A/F gauge yes or no

[shoota143]

ive read quite alot of posts about a/f guages. i've seen alot of people say that there just a bunch of blinking lights, that thier useless and such. im not tryin to start a fight or anything but is this really true, is it even worth getting, i see in alot of the pics people have them however, and they seem popular, if they are useless then why to people buy them. basically i was if its wise to get one or not

 

[Lunch_Box]

Yes it's true and it's not worth getting.

 

[Coup D E'Tat]

Yep, useless.

Unless you're into techno?

 

[Shadowfax]

IMHO the only gauges worth getting are -

Wideband A/F
oil pressure
fuel pressure
boost


that's it. If you trust your stock oil pressure, then skip it, but no narrow band A/F is worth getting, I have ran EGT's and found that unless you are find experimenting on your own car so you know what is "normal" - it's mostly worthless. The stock coolant is fine, boost is needed. Fuel pressure is a great gauge to have.

no narrow band A/F is worth buying unless it's $10 and you are not caring if you blow up your car or not- or if you aren't going to get the slightest bit serious. Wanting to know if your O2 is dying, worthwhile, wanting to see if you are getting any fuel once it warms up? Worthwhile... wanting to tune at all with it? Not worthwhile for anyone.

 

[miteclgst]

They won't tell you much more then when you are super rich or super lean. As for a tuning device they leave a lot to be desired. You are better off saving your money for something like a pocketlogger, or a boost or EGT gauge. These are things that you will need if you plan to do any sort of tuning.

 

[miteclgst]

IMHO the only gauges worth getting are -

Wideband A/F
oil pressure
fuel pressure
boost


that's it. If you trust your stock oil pressure, then skip it, but no narrow band A/F is worth getting, I have ran EGT's and found that unless you are find experimenting on your own car so you know what is "normal" - it's mostly worthless. The stock coolant is fine, boost is needed. Fuel pressure is a great gauge to have.

no narrow band A/F is worth buying unless it's $10 and you are not caring if you blow up your car or not- or if you aren't going to get the slightest bit serious. Wanting to know if your O2 is dying, worthwhile, wanting to see if you are getting any fuel once it warms up? Worthwhile... wanting to tune at all with it? Not worthwhile for anyone.

I have read many debates about the EGT and have come to a conclusion: While you won't tune your car to achieve x temperature at y RPMs it is a good "Something is wrong and you are going to blow #### up" gauge. If you are tuning from scratch and you don't have a pocketlogger an EGT can save you from doing serious damage. I know that it has saved me personally at least once when my SAFC settings got all messed up.

 

[L2RTSiAWD]

A/F gauge yes or no

No.

 

[Shadowfax]

I have read many debates about the EGT and have come to a conclusion: While you won't tune your car to achieve x temperature at y RPMs it is a good "Something is wrong and you are going to blow #### up" gauge. If you are tuning from scratch and you don't have a pocketlogger an EGT can save you from doing serious damage. I know that it has saved me personally at least once when my SAFC settings got all messed up.

100% true, but that's a dang expensive "oh shit" meter!

Different car but when I swapped 14B's on my 3/S turbo I saw nearly 300 degree drop in EGT, no other mods. Made tuning by EGT and narrow A/F pretty dang hard. The EGT does work well to say, don't pass THIS point. However as most cost nearly $150-200 you aren't that far from a DIY wideband - which is MUCH better!

 

[shoota143]

thanks guys for all the info, and saved $$

 

[dave99gst]

it depends on the gauge. they ARE NOT 100% USELESS like most people on here like to think. a Quality digital o2 gauge can be very usefull.
my .02

blinky light gauges ....yes there no more then a light show.

 

[fiveiron]

to let you know my experience, when i had mine hooked up my car ran like crap...i followed the instructions found on this site and connected it to the correct line on the ecu, but it ran like crap...disconnected the wire and my car is running normal...wish i would have just saved the money or bought a useful gauge... :thumbdown

 

[dave99gst]

to let you know my experience, when i had mine hooked up my car ran like crap...

ya did somthing wrong. Ive prob hooked up 10 of them... never had an issue with how the car ran.

 

[kraka]

Forget the A/F seizure gauge, it looks like at the stage your at, the only gauge you really NEED is a boost gauge..later on when you begin tuning, you might consider an EGT or a wideband A/F but it depends how big of a setup you end up running

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

The car I recently bought came with an A/F gauge already installed, and ALL that its good for is "what does that do?" and then the dreaded "Is it supposed to do that?" (After passengers watch it wildly swing between lean/rich several times with no noticeably pattern)

 

[adam355]

Biggest waste of money Iv ever spent.

 

[Shadowfax]

my final advice on this is quite simply, if you can datalog it, don't buy a seperate gauge.
The only possible exception is boost (with a MAP sensor you can datalog) - but A/F is easily datalogger, the EGT is one gauge that can't be logged, but is to me money better spent on a wideband.

Money spent once is better than money spent on something, then sold, then better bought, then sold again, then finally the best is picked up and you paid a lot more for it.

If you will have any AFC type device- SAFC, MAFT, ARC, VPC, EMS- then you'll have plenty of reason to buy a wideband. You could do without that's true- but the wideband will allow you to more fine tune the off throttle, which will save you $$$ in gas, and when you can save on dynoing (AWD's can't dyno down at moe's garage easily), and you're making more power, safer... it's money well spent.

It's hard to go wrong overkilling on tunability or safety.

I bought a MBC, an A/F meter, and a boost gauge in my stealth- first mods. Then I bought a ProfecA, an EGT, and an SAFC. Then I bought a VPC, a digital A/F, and a logger. Then I bought a MAFT, an LS6 maf... then I got really tired of it all, sold all the parts... cause I should have just gotten an EMS. (course when I started it was 6 years ago )

But the point is that I spent countless hours tuning, restarting the tuning, burning 6mpg of 93, shooting 6 foot flames out my tailpipes, losing races, billowing smoke....I spent nearly $2500 in those parts alone... and I still needed either dyno time or a wideband. I could have had an EMS plus dual widebands for that.

don't get a cheap A/F. It's not 150% worthless. But odds are you will have spent less money, gotten more enjoyment out of getting the best first off.

 

[Mackzero]

Well, that was a perfect answer, I can just tell you that you should just get a boost gauge, datalogger, and a wideband and call it good. Then when you tune with SAFC, MAFT or what ever you choose, you can look at everything, and make you life a lot easier. And I have a good data logger setup with custom chips for sale in the classifieds FYI . If you want them, I will hook you up for a little cheaper than I am asking.