Wideband o2 pick-up

[sawood12]

Those who have installed a wideband O2 sensor where have you mounted your sensor and how? I know it has to be after the turbo as the temps are too high before the turbo but do you have to drill a hole in the exhaust and have an adaptor welded in?

Cheers.

 

[George Elliott]

as my father would have said - "why?"

not very helpful I know [] []

but I have heard there is a system to measure O2 on the 4 individual cylinders so that must be on the manifold.

George

944T

 

[sawood12]

Well the answer to your first question is that it is essential to monitor AFR's when you are installing performance mods. Off the shelf stuff is usually very conservative to build in large margins of safety - basically they run rich to keep combustion temps low, however when you start looking to optimise the AFR's then you need a wideband O2 sensor. Also with some systems you can use the sensor to run the car in closed loop.

The o2 sensors i've seen on the market cannot stand the temps in the manifold which is why they need to be mounted further down the system. Though wouldn't it be fantastic to have a system that could run each individual cylinder in closed loop.

 

[George Elliott]

Wish I could recall where I heard of the Indi O2 monitoring, had to be USA origins.

Admire your logical approach to optimising the engine performance.

George
944T

 

[Diver944]

I have the 'Wideband Commander' system and the sensor is mounted in the front section of the exhaust just after it bolts to the downpipe from the turbocharger (I'd take a pic to show you if I had the car []). Jon M had a threaded bung welded in there and the O2 sensor itself just screws in. There are some stipulations as to the angle it's mounted, but most kits tell you what is best for their product

I heartily recommend the Wideband Commander, the software on the laptop is very easy to use and very easy to log your AFR agianst RPM once you hook up a wire to the coil. You can also configure it to give you an audible alarm if you go out of a user definable AFR range between a user definable RPM

 

[sawood12]

ORIGINAL: George Elliott

Admire your logical approach to optimising the engine performance.

George
944T

A few years of reading on this forum you soon pick up a few things so can't take the credit for the methodical approach i'm afraid. There are plenty of real tuning guru's on this and other forums from whom you can learn from their experiences and mistakes. But from the odd tuning horror story i've read about that usually end up in major damage to the engine and a huge bill a couple of hundred quid on an AFR gauge becomes a very sensible investment.

Paul, I've not come across the wideband commander system you refer to. I did have my eye on the Innovate gauge system that does also have a laptop interface system and a 'record' mode but it does not specifically mention being able to log AFR against RPM. That sounds like a very useful feature. Does it mean that you can make a couple of runs without having to keep one eye on the AFR gauge, one eye on the rev counter and zero eyes on the road and allows you to review the trace afterwards and make the adjustments to your piggy back?

 

[Diver944]

Exactly right. It has a normal analogue gauge with a sweeping needle so you can monitor AFR in realtime but you can also plug a usb into the control box (size of a fag packet) and then do a logging run. It's as simple as pressing record on the laptop, flooring it in gear until you hit the redline and then pressing stop. You can then press play and watch the log on screen, make some fueling changes straightaway if you have the facility (like the Vitesse piggyback) and then do another log to see the change.

You can also export the data into a spreadsheet package and then produe a graph. This is my completed AFR graph after I fine tuned it with the Wideband Commander and Vitesse piggyback. It's also great geeky fun if you are feeling particularly nerdlike []