when you are driving steadily down the road with the foot on the throttle, is the gauge sweeping, constantly from RICH to LEAN every second or so? Is this normal operation? Or should it be relatively in the STOICH range?

A friend just installed his and it really becomes annoying, but it didn't seem natural to be sweeping that much.

Thx.

 

Hooking an a/f gauge up to the stock o2 sensors is useless because they don't tell the ECU what the a/f ratio actually is, just whether it's rich or lean. Basically, they play Pong with the a/f ratio bouncing from lean to rich and back in an attempt to stay in the middle. This is where a wideband o2 sensor comes in, which is what you need to make any a/f gauge worthwhile.

 

I'll go ahead and to that before the OP asks 'Anyone else?'

 

Yeah, I mean cause you and your infinite wisdom make up for the 20 posts to follow.. lmao

 

how hard is it to hook up these gauges? and what would u usually want to measure (sorry for jacking the thread since the question has already been answered)

 

Signal is from the O2 sensor, main wiring harness, or spliced from the actual sensor itsefl under the hood.

but please read this again.
It's voltage translated to AFR. But using NB O2's, is not worth it unless you enjoy watching Pong tournaments.

 

I love BEER PONG.

 

But I like how it lights up!!!

 

.

 

I don't even pay any attention to mine now. At first it was annoying until it slowly went away out of my vision. same with my oil psi gauge.

 

Narrow Band A/F FTL. Freakin' worthless. Enjoy the light show.

 

true. narrow band 02 sensors are good for nothing. Generally they will only read rich at WOT and bounce around the rest of the time

PLX makes a very nice affordable 2 1/16" gauge WB02 set up where the blinking lights will actually be of some true value with the A/F digitally displayed in the middle.

 

Gauge, yes, but you need a wb to get the actual data in order to display anything.

 

wait im a little confused....are you saying that the rich/lean switch is not normal? because if so you couldnt be more wrong. any good o2 sensor (doesnt matter if its zirconia, wideband, or whatever type of sensor) will always switch from rich to lean. if it does not it is bad and should be replaced.

anyway, those gauges are dumb anyway. waste of money IMO.

 

Ha my brother and i invested in a a/f gauge, A pillar pods and water temp gauge back in the day when we shared a car. I guess you can say it was the most annoying pointless mod we ever did. The temp gauge stopped working three months after we got it. The gauge will bounce back and forth when driving and go to full rich when ever the car is warming up or when you are at WOT. If you want somthing to mess with your eye sight at night then get them.

 

. . . . . . . . .

 

if u were to choose, what would u use a gauge to measure, I'm thinking about putting some in my car... but not sure which one are the most useful

 

A little too eager to correct someone, eh?


The first few words i said, "Hooking an a/f gauge up to the stock sensors is useless." That sums what i'm saying up.

And anyway, a wideband o2 DOES NOT switch from rich to lean and back like narrowband o2's. Like i said earlier, stock narrowband o2's don't tell the ECU what the a/f ratio is. They only know 2 words, rich and lean. Rich is a 1V signal, lean is a 0V signal, and stoich is where the rapid jump between the two occurs. Fairly imprecise. A wideband on the other hand, is designed to output a voltage for EVERY a/f ratio accurate to .xx AFR. This is why all ULEV vehicles have WIDEBAND o2 sensors from the factory. They call them a/f sensors in this case.

Cliffs: I never said the oscillation between lean/rich was abnormal for a NB o2. Dunno where you got that from...

 

Depends on what you're doing.

What is in there now is good enough for the average driver.


I was waitng for that one

& cliffs included.

 

Actually it will and it does. The slight rich to lean cycle is actually happening and will be picked up by both narrow and wide band o2s. ECUs do this becuase some reactions in the catalyst perform at optimum slightly rich of stioch while others happen best slighly lean.

The larger point is valid. Get a wideband to see accurate AFRs outside of stioch.

 

I guess i have to explain my position all over again.

My point is, NB o2 sensors speak only in terms of rich, stoich, lean. WB o2 sensors speak in terms of actual AFR. The ONLY reason the AFR oscillates back and forth in closed loop is because NB o2's are relatively imprecise, period. ULEV and SULEV vehicles have WB o2's from the factory because they can dial in a specific AFR without having it bounce back and forth indefinitely. And I never said WB o2's won't pick up the switching from slighly rich to slightly lean. They pick everything up. Missing the point by a mile...