For many, the world of tuning is a foreign place filled with language that is only understood by the elite tuners of the country. Delta Force has recently debuted a software that they say makes it easy for the everyday guy to take charge of his vehicle’s computer. Their Special Forces program provides a unique experience that walks your through each step of the tuning process, without requiring you to have an extensive understanding tuning.

Who Is Delta Force?

Delta Force may be a new name to the tuning consumer, but the people behind it have been in the tuning industry for years. Brothers Pat and Chris Stajdel first got into tuning in the mid ’80s when Buick released the now infamous Grand National and GNX. Unlike many of GM’s other cars at the time used for performance, this car featured no distributor, no carburetor, and a lot of wires all leading to a computer. “If you wanted to work on these cars, you had to learn computer tuning,” says Chris Stajdel.

The two brothers enjoyed success in the Buick world, taking their GN to a world record run of 11.02 @ 139 MPH with a full interior, full body, stock chassis – even power windows were still on this car. From there they both enjoyed working for a number of aftermarket tuning companies before settling down and forming their own.

What Is Special Forces?

To make themselves different from the other tuners on the market, Delta Force wanted to create a tuning software – Special Forces – that they say anyone could use. “We designed the software to be simple to use,” says Stajdel, “As long as you know what parts you have on your car, you can create a good tune with the Special Forces software.”

The entire process is question based. The Special Forces software takes you through a step-by-step question and answer setup process by asking things like: ‘What size injectors are in the car?’ or ‘What air intake are you using?’ as inputs to help the software build the tune. Each question is answered by selecting an answer from a drop down window next to it. Once you’ve gone through all of the questions, the Special Forces uses a unique calibration formula to build you a base tune file.

There are plenty of options to cover almost any possible combination of performance upgrades. For example, here is the area where you enter in which type of Mass Air Sensor that you have. You can see that the Special Forces is pre-programmed with a wide selection of common Mass Air inlets.

Special Forces gives you options to make adjustments to advanced parameters as well – if you have the experience. These are spark and fuel modifiers which can adjust the timing tables and fuel tables at specific RPM levels or globally.

There is more than just engine parameters available for modification. “On some of the newer vehicles there is over 500 different parameters you can modify when tuning the vehicle,” says Stajdel. Will you need to adjust every single one – no. But the option is there for other parameters like transmission options. As you can see, if you have a 2005-up Mustang Automatic, you can adjust shift parameters between gears and also based on MPH.

With Special Forces, you also get transparency into the General Settings tab. This allows you to adjust the rev limiters, gear and tire sizes, cooling system parameters – hey you can even disable the alarm!

Special Forces Details

When you buy the Special Forces software, Delta Force lets you use it for two different vehicles – kind of a “two for one” special so to speak. If you wish to use it to tune for more than the two, you can simply buy what are calledBullets in Special Forces speak, which are essentially additional keys that unlock the ability to use the software for another vehicle.

Vehicle support of this program is pretty broad: Delta Force’s Special Forces software currently supports just about any Ford computer that is 1996 and above (OBD-II). This simplifies ordering as there is only one single part number that covers many different models.

Installing the tune via the Delta Force is just as easy as most EFI tuners. You simply plug the unit into the OBD-II port under the dash on the driver side. After following the on screen prompts, Special Forces will download your stock tune for a backup, and upload the new tune file that you created when connected to your computer into your ECU.

Advanced Tuners: Welcome to Commando

Delta Force also offers their Commando advanced tuning software that comes with Special Forces included in it.

This additional software opens even more doors into the world of tuning, giving you an advanced “unlocked” look at the full spectrum of tables within the ECU. Unlike Special Forces, Commando is not question driven and instead gives you the actual raw access from the computer’s over 500 different parameters.

Here are some sample screen shots from Commado. Unlike Special Forces, you will need to know what you are doing here – i.e., be an advanced level tuner – or you could make changes that could damage your engine. Each parameter is displayed with its actual value, not just voltage. For example, if you wanted to set the fans on the car to come on at 160 degrees, you would enter ‘160’ not the voltage of the temperature sensor sends out at 160 degrees. This makes jumping in a playing around with the different parameter a little easier.

One thing that Delta Forces suggested to use is using Special Forces and Commando together for the entry level tuner. “You can use Special Forces to create a tune, and then open it up in Commando. Then open the stock tune in Commando and compare the different values to see what was changed,” says Stajdel. Because you can create as many tunes as you want with out having to upload any of them to the vehicle, countless amounts of time can be spent learning what different modifications effect what parts of the tune. This can ease the entry level tuner into Commando without having to build an entire tune file from scratch.

Connecting To The Vehicle

Delta Force ships their interface box for connecting to your computer and the vehicle. This is really simple to set up with only two cables to connect. One runs from the box to a USB port on your computer, while the other cable plugs into the OBD-II port on your vehicle. You should never have both hooked up at the same time.

Everything is done through the Interface Box.This allows the Special Forces, Delta Force, or Commando software to link to the Interface Box, then you can connect the box to the vehicle’s ECU for downloading of the stock tune, or uploading of the new performance tune. Using the Interface box is all done through the software, so there is nothing more to learn outside of the software.

All in all, we found the Special Forces software to be an interesting concept. The idea of building a base tune without being an expert-level tuner will appeal to many people. Of course, Special Forces will not replace advanced or custom tuning for most. That’s why there is Commando or Delta Force for the Delta Force Dealer. For many power adder applications, or when you need a dyno to get the last 10% of our tune, custom tuning is really the only way to go.

When you purchase the Special Forces software, Delta Force says you get access to the tuning sages inside of Delta Force to assist you with tech support or other questions you may have. They even give you free updates to the software as they become available, making this a long term investment that isn’t going to go out of style next week.