Pedal Commander review

Not really a build, but a posting that is worthy of a blog entry, at least in my humble opinion.

Slingmods responded to a post here about the newly released Pedal Commander offering us group pricing if we got at least 20 people who said they'd buy. I think we got 30+ interested in the thread within a week or two. I tried to get them to give out a demo unit to someone, they declined, but I spoke up and offered to buy a unit and let anyone borrow and review it if they wanted. So far, no one has taken me up on the offer, but I figured I'd try to do an honest review.

I tried to use the app that Edward Neal had found for iOS that would give you timed speed runs, but the app didn't seem to be reliable at the time of this review. I'll continue to work with it and the author. I did buy the suggested Skypro XGPS 160 that your phone connects to via Bluetooth to enhance the GPS signal (basically a bluetooth GPS modem).

I did some timed runs first, without the Pedal Commander on, to get a feel of 1/4 mile and the feel of my tires. Temps were in the low 60's.

So, I was relegated to just feel of the Pedal Commander, and while there were plenty of reviews like this, I did get some video and here is a review of a skeptic.

I went hog wild at first and tried Sport + mode at first. With my turbo, currently set at 10 psi and Bob's tune, this was way too sensitive. I also have a DDM performance clutch, which is very tight. With Sport +, it was hard to let out the clutch smoothly while applying a small amount of power, the pedal was just way too sensitive.

That's what the device does, makes the pedal more sensitive, taking less pedal movement to do the same thing. I did a couple of long pulls with this, the take off was a bit rocky due to me not being used to it. It just takes a minute amount of pressure to change your speed and that's why everyone feels that it is so fun, and many believe that Polaris should have done this by default. I'm sure they don't for liability reasons, or someone who doesn't have the reaction time as the average and could be dangerous I'm sure.

I backed off and tried Sport mode and then City, adjusting the settings minutely using the + and - and settled on -1. I was about to write it off completely when I turned it off completely and headed back to the house, but quickly pulled back off and turned it back on. That is what sold me, going without it.

While some may think that a City -1 is kinda lame, but I'll challenge anyone to try driving my sling without the Pedal Commander and you'll see how sensitive it is by default. This device enhances it and it didn't take much. Could I do without it, sure, but it does add some more fun to it, and as I get used to it, I may crank the settings up a bit.

Since the speedbox app didn't work as I needed it, and I had 20gb of video, figured you could at least enjoy me having some fun with it and adjusting settings. No, you don't have to watch all 20gb of video, I cut out the boring parts (to me).

One last thing, I had a lot of fun with this, proof:

All but about 10 miles of this was with the Pedal Commander. I can't prove it lowers MPG, more data will be needed, but it does increase the smiles per mile!