Hey all,
I hooked up an Autometer A/F gauge a few weeks back and I'm wondering what the h3ll this thing is good for. All the lights do is bounce around. It doesn't really tell me what my air/fuel mixture is at. I know these aren't the best gauges to begin with but I never thought it would be this useless. I know that I installed the gauge properly but is there a chance that the gauge itself is at fault or maybe my o2 sensor is screwed?
I'm sure a wideband o2 would help my problem but I'd rather not invest much more money into this crappy gauge.
Does anyone else have this same issue?
For those of you who have one of theses gauges, let me know how yours works.

Thanks

 

Umm, yeah, A/F gauges are just nice light displays for your car unless you have a wideband O2 sensor. Jeffy actually makes fun of people for trying to install them on a stock O2 line.

 

hey now, it's not completely worthless. It tells you when the ECU is in open loop or closed loop




but yeah, I'm surprised you didn't see it earlier, normally everytime someone mentions the autometer A/F gauge you get atleast 1-2 guys saying how worthless it is, disco time and such

 

yeah... these things probably do as much as the narrowband a/f gauges:





the only good way to read the a/f ratio is to use a wideband O2 sensor. www.plxdevices.com has some good ones. zeitronix seems to be another good on that's out there. innovate motorsports' lm-1 is decent as well but imo is a bit bulky.

 

Dont feel bad I had to learn the hard way. my gauge was like $90. And now just think
that could be 90 towards my wideband dammm.

 

LOL
yeah i know jeffy likes to put on the plaid suit and dance to autometer a/f gauges.

shawn,
i guess i thought i was special...
lesson learned i guess...

mark,
do you know of any companies that sell just the o2 sensor without a gauge or s-afc type instrument.

 

www.plxdevices.com sells the sensor by itself. they're 79 dollars plus 5 dollars shipping now. they used to only be around 59 dollars

 

Yeah, I kind of got one for free, so I decided I would install it for the heck of it and see how it does....and it works terribly. Doesn't even look that damn cool. Waste of money.

 

Lesson learned from everyone, I guess - even me.

 

ahhh...not you to nupe

thanks for the input guys.

one more question;
if i get a wideband o2, can i replace the stock one with it or do i need to put it in as a secondary o2?

 

i know with the plx devices controller it has a narrowband output that you can run to the ecu so that you can totally get rid of the stock o2 sensor.

 

You'll want to put it in as a secondary O2. the ecu wants to see rich or lean- it doesn't care about anything in between. Also keep in mind that most widebands don't last that long- on the average of a couple/few hundred hours. They're mostly designed and sold as tuning tools so that you can set the ECU up properly. After that, they're just a light show. you shoulda known that from the beginning- we ALL told you that up front.

 

mark,
thanks for the tip

matt,
if that's the case i'll probably just sell the a/f gauge and get something different. it's weird how i completely missed all the people talking about how bad these gauges were. i should browse the forums a little more i guess. live and learn...

 

Yup yup!
all our O2 sensor does is say rich or lean- nothing in between, so that's all your gauge will tell you either..

a more useful gauge would be oil or water or exhaust temp.
exhaust temp will give you better indications of running rich or lean as well... cooler temps under a WOT run will indicate a rich condition, hotter temps will be from running lean.

 

damn my urge to occasionally rice!!
i already have a digi volt gauge and i'm undecided as to what i'll replace the a/f with.
amperage - good for my excess stereo gear
vaccuum/boost - maybe good to see if i have any vaccuum leaks???
oil pressure - more or less already have one stock (idiot light)
water temp - more or less already have one stock
oil temp
exhaust temp - able to judge lean/rich mixture

 

Go shock, go shock......... hehe

 

Dam thats a good one jeff..... Sorry shock you still my buddy

 

your oil prssure and water temp on the car are meant for idiot lights and that's about it.
the temp gauge wull go up to roughly the middle and stay there with engine temps from around 150F to 220F. above or below that, it starts moving pretty quick. see posts by Aaron about the water temp gauge.

oil pressure gauge is the same type of deal.... the oil likght only comes on when your pressure ie zero and at that point, it's too late to do anything about it.

 

Yeap. In my car, the stock temp gauge is sitting happily in the middle from 160 to 233*F. Everybody complains of heat soak in a VE. But if they had a temp gauge, I'd bet $100 that they are experiencing heat soak over 200*F. I never experience heat soak b/c I keep my temps below 190 at all times. My gas mileage has not suffered b/c of the cool temps. It has not gotten noticably better either.

Also Matt, I've had my wideband o2 sensor installed for about one year now. That is about 18K miles for me and it still works. When my wideband o2 sensor dies, it can easily be replaced for less than $75. So I'm not worried about driving around with it all day. It's great for diagnosing fuel related problems. When my injector was dying, I started reading very rich. I replaced the bad injector and my AFR gets much better.

 

jeff,
i wondered when you'd drop by with your .02

matt & aaron,
thanks for the info guys. i'll be sure to think this through a little more.

first things first, get rid of the dancing a/f gauge.

 

u should cuz i've had mine for a long time now and i need to get rid of it as well.