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Wideband and ECU discrepancy

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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 10:52 AM
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Default Wideband and ECU discrepancy

Has anyone ever experienced a discrepancy between your wideband gauge and what shows up on a datalog or laptop "dashboard?" I don't have my ride running yet, but wondering of it happens and then which one you "believe" or go with. Seems they should all be really close as they read and calculate from lambda. Let me know. BTW, I'll be running Holley hp and an AEM 30-4110 wideband. Thanks in advance.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 03:53 PM
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Why not run the wideband that's for the HP system? The widebands for the Holley efi are really good weather you have the Bosch, or the ntk.

I will tell you that aem widebands are almost always off. Usually in the bad way, like reading richer then what it actually is. I have one on my arm series 2 on my 240, and while chucking it against a know good reading sensor it was about .4 richer then the known good reading wideband. But I can adjust all of that to make it ready right in my ems.

Turbo hayabusas that come to my shop with them again always read wrong.

Just use the Holley sensors and calibrations, you'll be fine.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 04:03 PM
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I was going to use the AEM mainly to be able to watch a gauge while driving. No way to watch a gauge using the Holley from what I understand. Unless I use a tablet, which I'm trying to avoid. Any way to rescale the AEM to match what the Holley is reading? Not sure.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 04:07 PM
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Disregard, just found Holley makes a stand alone AFR gauge. I'll have to read up on it.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 04:09 PM
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You can't rescale the gauge it's self, you would have to change it in the Holley. Don't know how to do that.

Instead of loading up on gauges, why not buy the 3.5" Holley efi touch screen display. Is $230. You can do all your tuning through it if you want. I have one, my Main reason for getting it is because it displays up to 4 sensors at once. So I have afr, ethanol content, fuel pressure and boost. And you can set the screen to flash any color you want for a shift light.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 04:25 PM
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The touchscreen gets all the info from the ecu, I take it? No extra sensors or anything? Guess I'll look into that too!
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 04:27 PM
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Yes it runs off the canbus. Anything the ecu sees, you can see.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 04:48 PM
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The sensors are linear and usually will give you a voltage reading for minimum and maximum AFR. Then you enter that into your ecu and it will usually match the gauge. That's how my AEM EMS and Microsquirt setups did it anyway. I'd guess the Holley ECU has something similar? Pretty **** poor deal if you have to run the holley sensor with the holley ECU.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 04:53 PM
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Originally Posted by Forcefed86
The sensors are linear and usually will give you a voltage reading for minimum and maximum AFR. Then you enter that into your ecu and it will usually match the gauge. That's how my AEM EMS and Microsquirt setups did it anyway. I'd guess the Holley ECU has something similar? Pretty **** poor deal if you have to run the holley sensor with the holley ECU.
I'm sure that's how it's done on the h-efi too, but I haven't messed with that because it came with a sensor and calibration for it.

I guess you don't "have to" run the Holley sensor, but I know for sure when you buy an ecu with the ls harness it comes with a wideband all wired and ready to go. So why wouldn't you? But his case was for watching afrs without a lap top hooked up. A hefi canbus gauge, or screen is the way to go.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 05:23 PM
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Did a little reading on the touch screen. I really like how you can watch everything and also load any tune off the SD card. That could be very advantageous as well. Drive around on one tune, then switch over once at the track or in a good "test spot." Couldn't find much on changing the tune though, as far as seeing a spark or AFR map and making changes.
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Old Dec 21, 2015 | 08:10 PM
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Yea usually you have to adjust the input settings in the logging software to fix any voltage offset issues on the input.
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Old Dec 22, 2015 | 01:18 AM
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Man this was a long *** time ago, as a matter of fact, I haven't tuned a stock ecu in probably 3 years. But I remember on my truck, I had my AEM Wideband feeding one of the inputs on the HPTuners interface and there was a slight difference. This was actually a big topic back then (voltage offsets and/or ground issues). I remember the subject being discussed extensively on the HPTuners forum. You had to go in and adjust the formula that converted the voltage output of the wideband to the O2 numbers seen by the tuners interface.
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Old Dec 22, 2015 | 08:55 AM
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Originally Posted by 3 window
Has anyone ever experienced a discrepancy between your wideband gauge and what shows up on a datalog or laptop "dashboard?" I don't have my ride running yet, but wondering of it happens and then which one you "believe" or go with. Seems they should all be really close as they read and calculate from lambda. Let me know. BTW, I'll be running Holley hp and an AEM 30-4110 wideband. Thanks in advance.
It will all depend on how you're transferring or displaying information between the devices.

If you're using analogue voltage outputs then there will always be the potential for discrepancies.

What the wideband controller actually calculates as lambda or other values and then outputs as an analogue voltage may not always be exactly what whatever display sees after all wiring, connectors etc are taken into account

As much as I dont like Innovate's stuff, it is handy that you can program their outputs so they're easy to test.

ie flatline the output at 1.0v and see if 1.0v is actually displayed on whatever the receiving device is.
same for 2, 3, 4, 5v.

That way you know if there are any wiring issues or offsets that need looked into.

or if the data is fed via a datastream, serial, CAN etc then you wouldnt have any voltages to worry about
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Old Dec 22, 2015 | 02:41 PM
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So what about all the MS guys that run an AEM gauge/wideband to the ecu and have nothing to compare it to? Are they all off? I'd think it couldn't be much or they be hurting engines left and right.
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Old Dec 22, 2015 | 05:50 PM
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Originally Posted by 3 window
So what about all the MS guys that run an AEM gauge/wideband to the ecu and have nothing to compare it to? Are they all off? I'd think it couldn't be much or they be hurting engines left and right.
If the AEM has a gauge and you're also feeding an input to the ecu, you have the gauge to compare it to. The gauge as long as it isnt relying on external wiring should be fairly trustworthy

But unless you have some means of verification then there is either assumption or trust involved.....if of course you deem the actual wideband reading to be 100% accurate in the first place.
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Old Dec 23, 2015 | 09:59 AM
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Originally Posted by 3 window
So what about all the MS guys that run an AEM gauge/wideband to the ecu and have nothing to compare it to? Are they all off? I'd think it couldn't be much or they be hurting engines left and right.
The gauge will be calibrated to the sensor it was meant for right out of the box. I'd always try to make the ECU match the gauge reading... Depending on how clean your 5v source is to your gauge or your ecu the readings may vary a tad. Especially as your voltage jumps around when charging/driving.
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Old Dec 23, 2015 | 11:03 AM
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Originally Posted by Forcefed86
The gauge will be calibrated to the sensor it was meant for right out of the box. I'd always try to make the ECU match the gauge reading... Depending on how clean your 5v source is to your gauge or your ecu the readings may vary a tad. Especially as your voltage jumps around when charging/driving.
Ok, now it's making sense. Sorry to anyone that also posted before now. So it has to do with how clean the signal is to the gauge and the quality of the circuit overall. All being equal, the ecu and remote gauge should read the same?!
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Old Dec 23, 2015 | 11:41 AM
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Originally Posted by 3 window
Ok, now it's making sense. Sorry to anyone that also posted before now. So it has to do with how clean the signal is to the gauge and the quality of the circuit overall. All being equal, the ecu and remote gauge should read the same?!
Clean....stable...correct...whatever.

All being equal all displays should be reading the same values at all times.

How the remote device is fed the information is key. Analogue voltages carry the biggest risk of differences, information transmitted via some sort of datastream there should be a good chance of accuracy.

A lot of the issues arent down to the devices themselves, just the wiring, connections, grounds etc etc.

That said, I flatlined the output of an MTX-L ages ago for testing into a Motec...and there were 0.5v variations ! The readings didnt seem so bad when the engine was running as MTX gauge did seem pretty close to the values seen on the Motec with the calibration I used and I wasnt using the analogue into the Motec for any actual tuning anyway, so it wasnt a big deal.

Never did look into whether the MTX's output was unstable or whether it was something at the Motec/wiring end that wasnt happy.
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