A/F guages and wideband?

[tribetype40]

After the burnt valve issue I want to know whats going on in my enigne so wish to fit a Air/Fuel gauge to keep an eye on things.

Does anyone have any experiance with these? do they plug into the existing o2 sensor or do you fit another one purely for the meter. Also a wide band meter would be better and keep an eye on things at the extremes, full throttle etc.

Do the esprits work of wideband as standard or narrow band

And also if the gauge works of the existing O2 sensor can you just replace the standard O2 sensor with a wideband one (assuming the standard is narrow band) without upsetting the ECU?

[Paul93Lotus]

After the burnt valve issue I want to know whats going on in my enigne so wish to fit a Air/Fuel gauge to keep an eye on things.

Does anyone have any experiance with these? do they plug into the existing o2 sensor or do you fit another one purely for the meter. Also a wide band meter would be better and keep an eye on things at the extremes, full throttle etc.

Do the esprits work of wideband as standard or narrow band

And also if the gauge works of the existing O2 sensor can you just replace the standard O2 sensor with a wideband one (assuming the standard is narrow band) without upsetting the ECU?

Your typical autometer, vdo, etc air/fuel works off of the standard narrow band oxygen sensor. Three wire hook-up....oxygen sensor signal, power and ground.They are not very accurate, but will tell you if you are running lean or rich at any moment. But as far as a tuning aid they are really worthless...just a nice light show. If you are running on the edge, you'll know you were lean too late.

The wide bands will allow you to extract the last bit of power from the car, and are very helpful (or mandatory for that matter) with stand alone fuel injection systems. I believe a wide band can be used in place of a narrow band for the ecu signal. Compatability I could not say, but with the GM 4 cylinder I would say likely yes.

I know that most 90's Esprits have a second bung in the down pipe where you could mount both at one time.

[Riddlemr2]

The best aftermarket wideband O2 sensors actually have a narrowband simulator that mimicks the signal a narrowband would send to your ECU while providing your laptop or gauge with a wideband signal. I was researching them a few years ago for my MR2, but went with an EGT sensor instead. Since then, the technology seems to have improved. This is an example of what I found with a quick google search:

http://machv.com/plxmwio2seki1.html

[fightingtorque]

I've used both narrow band and wideband, not on my Esprit but on my chinese car.

The narrow band just hooks up to the existing wiring, and as has been said, only reliably indicates 'rich', 'lean' or moves between the two, which is useful to let you know the system is working in closed loop properly.

The wideband that I have is from innovate motorsports and is the LM-1. It's a US company but I bought it from a guy in UK. I can't remember who, but basically if I remember rightly I asked the people at southern carburettors and injection, who put me in touch with either omex or their distributor, who then put me in touch with a guy who does rolling road tuning......

It's a great bit of kit with a very fast and accurate reading, and ideal for tuning. It uses it's own sensor, you can use it to give a simulated narrowband output to the ecu to continue running normally, although to be honest it is probably worth getting an extra tapping welded into the exhaust, it would be simpler as you still need to keep the existing narrowband sensor mounted in the car somewhere and connected to the heater wires (two of the four lambda wires) otherwise the ecu will raise a fault.

The unit I have got is a bit big for permanent use as the readout unit/control box is about the size of a big multimeter. Tie wrapped to the passenger sun visor with cables it made life interesting for passengers. However, innovate also do a version (or might be an add on) with a 52mm circular gauge so that you can use it permanently.

It's one of the things I'm going to do fairly soon to the S4 is get it installed in there.

It also has some data logging functions and ability to read other things like throttle position, rpm etc. So you could use it for performance tuning plotting revs against time (= acceleration) and trying different A/F ratios or whatever other adjustment parameters you may be able to build in. I didn't use this function yet as I also have a race technology G-meter which enables measurement of acceleration.

For what it's worth, armed with wide band lambda and the race tech meter, I calibrated twin sidedraught webers, programmable ignition system and vernier cam wheel on the public highway on the outskirts of shanghai (city of 20 million people but no rolling roads available!). Took a few late nights though.

The creation of these wideband sensors was, I believe, to enable a new breed of VW engines to operate in closed loop (i.e. well controlled A/F) under conditions where lambda=1 would not be suitable, notably full throttle and warming up. It is only a matter of time before aftermarket programmable systems also have this facility, so instead of a lot of detailed mapping, the system would dial in and maintain the correct 'power' mixture (around lambda 0.8) all the time. This would make modified cars easier to setup, and keep giving their best for longer and under all conditions. Nice.

[tribetype40]

A friend of mine has recommended these people:

http://www.techedge.com.au/

it seems to be a very comprehensive peice of kit....? good price too for what you get, checkout thier kits.

[fightingtorque]

A friend of mine has recommended these people:

http://www.techedge.com.au/

it seems to be a very comprehensive peice of kit....? good price too for what you get, checkout thier kits.

Only thing you need to decide: buy one today or get someone to give it to you for christmas. Definitely you need one of these in your toybox. ALL OF YOU.

I was also advised to get a spare sensor, as they can be damaged by rich mixtures/ getting fuel on them when cold, although this was more in the context of mapping (and with carbs) than using it in an engine that should be running ok.

I did order a spare, and still haven't damaged the original one. One of the reasons for buying it though is that although this sensor is an oem part, I think you can currently only get it from one of these companies as above, (and not on a sunday afternoon of course) or else go to a VW dealer and pay through the nose for it.

[Esprit Aviation]

Wideband w/ a properly calibrated meter is the only way to go!! I have an NGK system in my Turbo. I was able to rejet the carbs w/ ease and a great deal of accuracy.

NGK makes a great kit. Wideband 02 sensor w/ an easy to read digital meter. Reads to the hundredth of a point. 02 sensor has 0-5v output which is calibrated in the meter to read 9.00:1 To 16.00:1 AFR. These are extremely accurate units!!

I may carry these in stock if there is enough interest.

Send me a message if you have interest in, or any questions about these units.

Cheers, Lee

[Artie]

After the burnt valve issue I want to know whats going on in my enigne so wish to fit a Air/Fuel gauge to keep an eye on things.

Does anyone have any experiance with these? do they plug into the existing o2 sensor or do you fit another one purely for the meter. Also a wide band meter would be better and keep an eye on things at the extremes, full throttle etc.

Do the esprits work of wideband as standard or narrow band

And also if the gauge works of the existing O2 sensor can you just replace the standard O2 sensor with a wideband one (assuming the standard is narrow band) without upsetting the ECU?

Agreed on all the other posts, narrow band gauges are pretty useless, you know when it's too late. If you really want to tune properly you need a datalog function and some way to map the values. Enter the LM1.

I am going to get an innovative motorsports LM1 to use with my 89 turbo. As no one offers a good performance chip for my Turbo, I've added 2 additional injectors and will use the wideband with the datalog ability to tune my fuel curve! These LM1's are on ebay right now for about $275USD which is almost Wholesale price!

Artie

[Esprit Aviation]

Sorry about not realizing that you typically have injection in the Stevens Esprits. Anyway, if someone needs AFR for a carbed Turbo, the NGK is the way to go.

Thanks, Lee

[fightingtorque]

Sorry about not realizing that you typically have injection in the Stevens Esprits. Anyway, if someone needs AFR for a carbed Turbo, the NGK is the way to go.

Thanks, Lee

I think the needs are the same whether you are working with carbs or injection?

I'm not going to fight a corner between NGK, LM1 or the ozzie unit - when I bought mine (LM1) it was the only one I was aware of and wanted one in a hurry to take back to China, so I went for it. As it turned out t worked very well and I was happy. I think whichever way you go you all will be to - the underlying technology is the same (I think).

Key decision is whether you want to use it for tuning, in which case the quality of the data logging functions and ability to add other inputs such as rpm and throttle position will be important, or whether you want it as a permanent installation, in which case a nice display unit that will work with your interior will be key.

Probably you want both. Probably all suppliers can offer you both.

Cheers.

[Esprit Aviation]

The NGK does not offer Datalogging as a stand alone unit, although I think they can be used in some way for input purposes to the injection ecm. Not really sure. Sure does work nicely and simply in the carbed versions. In any case it helped me to rejet easily.

Happy Holidays, Lee