Digital air fuel guage?

[chanley talon]

I have found that there are some guages that display a digital number instead of the swinging lights style are they worth buying?52mm BLUE DIGITAL LED AIR TO FUEL MIXTURE AFR GAUGE:eBay Motors (item 370224926185 end time Aug-03-09 20:23:46 PDT)

 

[ilco187]

i like the aem uego digitals better, there are better ones out there, for some reason it seems like a fake type gauge its worthless.

 

[chanley talon]

Is it a wideband o2 sensor that comes in the uego kit? Can you just get a digital guage and see what it is doing and it be accurate off a narrowband o2 sensor? Or the stock sensor?

 

[ilco187]

Is it a wideband o2 sensor that comes in the uego kit? Can you just get a digital guage and see what it is doing and it be accurate off a narrowband o2 sensor? Or the stock sensor?

the uego is wideband, there is other types, the uego is kinda pricey, i just have the autometer wideband gauge with a oem audi wideband sensor, search some dsm vendors for a better quality product, that seems like its cheap as china.

 

[No_Skillz]

The swinging lights are usually associated with narrowband and are totally useless. Any wideband will have a digital readout to the nearest tenth.

The UEGO is a wideband kit, although I recommend Innovate before AEM.

Stock sensor is narrowband. It's a narrowband sensor. It won't do wideband duties.

Some newer cars come with wideband stock, but our vehicles are a little before that time.

 

[chanley talon]

How does your setup work for you?
I also noticed you run a 3bar map sensor. How and why do you run it?

 

[ilco187]

How does your setup work for you?
I also noticed you run a 3bar map sensor. How and why do you run it?

i use it to trick the afc into reading the boost as the throttle, its in this thread here.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/tuning-engine-management/119890-gm-map-sensor-install.html

 

[chanley talon]

I always get knock in overdrive no matter where i turn the safc i bet this is why. Or if i acclerate in drive without downshifting. Im just trying a cheap effective way to montior my air fuel digitally. Please also tell me where i can buy these.

 

[ilco187]

i dont know maybe its not a bad gauge after all, but i just was thinking ahead for tuning purposes but if all you wanna do is read your a/f than its just as good for that, its just i never heard of that brand so i get iffy on things like that.

 

[chanley talon]

This is going to sound stupid to you im sure. But i really don't know! What is the difference off seeing a digital read out of your stock 02 sensor and adjusting your fuel to get it set to say 11.1 afr ratio Versus using a wideband what exactly is the wideband doing is it tuneable or something? Thanks for your help and im sure i sound like a Bag!

 

[ilco187]

i pulled this from a site since its hard for me to explain.




Why Should I Use a Wideband Air/Fuel Ratio Gauge Instead of a Narrowband Air/Fuel Ratio Gauge?

To fully understand why a high performance vehicle tuner would be better off using a wide-band O2 sensor/gauge versus a narrow band setup, we must first understand what each sensor was originally developed to do.

Narrow Band O2 Sensors began to appear on vehicles with the advent of fuel injection in the 1980’s. Their purpose was to monitor component degradation (i.e. fuel injectors, vacuum leaks) of vehicles as they accumulated miles. Their basic job was to let the computer know whether the vehicle was running at an air/fuel ratio of 14.7:1 under idle (ideal ratio for gasoline engines), moderate acceleration, and cruise conditions, and if it wasn’t, to “trim” the injector pulse-width to either slightly lean or rich-en the engine. When the computer is paying attention to the input from the O2 sensor, the engine is operating in a “closed-loop” capacity. Under heavier acceleration or wide-open throttle the computer ignores the O2 sensor because it requires an air/fuel ratio other than 14.7:1, which is outside the design parameters of the sensor. This is known as “open-loop” operation. The sensor lets the computer know if the engine is running above or below 14.7:1 by sending voltage to the computer in a range between 0 and 1 volt, usually sweeping between the two extremes of this scale. Auto Meter’s traditional narrow-band air/fuel ratio gauges are simply a voltmeter for this signal. This can be seen by the repeated sweeping back and forth of the gauge in most idle, light throttle, and cruise conditions. To summarize, a narrow band O2 sensor is only able to tell a computer (or gauge, for that matter) whether an engine is operating above or below a 14.7:1 air/fuel ratio.

Wide Band O2 Sensors where developed in the early ‘90s as vehicle manufacturers began looking to obtain air/fuel ratio information under all circumstances. This ranged from WOT to varying ratios, for example running air/fuel ratios leaner than 14.7:1 under cruise conditions. Volkswagen and Honda pioneered the development of the wide-band O2 sensors to provide accurate air-fuel ratios under these varying circumstances. They did this by broadening the voltage range in which feedback from the sensor was provided and making a linear scale that provided a fixed voltage that correlated to a specific air/fuel ratio. While the narrow-band O2 is still the most common type of O2 sensor installed on most new vehicles (for cost reasons), OEMs will still use wide-bands on many forced induction applications (or, in Honda’s case, on their “lean-burn” Civics).

High performance vehicle tuners discovered that wide-band O2 sensors are very helpful when accurate air/fuel ratio readings are required to maximize power, reliability, and mileage on modified vehicles. With these benefits in mind and to meet consumer demand, Auto Meter has created a wide-band air/fuel ratio gauge/sensor to augment our popular narrow band, gauge only offering. This unit uses the Bosch LSU 4.2 sensor that is known industry wide to be both accurate and durable, along with an advanced control unit that is encased entirely within the gauge head. Further, the gauge head utilizes both an LED readout, for accuracy, and a radial display for ease of reading. Combined with user definable stoichiometric ranges and voltage outputs, Auto Meter’s wide-band gauge creates a useful and greatly needed tool for the tuning market. As an added bonus, Auto Meter will be offering these gauge kits in seven of our most popular gauge lines, including Cobalt, C2, NV, Sport-Comp, Ultra-Lite, Phantom, and Nexus.

 

[chanley talon]

Under heavier acceleration or wide-open throttle the computer ignores the O2 sensor because it requires an air/fuel ratio other than 14.7:1, which is outside the design parameters of the sensor. This is known as “open-loop” operation. This is with a narrow band. Makes me wonder if you montior a digital guage with the narrow band if its in accurate cause the computer ingnores its readings? What year and model of audi did you buy your sensor from. Thanks for all your help!

 

[ilco187]

truthfully im not sure, when i bought the car it was in the trunk area he said it was a audi wideband but if it is truly , it reads good on my gauge except it being a bad o2 sensor reading lean no matter what.

 

[95420A]

Your best bet is to just get a wideband that way you can safely monitor your air/fuel mixture at all times. Tuning without a good one is tuning blind. You could get the AEM Uego or the Innovate LC-1 with DB Gauge. Both have a digital gauge and are pretty good.