air fuel gauge

[turbo_talon08]

I was told that an air fuel gauge was useless on our cars. A guy told me that it would always read rich. Is this true or is it worth getting one. aThanks in advance for your help. Mines a 97 tsi if that makes a difference.

Cody

 

[turbolarry]

IMO, a blinky light A/F gauge is not worth it. Our cars run rich, but .98v will not alway be lit up, if thats what you mean. If your going to monitor your O2's get some thing that is going to give you actual numbers. Even then it should not be used as a single/primary tuning devise. It can give you a piece of information, when used with other engine parameters (EGT, knock, timing), you can tune with. I went with the Apexi turbo timer that reads O2 voltage insted of a guage.

http://www.roadraceengineering.com/instructions/autotimer.htm

 

[boostedinaz]

I was told that an air fuel gauge was useless on our cars. A guy told me that it would always read rich. Is this true or is it worth getting one. aThanks in advance for your help. Mines a 97 tsi if that makes a difference.

Cody

The gauge is a great gauge. The probelm is that the sensor is a narrow band sensor. It is only accurate at 14.7:1. after that, either rich or lean, it isnt very accurate. At WOT it isnt even used as a measureing device becasue the car is in open loop. It will still give you an estimate of the A/F ratio, but like I said it wont be very accurate.

If you really want to tune a car then look at knock, timming, and use a wiseband O2 to get the right A/F.