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Hey everyone, I just wanted to share my thoughts on a product we offer here at GotExhaust. It’s called Pedal Commander. So that I’m not re-inventing the wheel, here is what Pedal Commander says their product does.
Installation
To start with, the Pedal Commander, PC from this point forward, is stupid simple to install. You install it between the main wiring harness going to your gas pedal, and then the gas pedal itself. It takes less than 5 minutes to install.
Start by unclipping the cable from the top of the gas pedal. There is a latch that flips up, and then a little clip that must be pressed in that allows the connector to slide off.
Once you’ve disconnected the connector from the pedal, you’ll connect the two connectors on the PC with the wiring harness side and the pedal side. They only fit one way, so you can’t mess it up.
Here’s what your connections should look like once you’re complete.
Now I may have done this a little backwards, but I maneuvered the PC to it’s mounting spot after it was installed. I fished it up and under the steering wheel.
And finally, it will be mounted with Velcro and double sided tape in this spot to the left of wheel.
Initial Impressions
Now that I’ve installed the PC, it was time to go for a drive. The first thing I noticed is that Eco mode is basically just the same as the normal mode. I honestly didn’t spend any time in that as I want to see how the car feels on the different modes. I then switched to City. City mode feels exactly like the RS’ sport mode. This is a small win to me since my normal procedure every…single..time… I get in the car is to crank the car, and put it into Sport or Track mode just to get that extra little bump in throttle response. As little of a win as it is, it’s nice to be able to just get in the car and not have to hit the button for it to feel peppy every time. Coming from V8’s, the RS feels like a slug in normal mode under daily driving conditions.
Moving up to Sport mode, the car feels extremely responsive. You make boost instantly with minimal throttle. Not a little boost, but quite a lot. I would guess it’s the same as if you’re at half to ¾ pedal under normal Sport mode conditions. I tried quickly accelerating from a dead stop a couple of times and the first thing I notice is just how much quicker the car responds to the throttle input since the PC is effectively amplifying your input. I haven’t had issues with torque steer in quite a while, but it’s there now. To me, it felt like the RS was struggling to engage the RDU quick enough to prevent torque steer since the power was coming up quicker. As we know, tire pressure discrepancies play a part in the perceived torque steer the RS gets sometimes. It was definitely amplified in PC Sport mode as it was not evident in PC City mode.
Sport+ mode was fun for a minute, but really too much for just daily driving. I do think it would be fun for drag racing. Also as a side note here, the exhaust pops happened every single time I lifted my foot off the throttle in PC Sport and Sport+. It was pretty awesome just how easy it was to make the car pop.
Conclusion
After trying all the different modes and noting mentally how I felt about them, I decided to put the PC back on city mode and work on dialing it in to suit my driving habits. I did this over the course of about 20 miles. My typical drive is about 8 miles of curvy back roads, 4 miles of 4 lane highway, and 3 miles of stop and go city driving. Starting in City mode, the PC also has 8 additional tuning settings for each main setting. I was happy at City -2. The car feels perfect there for normal driving. And when I get on the curvy roads, I switch the RS over to sport/track mode and now the RS pedal feels perfect. It responds exactly how it should have from the factory IMO. I’ve said this before somewhere else, but the RS is every bit as fast as my 04 Cobra was from the factory. The only difference until now, was how response it felt. The RS pedal just kind of felt soft to me , really as all new vehicles do. I’ve always chalked it up to being torque management in the ECU, especially in first gear, to protect the driveline. In this case, it’s really just the throttle programming. The biggest win with the pedal commander to me is when I’m doing rev match downshifting. I feel like I’m giving an unnatural amount of pedal as compared to older, non throttle by wire vehicles I’ve driven. I love being able to drive the car without it feeling so tied down.
So what started out with my perception of the Pedal Commander being snake oil, has turned into finding a product that I can’t see driving my RS without. I’ve also purchased one for our EcoBoost 2.7 F150 as there’s a night a day difference there as well. The Pedal Commander really does do what it says, and it does it very well!
If you're interested in the Pedal Commander, shoot me a message and i'll get you a price. We will also be having special pricing for Black Friday. Keep your eye out on this thread where I will post a code that can be used for purchasing through our website!
So with that out of the way, I’d like to give a little history. Whenever I first signed on with GotExhaust, the owner (Chris) and I were having a discussion about different products we could offer to the RS community and he felt very strongly that I should promote the device as it’s extremely popular in the Ford Raptor, F150, and Ram communities. I told him that I didn’t really feel comfortable selling them since I quite frankly felt like it was kind of a snake oil type device. He said he understood and that was that. Fast forward to last week and he asked me to stop by the shop, that he had something for me. So I stop in and he hands over this Pedal Commander and he said to try it out and to let him know what I thought.Pedal Commander is a throttle response controller that removes response delays on your electronic accelerator pedal. Effectively, it allows your engine to respond faster so your car can accelerate faster! You paid lots of money for a serious vehicle; when you press your gas pedal, it shouldn’t feel like you are pressing a sponge. Haven’t you ever noticed that older cars tend to be more responsive, before digital pedals? We’re giving you that response back!
Pedal Commander has 4 different control modes: Eco, City, Sport, and Sport+ . Each control mode has 8 adjustable levels to work with. These different settings are what provide drivers with unique acceleration control in their vehicles.
Installation
To start with, the Pedal Commander, PC from this point forward, is stupid simple to install. You install it between the main wiring harness going to your gas pedal, and then the gas pedal itself. It takes less than 5 minutes to install.

Start by unclipping the cable from the top of the gas pedal. There is a latch that flips up, and then a little clip that must be pressed in that allows the connector to slide off.


Once you’ve disconnected the connector from the pedal, you’ll connect the two connectors on the PC with the wiring harness side and the pedal side. They only fit one way, so you can’t mess it up.

Here’s what your connections should look like once you’re complete.

Now I may have done this a little backwards, but I maneuvered the PC to it’s mounting spot after it was installed. I fished it up and under the steering wheel.

And finally, it will be mounted with Velcro and double sided tape in this spot to the left of wheel.

Initial Impressions
Now that I’ve installed the PC, it was time to go for a drive. The first thing I noticed is that Eco mode is basically just the same as the normal mode. I honestly didn’t spend any time in that as I want to see how the car feels on the different modes. I then switched to City. City mode feels exactly like the RS’ sport mode. This is a small win to me since my normal procedure every…single..time… I get in the car is to crank the car, and put it into Sport or Track mode just to get that extra little bump in throttle response. As little of a win as it is, it’s nice to be able to just get in the car and not have to hit the button for it to feel peppy every time. Coming from V8’s, the RS feels like a slug in normal mode under daily driving conditions.
Moving up to Sport mode, the car feels extremely responsive. You make boost instantly with minimal throttle. Not a little boost, but quite a lot. I would guess it’s the same as if you’re at half to ¾ pedal under normal Sport mode conditions. I tried quickly accelerating from a dead stop a couple of times and the first thing I notice is just how much quicker the car responds to the throttle input since the PC is effectively amplifying your input. I haven’t had issues with torque steer in quite a while, but it’s there now. To me, it felt like the RS was struggling to engage the RDU quick enough to prevent torque steer since the power was coming up quicker. As we know, tire pressure discrepancies play a part in the perceived torque steer the RS gets sometimes. It was definitely amplified in PC Sport mode as it was not evident in PC City mode.
Sport+ mode was fun for a minute, but really too much for just daily driving. I do think it would be fun for drag racing. Also as a side note here, the exhaust pops happened every single time I lifted my foot off the throttle in PC Sport and Sport+. It was pretty awesome just how easy it was to make the car pop.
Conclusion
After trying all the different modes and noting mentally how I felt about them, I decided to put the PC back on city mode and work on dialing it in to suit my driving habits. I did this over the course of about 20 miles. My typical drive is about 8 miles of curvy back roads, 4 miles of 4 lane highway, and 3 miles of stop and go city driving. Starting in City mode, the PC also has 8 additional tuning settings for each main setting. I was happy at City -2. The car feels perfect there for normal driving. And when I get on the curvy roads, I switch the RS over to sport/track mode and now the RS pedal feels perfect. It responds exactly how it should have from the factory IMO. I’ve said this before somewhere else, but the RS is every bit as fast as my 04 Cobra was from the factory. The only difference until now, was how response it felt. The RS pedal just kind of felt soft to me , really as all new vehicles do. I’ve always chalked it up to being torque management in the ECU, especially in first gear, to protect the driveline. In this case, it’s really just the throttle programming. The biggest win with the pedal commander to me is when I’m doing rev match downshifting. I feel like I’m giving an unnatural amount of pedal as compared to older, non throttle by wire vehicles I’ve driven. I love being able to drive the car without it feeling so tied down.
So what started out with my perception of the Pedal Commander being snake oil, has turned into finding a product that I can’t see driving my RS without. I’ve also purchased one for our EcoBoost 2.7 F150 as there’s a night a day difference there as well. The Pedal Commander really does do what it says, and it does it very well!
If you're interested in the Pedal Commander, shoot me a message and i'll get you a price. We will also be having special pricing for Black Friday. Keep your eye out on this thread where I will post a code that can be used for purchasing through our website!