Auto B Glo

Ever notice that your gas pedal in your 2005+ Mustang has a half inch or so of dead space in the gas pedal before the engine actually begins to rev?

Well you aren’t crazy, in fact, this is a pure design issue on Ford’s part.

Through some clever thinking, I came up with a free way to completely eliminate any sort of dead space in the gas pedal.

The 2005+ Ford Mustang uses a Drive-By-Wire system. This means the gas pedal is simply a special switch which signals a computer to open or close the throttle plates by a motor.

The gas pedal switch from the factory has some dead space in it due to manufacturing tolerances.

Here’s how we fix it:

Tools you’ll need:

1. 10mm socket and wrench
2. Small Phillips screw driver
3. Torx T-15 screw driver
4. Fine pliers or tweezers

Step 1: Remove Three 10mm nuts holding gas pedal to firewall.

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Step 2: Slide back red lock tab on connector.

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Step 3: Use a flat head screw driver to press tab down inside of connector and pull connector away from gas pedal assembly.

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Step 4: Take pedal assembly over to your workbench. Remove five TORX T-15 screws on electrical cover.

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Step 5: Remove the cover. Notice how the circuit board says REV 1.0? That means they haven’t revised this gas pedal assembly since they first used it. (My car is a 2008!)

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In the image above notice the circuit board with the wedge shaped carbon tracks. Notice the shiny marks on the tracks. See how they start slightly before the end of the gold track? That is your deadspace! Any movement before the very edge of the gold track will not be registered by the ECU!!!
THE ONLY WAY to fix this is mechanical adjustment. NO amount of tuning can remove this deadspace, it’s simply impossible!

Step 6: Look at the pedal assembly. Notice the metal tabs and fine wire brushes? These are what we want to modify.

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Step 7: Very carefully, bend the brushes up so that they don’t have such a steep angular bend in their tips. I have already done this in these photos, so it’s not apparent how sharp the bend in the wires were prior to me modifying them. They are like this _/ and you want them to be straighter so that they move closer to the edge of the brass/carbon track.

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Using some fine pliers, carefully bend the tips of the wires. These are VERY fine wires, be very careful.

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Step 9: Now bend the entire metal tabs up very slightly to compensate for the change in angle at the tips of the wires.

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Another shot of the circuit board:
Notice that by bending the wires, we are moving them closer to the edge of the carbon/gold seam. This removes the dead space.

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Step 10: Put the cover back onto the pedal assembly.

NOTE: There is a rubber gasket that goes in the slot. MAKE SURE not to lose it, or crush it, this could cause your vehicle to accelerate uncontrollably! Screw the 5 TORX screws back in VERY CAREFULLY do not distort the cover, or you may change the position of the brushes and cause bad ju ju.

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Step 11: Re-install the pedal, and enjoy your new dead space free throttle!

How it works: Essentially you’re taking the angle out of the wires so that the tips of them are contacting a point further up on the carbon track.

The patch of carbon on top of the gold pad is less sensitive because it has METAL underneath it, and that metal is making continuous contact with all of the carbon on top of it, negating its ability to act as a variable resistor.

Only AFTER the metal pad, is the carbon sensitive and acting as resistor.

This is what the system looks like before the mod. Notice the space between the tip of the brush and the actual start of the carbon strip:

This is the goal:

You really can’t over do it, as the ECU will recalibrate once you start it for the first time.

This mod has been tried and tested by several people across several Mustang forums.

Including myself, the originator of the mod.