SOURCE: http://www.AmericanMuscle.com

I was 17 when I got my first Mustang, an LX 5.0 notchback. I loved that car. And I loved working on it. By the time I sold it to buy my next ‘Stang I had changed out just about every part on the car. Years later I still spend most nights under the hood of my Mustang, wrench in hand.

Needless to say, I was quick to take the offer when AmericanMuscle approached me about helping them with their Custom Tunes for Life program. I’ve been around Mustangs long enough to know that tuners are the past, present and future of performance, and both SCT and DiabloSport are at the top of the game.


Dan Menna is the other custom tune writer here at AM. He’s also a Mustang guy, with more than a decade experience in performance tuning and modifications. Between the two of us, we figure we’ve written more than 10,000 custom tunes since the company started the program more than 24 months ago.

Between our years of experience and the special training we received when the program first started, both Dan and I could write custom tunes in our sleep. Okay, not really. But we definitely knew a lot about making Mustangs go fast. Still, a decision was made to send Dan and I straight to the source with a visit to SCT and DiabloSport headquarters in Florida. So, sure enough, Dan and I recently got on a plane and headed south to meet with our friends in the Sunshine State.


Florida, while disturbingly flat, is clearly a great place for SCT and DiabloSport to base their operations, given the number of Mustangs we saw on the road every time we hit the highway.

The first stop on our trip was SCT. As we walked through the lot and into the reception area, one thing was clear: These guys love cars. Mustangs were definitely dominant, but there was muscle of every persuasion lining the edges of their property. We spent the next 10 hours with SCT Tech Matt Lapoint, Sales VP John Riddle, and the AmericanMuscle Rep Daniel Robertson. We learned about SCT’s extensive development process and got a first-hand look at what’s next for the tuning powerhouse. Dan and I were both really impressed to learn that their development team has been known to beg, borrow and steal to get their hands on every car they write a tune for. No guessing here. We also spent a while comparing the differences in tunes for an ’05 GT to a tune for a ‘99 V6. Some values remain constant, but for the most part, they are completely different start to finish.


The next day we visited DiabloSport. Though we’re not doing custom tunes for these products at this time, DiabloSport remains one of the best tuners you can buy for your Mustang. For our part, we spent most of the day with Kevin MacDonald, their lead Ford tuner, talking about the company philosophy and looking at how they achieve maximum performance simply by manipulating the computer settings to help you get the most out of your Mustang.


Now that we’re back in the office and writing custom tunes for our SCT buyers on a daily basis, it’s clear that our trip gave us a broader understanding about the extensive research that goes into these highly sophisticated products, and a clear look at where performance tuning is headed over the next couple years. If you have questions about our custom SCT tunes, feel free to send us an email at SCTTunes@americanmuscle.com.

Ryan McDonald
Custom Tuning Specialist
AmericanMuscle.com



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