one more time for track mode and what you can see there is nothing changed,
right?
So that's because we're essentially maxed out at full throttle as you might imagine.
Throttle actual angle is basically the most it's gonna be.
And then the voltage is essentially maxed out at just over four volts.
So we'll reset our test, but now I'm anticipating we are gonna see some differences here with
our valet mode.
All right, there you go.
Big time difference, right?
Full throttle in valet mode.
Truck's only seeing 1.6 volts here, wide open and only 25 degrees of throttle angle.
So that's basically about a third essentially of total angle of your throttle wide open.
So again, if you're giving your truck to a valet, a buddy, your kid and you don't want
them to flog this thing, the valet mode is certainly going to do the trick.
Last but not least, we have eco mode.
Let's see if we have any difference between our normal or sport modes and the valet.
So what we've discovered here in eco mode, when you go full throttle, you're essentially
losing any eco-ness about the mode that you're in.
Because when you do go full throttle, the light dims down and then essentially you're
seeing the same amount of voltage and angle as we did in stock form.
So we know that was different in part throttle as we just showed you with that experiment.
But again, once you go full throttle, any sense of eco or gas savings essentially goes
right out the window.
So very interesting here with our test.
That's something that I did not anticipate seeing, but it is something that is unique
here with the eco mode.
Well, guys, that's gonna wrap up this installment of What's Up With That all things throttle
enhancement devices, right?
This was a cool one for us.
We got to do some experiments.
We got to show you guys in black and white, what actually happens with these things and
how they are in fact different from your handheld or custom tuning devices.
Guys, we want to know what you think of this.
Please drop us a comment if you wouldn't mind.
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