AMWill

OP,

At the bare minimum you're going to need two things. A custom tuner and a solid aluminum driveshaft. Then you'll be able to exceed the speed limiter, but going that fast in anything on the street is still dangerous! Just keep that in mind.

Shane

Nuke

With the right handheld, you can change both the rev limiter and the speed limiter.

thunderlevin

Can you defeat the limiter using Android "Torque" and one of the OBD Bluetooth dongles?

cariacou

I doubt it.
these free apps & very affordable devices only read data from the engine.

if you want to modify anything, you need to go with a company that has experience & is reliable (sct, diablo, etc etc etc). Buy a tuner, $200-$400 you won't regret it.

JimC

All that does is read data from the computer - gives you diagnostic codes, and my let you clear them. But it doesn't do any programming. You need to get a tuner and tunes.

thunderlevin

Well then is there any way to tune, using a computer or Android tablet, rather than buying a dedicated tuner that will then only work on one car? A laptop has much more computing power than a handheld tuner, so paying for that equipment again seems redundant.

Jande063

Short story, yes there is a way to tune from your laptop.
Long story, it would not be cost effective in the least since you would have to:

Purchase a new universal Engine Management System.
Cost: Between $500 and $6000(keep in mind that these systems do not really get good until about the $1000 mark i.e. AEM or Haltech, unless you are buying an older/used model and making it work, below this price they will usually be pretty specialized but will also have some very strange limitations; but you get what you pay for with the pricier units such as the MoTec M84).
Re-wire the ECU harness(and anything else you want to connect to your new EMS) to interface between the car and the new EMS. (Popular "tuner" models such as Lancer EVO's do actually have plug and play EMS's that come preloaded with full tunes, making the EMS more cost effective than a hand held programmer, but only in those cases; someday Mustangs will be on those lists too)
Cost: Depends on who does the work(you or paid professional), complexity of proposed changes, magnitude and frequency of errors made during the process. Make a wild guess, then multiply it by 3.14 at least once.
Have your new EMS tuned.
Cost: Again, this depends on who is doing this work, but assume that done properly, this wil cost several thousand dollars since fully adjustable units like this require significantly more attention to tune(especially on the first) than any other tune type due to the added complexity of these units. This means that the car will also need to spend a lot more time on a dyno to iron everything out(even when running closed loop lambda control).

Pros: If you do not skimp out, but rather buy an EMS that has a sizeable list of features that allows your vehicle to grow around it, you can change any parameter of engine operation(user beware, just because you set the rev limiter to 18,000 RPMs, does not mean that the engine will operate at that speed), you will be able to get way crazier with your build, get more accurate and personalized with your tune, and it can be a bit safer for a heavily modified engine(but again, only if it was set up properly in the first place).

Cons: Exorbitant cost, level of skill and cost/type of facilities REQUIRED to perform the initial tune(and subsequent major tunes), potential for catastrophic failure if you make a mistake while playing with your tune, cost(again, cannot stress this enough).

Basically, unless you are running turbocharged(non OE) engine, running on E-85, larger than stock displacement, wild cam(s), or anything else further along these lines, it is more cost effective to buy a hand held tuner from American Muscle, tell them what you have and what you are looking for, then let them perform all of that tuning for you. It will not be quite as personally tailored to your exact vehicle(each individual vehicle has slight quirks that grow in number with age, that when added up, make not so trivial differences; but AM's tunes will really be quite close to optimal) as a full custom job with your vehicle on a dyno, but it's an excellent starting point for a local tuner with a dyno(and a couple hundred dollar fee of course).