Hey, guys, Adam here with americantrucks.com, and today we're taking a closer look at, installing
and dyno testing the Bully Dog BDX Tuner and its pre-loaded tunes available for the 2015
and newer 3.5 liter EcoBoost F150 excluding the Raptor models.
Now, before we jump into the details of the pre-loaded tune and the device features itself,
what do you say we head on over to the dyno graph to take a look at our results?
We strapped our '17 3.5 F150 to the dyno and while it is a 10 speed and seventh gear is
the one to one gear ratio we pulled it in fifth to avoid hitting our speed limiter.
It's also worth noting it has 35-inch tires and 93 octane in the tank.
On our stock tune we walked away with 288 horsepower, 364-pound-feet of torque at the
rear wheels.
We then uploaded our preloaded BDX tune modifying it to fit 93 octane and our 35-inch tires.
Walked away with 372 horsepower and 425-pound-feet of torque at the rear wheels, that's good
for peak gains of 84 horsepower and 61 torque at the tires.
Those numbers alone are really impressive from a simple pre-loaded tune, but the curve
gains look even better.
And as a matter of fact, they blew away my expectations for sure.
Under the curve, we're seeing gains of as much as 126 horsepower and 118-pound-feet
of torque at the rear wheels.
Now, we're seeing those gains a little bit more at the high end of the RPM band around
5,500, 5,600 RPMs.
But we're seeing really linear solid consistent torque curve across the entire RPM band, guys.
This is a really effective pre-loaded tune on our '17 here, it's definitely gonna make
for something that's gonna change the driving experience drastically.
The Bully Dog BDX tuner is very similar in design and features to the Rev-X but it does
have some key feature differences.
The Bully Dog tuner here is gonna be available for the EcoBoost F150 owners looking for an
easy to use pre-loaded or canned tuner, not something that goes as in-depth or as expensive
as a custom tune.
So, that's really gonna be your big difference with the BDX option here.
Now as you saw from our results on the dyno a pre-loaded tune from BDX here in this device
actually is really effective.
Now, we were changing within that pre-loaded tune the octane fuel, changing it to 93 octane
to maximize performance.
And we change our tire size to both correct our speedometer which can be off depending
on the size of your tires, and of course, factor that into the tune to make the most
power out of our truck.
Now, the tune itself is, of course, gonna factor in throttle response and acceleration.
It's changing your drive by wire delay to make you feel like you're getting off the
line a lot easier.
And it's taking a number of other things into consideration but mainly changing those key
features that we just mentioned.
Now, the tuner itself comes with a number of other features to take advantage of as
well.
You can look at the gauges and datalog screen to monitor live engine vitals on the fly within
arm's reach of the driver seat.
You can monitor things like coolant temp, air intake temp, boost in PSI for our EcoBoost
Turbo guys.
Can also track air-fuel ratio, speedometer, RPM gauge, you can change a number of those
parameters to fit your personal preference as well.
You can track up to eight of those at once with those personalized gauge screens.
Now, that can be tracked in portrait mode and in landscape mode and if you have a gauge
mount or a windshield mount, something like that, you can mount this guy within arm's
reach, which goes a long way as well.
You can record your vehicles performance using the datalog feature within that gauge screen
as well.
The DTC code reader is built-in, so anytime your check engine light comes on, or the diagnostic
trouble code reader, you can plug this guy in, read the code, get a description and clear
it right there on the device.
It also has built-in Wi-Fi capabilities for wireless updating of both software and firmware
versions.
And you have cloud access as well to send and receive stock files without needing to
be plugged into a laptop.
You can also send and receive datalog files as well as custom tunes.
Now, while the BDX tuner does use preloaded tunes out of the box, it can hold up to 10
custom tunes in the device.
So, if in the future, you want it to work with a tuner of your choice, you can load
those guys right onto your BDX tuner using the cloud.
The device itself is coming in right around 400 bucks and the install gets one out of
three wrenches on our difficulty meter.
Anybody can tackle this in the driveway at home with about 20 to 30 minutes from start
to finish.
Now I'm gonna walk you through all the features of the device but we're gonna start with how
to tune your vehicle.
We're gonna look at the pre-loaded tune and change parameters like the octane and your
tire size.
So, what do you say we get to it?
All right, guys, once you have your BDX device plugged into the OBD2 port make sure the key
is in the on position, but don't start your engine.
From here, what we're gonna do is jump right into tuning the vehicle using that pre-loaded
tune for our 3.5.
So, we're gonna select program vehicle from the main menu, confirm your VIN.
And if your device needs updates, so if it's the first time out of the box and you're just
turning it on, you wanna hit Continue on this to do any updates that need to be done to
this device before you get started.
Otherwise, you might get a couple of error messages.
You wanna be on the latest software.
We've already taken care of that so we're gonna hit skip.
Keep in mind that that will require a Wi-Fi network access.
So, make sure you're connected to Wi-Fi and it'll ask you for that once you hit Continue.
Cloud Sync.
So, of course, we're focusing on that pre-loaded tune on the BDX but if you're using custom
tunes you may have loaded on the BDX device, you might have them on the cloud, you can
hit Continue to sync them from the cloud to your device but again, using the pre-loaded,
we're gonna hit skip.
There's just a street use notice, hit Continue on that, make sure the key is on like I said,
and it'll move forward.
All right, so if you're using a custom tune, it'll be down here, we're gonna focus on that
3.5 pre-loaded tune, which is going to modify some of our parameters to really maximize
that performance.
So, from here, if you wanna make any customizations or changes to the tune itself, you can do
so now.
We're gonna keep that the same, but I wanna show you guys what those changes would be.
Here's some of those configurations, fuel octane it is listed as stock.
So, what we are gonna do is change that 93 octane, there's the speed limiter, rev limiter,
all that good stuff, what we are gonna change is the octane, change that over 93, select
approve.
All right, from here we can hit Continue.
It's gonna load our stock tune to the device and save that.
So, if we ever wanna revert back to stock it'll have that here and we can easily do
that following the same process.
From here it'll go right into writing our tune.
All right, at this point, it's telling us to turn the key off, and then just wait, back
on.
All right, programming complete, you can hit Done, it'll take you back to the main menu,
you can unplug and you're good to go.
Now, aside from program vehicle, we have a couple other functions I wanna go through
with the device.
Now, under that is gauges and datalog.
So, if you select that, make sure the key is on, hit Continue.
You'll be able to track live engine vitals and datalog your vehicle's performance.
So, what you wanna do first is select the proper configuration.
So, it starts with a baseline almost template for the configuration.
So, we're using a 2017 EcoBoost.
So, what we wanna do is go down to find Ford Gas '08 and newer, so 2008 vehicles and newer.
We're gonna press Continue on that and it'll upload that configuration, download the diagnostics
from the vehicle and show us that in real-time.
So, we have control module voltage, you can see boost in PSI, car's not on so we're not
gonna have anything to read there.
But if I wanted to change control module voltage, we can select it, select item, say we wanna
track air intake temp, select that, hit approve,and that'll take you and change that gauge.
Now, from here if you wanna monitor up to the maximum amount of gauges at the same time,
you'll select gauge layout here from the menu, and you have a bunch of different options.
You can even rotate it to be landscape instead of portrait.
Now, if we wanna change that to monitor up to eight at once, we have now eight gauges
and you can select those individually, you get abbreviated words.
So, air intake temperature, things like that, boost is still top left.
So, as you can see, there's a lot you can really do with that.
Now, you can also start recording this data.
So, if you're using a custom tuner, you have a new tune, you wanna make revisions, you
can download...you can datalog, download that datalog, send it to your tuner, make revisions,
there's a lot of useful information you can take advantage of here.
Now, go back to the main menu, you'll just hit stop datalog.
Under that, vehicle functions.
You can read and clear DTC codes or diagnostic trouble codes.
So, check engine light comes on.
You can plug this in, read it, get a description, get the code, once it's taken care of you
can clear it so the check engine light goes away.
So, that's a good function to have, you don't need a separate tuner for that, separate device,
don't need to go to an auto parts store.
Special functions, something most people won't use, cam relearn, don't have to worry about
that, we're gonna go right back to the main menu.
Vehicle info is going to be things like your VIN number, your ECU strategy code, all of
useful information for you to have when you're requesting new custom tunes, your tuner will
definitely need that info so that's good to have right here on hand.
Under that, device info.
This is things like your app name, part number, serial number, firmware and software versions,
how many unlocks you have left, your paired status, things like that.
So, hit exit.
Finally, device updates.
Check for updates and Wi-Fi go hand in hand.
Those you can use to get wireless updates, software updates, firmware updates from SCT.
You can also search the cloud for new tunes.
If your tuner puts that on the cloud you can download it here, you can upload your datalog
to the cloud for your tuner to access, you can upload your stock file to the cloud as
well.
Other things would be very simple device changes, you can change the brightness, orientation
from portrait to landscape, you can change the color from say light blue to dark blue,
changes the white to black.
You can also go dark red, there's a bunch of different options, light red, we're gonna
stick with the light blue though.
Under that you can change startup function.
So, this is I think the last important thing to talk about here.
If you boot up your device, you plug your device in, you can have it set that it automatically
defaults to the gauges and datalog screen.
So, basically, if you have this plugged in at all times and have it mounted on a windshield,
which you can do, you can basically have every time you turn the car on it goes...turns on,
immediately goes right to gauges.
So, I think that's a pretty useful feature for guys who wanna use that every day.
From there, you can hit exit, take you right back to the main menu, and that's your device.
Well, guys, that's gonna wrap up my review, install and dyno test of the Bully Dog BDX
Tuner available for the 2015 and newer 3.5 liter EcoBoost F150 excluding the Raptor model.
And if you wanna get it for yourself, you can do so right here at americantrucks.com.