How long have widebands been cheap/affordable?
01-03-2009, 01:59 AM
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How long have widebands been cheap/affordable? When did widebands become affordable and popular to the amateur car modder? Weren't they incredibly expensive years ago and people generally used EGTs to tune?
01-03-2009, 08:23 AM
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Since I have spanned the time frame that you talk about I will try to answer this as best I know.
Years ago it was the Horiba. As you may know they are/were a lab spec 7 wire wide band that cost upwards of $8000.00. If you needed a new sensor it was about $800. I remember being at Kenny Duttweilers and seeing a stack of dead sensors because of the race gas.
Since that time we have had the 5 wire wich were close enoughto get us in the ballpark. The NTK sensor was/is more accurate than the Bosch but it costs more. They sure beat the old single wire sensors that we read on the Grand Nationals back in 1987.
Even the less accurate sensors get you close enough to do a pretty decent job. Some are very accurate at 14.7. But the further you get away from that number the farther they fall off.
The EGT sensors only told you after the fact that you had a problem. In the car they were too slow to tell you about a problem. By the time you saw the number it was too late.
One the engine dyno we still use them as a tool. They can tell us of a problem but again they are slow to react.
We have gone to wide bands on each cylinder now. I know Thomson Automotive has 8 Horiba's on their Dyno. Don West has a Innovat ST 12 on his dyno which uses the LC1 with a bosch sensor. That kicks butt compared to the EGT's.
The Innovate software and hardware still have a long way to go. The software for the ST12 sucks. We have had a lot of problems with the unit also.
Chassis Dyno's and cheap wide bands have made tuners out of the masses
Robin
Years ago it was the Horiba. As you may know they are/were a lab spec 7 wire wide band that cost upwards of $8000.00. If you needed a new sensor it was about $800. I remember being at Kenny Duttweilers and seeing a stack of dead sensors because of the race gas.
Since that time we have had the 5 wire wich were close enoughto get us in the ballpark. The NTK sensor was/is more accurate than the Bosch but it costs more. They sure beat the old single wire sensors that we read on the Grand Nationals back in 1987.
Even the less accurate sensors get you close enough to do a pretty decent job. Some are very accurate at 14.7. But the further you get away from that number the farther they fall off.
The EGT sensors only told you after the fact that you had a problem. In the car they were too slow to tell you about a problem. By the time you saw the number it was too late.
One the engine dyno we still use them as a tool. They can tell us of a problem but again they are slow to react.
We have gone to wide bands on each cylinder now. I know Thomson Automotive has 8 Horiba's on their Dyno. Don West has a Innovat ST 12 on his dyno which uses the LC1 with a bosch sensor. That kicks butt compared to the EGT's.
The Innovate software and hardware still have a long way to go. The software for the ST12 sucks. We have had a lot of problems with the unit also.
Chassis Dyno's and cheap wide bands have made tuners out of the masses
Robin
01-03-2009, 08:54 AM
#3
I bought my LM-1 about 4 years ago for $350 so it was probably around that time or a year before that they started becoming not only in the price range of the avg consumer but also popular to the hobbiest tuner.
This was right around the time we HPTuners initially released the enhanced input/output interface which allowed integration of a wideband through the scanner software making VE tuning much simpler than it previously was & really change the face of tuning oem pcm's.
This was right around the time we HPTuners initially released the enhanced input/output interface which allowed integration of a wideband through the scanner software making VE tuning much simpler than it previously was & really change the face of tuning oem pcm's.
