I have been thinking of getting an air fuel monitoring system for my car. Has anyone configured their 1st gen with one? And does it work and worth the money you spent? Or is it just a novelty item?

Thanks,

Guy

I do on my Lightning, and will on my twin turbo Camaro. I check it on everything I build for tuning, but don't always have it permanently mounted and monitored.

If you can't afford the wideband models like the DynoJet Wideband Commander $425. or so) then do not waste your money. The ones with a standard O2 are not accurate at wot which is when you need to monitor it the most.

Jody

I ran one in my 69. It's cool to see what the AFR is at any given moment. It helped for troubleshooting when the engine would run a little rough.

When I was running EFI once the fuel map was set, monitoring the AFR was overkill. Although it did show that once in a while the Holley computer would wig a little and run the mixture too lean or rich. I switched to a narrow band sensor for EFI as the wideband sensor would overheat too frequently. This was only after I had the fuel map dialed in though.

When running the QJet it was very helpful to monitor the AFR fulltime as it required much more tweaking than the EFI.

Jody,
It was the wideband system that caught my eye. It was on "Two Guys Garage" that I saw the system. I wasn't to sure how I could set it up on my car.

Originally posted by Mister G:
Jody,
It was the wideband system that caught my eye. It was on "Two Guys Garage" that I saw the system. I wasn't to sure how I could set it up on my car. Pretty simple. Most of the kits come with a bung you weld into the exhaust. Other than that it's a simple power on and ground wire(s) and maybe hooking into your dash lights like any other gauge you'd add onto your car.

Jody

I've been looking at

http://www.streetrays.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/2970 $313 (Rectangular digital box)


http://store.yahoo.com/sgpracing-store/aemuewiafmo.html $459 with Digital 2 1/16" Gauge

Brian, that second one looks pretty cool! I dig the gauge!!

I guess after the LM1 others have started building/selling their own.

Originally posted by paulm:
I guess after the LM1 others have started building/selling their own. Actually it all started with the DIY-WB. The first affordable WB unit for the masses. The others followed. . .

http://www.diy-wb.com/info.htm

Bob.

I don't know if that one was for the "masses" as it was a do it yourself project.

All you have to do is to solder it together. PCB's and parts kits are available. The real key here is that this was the start of all of the affordable commercial offerings (the Horiba and NTK boxes are $$thousands$$).

The release of the DIY-WB design is what started it all. It showed how to control the WB sensor pump-cell along with how to read the AFR from the pump current. It showed how an inexpensive analog PID circuit could be used for monitoring the reference cell to controlling the pump cell in turn. It showed how the reference cell required a small secondary current. It showed the voltage references to target for reference cell. The whole aspect of WB sensor control was wide open and now available.

The heater control circuit is rudimentry but functional. The control of the heater is specified by the circuit design. A soft start, the initial current limiting, followed by a voltage limit.

Yes, the DIY-WB is what started all of the other offerings. From the 'how to control the WB sensor' to proving that a market exists for such a device.

Bob.

Originally posted by Mister G:
I have been thinking of getting an air fuel monitoring system for my car. Has anyone configured their 1st gen with one? And does it work and worth the money you spent? Or is it just a novelty item?

Thanks,

Guy I don't monitor the AFR on a full time basis. However, for tuning and setup they are worth their weight in gold. I am speaking of a true wide-band (WB) setup, not the little bar graph setups with a narrow-band (NB) sensor (the $150 jobbies).

As my '67 is fuel injected I data log the ECM data along with the output of the WB. I am still in the tuning stages so I data log every time I drive the car. This allows for corrections to be made based on the information in the data log.

Some of the WB units have data logging capability. They also have additional inputs that can log items such as the RPM.

This is nice for a carb'd setup. Once dialed in there really isn't a need to continue to use the WB. But it still can be done.

Bob.

Check out http://www.wbo2.com/. There are two popular sensor / controller setups. They have controllers for both popular types and links to some good info.

Bob, I wasn't arguing with you about who started what. I was just pointing out that the DIY project wasn't for the masses.