Okay, I'm read to jump into tuning headfirst. I'd love to be able to do all my tuning on my own, with the help of this forum or course. What all do i need to get going? (I have a 2002 C5 MN6 Coupe)

- Laptop with 9 Pin Serial Port: Can I Get USB-Only? It seems the problems all lie in the QUALITY of the serial-to-USB adaptor. Correct me if I'm wrong, but not needeing a serial will make my laptop shopping easier. Also, what do you use? I prefer a 40gb+ with wireless internet laptop just so I can use it elsewhere.

- HP Tuners: It seems this is the new rage, and I see why. Beyond having a larger support base, is there ANY reason to buy LS1Edit now?

- Laptop Mount: Any preferences? I know this isn't mandatory.

- Wideband O2: This is my biggest question right now. It seems that having one which could record data with rpms would be a tremendous tuning tool. Are there any that can log to your laptop? I'd prefer one that a digital display into an A-Pillar gague.

Thanks in Advance!

 

I am using a Compaq Zd7058cl laptop which is a P4 2.8 Northwood Processor not the mobile edition, 17" Widescreen, 80gb drive,2x DVD/24x CD-R Burner, 802.11g, NVidia Geforce 5600FX 64mb DDR Ram, 1024mb PC2700 Ram, and for serial ports I use a SocketCom Ruggedized 2 Port PCMCIA adapter. The laptop also has 4 USB 2.0 Ports and 1 Firewire as well with Harmon Kardon speakers. It was about 1799.00 when I bought it a few months back.

I use HP Tuners as well, You can read the post on this forum for enough info about this.

I just sit the laptop in my passenger seat and start the VCM Scanner software before I start on my trip. Once I get started I click the Start Logging button and let it go until I am done and let it stop automatically.

In my opinon which I have been following this product since it was first introduced in kit form years ago, TechEdge now has developed their latest wideband setup (the 2B0) and it will log directly to your laptop or internal memory. It has more features than most users will even no what to do with. It will log faster than any wideband I have seen yet. It has an app to adjust the free-air calibration point. This sets the unit to a known reference oxygen concentration that is assumed to be close to the earth's average ~20% value. It has 3 inputs for 5 volt inputs and 3 intputs to connect to thermocouples and a RPM input. It can also use the 6066 sensor which is a little faster than the 7057 most kits use. It can also log without a PC for about 4 minutes @ 10 frames a second. But you can turn the sample rate up to 50 frames a second, BTW if you use a laptop you can log basically forever until you run out of diskspace or memory.
It is only about 500-550.00 with a display plus the sensor. You can buy just the unit for 299.00 but you will need cables, display (or laptop) and a sensor.
It also can be re-flashed with newer firmware, It has a Digital Display you can mount where ever you want.

You can check it out by searching for "TechEdge 2B0" as they are not a sponser so I cannot post a link.

 

WOW! Thanks for the informative post.

Nice laptop! So have you had good luck without the 9 pin serial?

That WB looks very nice, and the price isn't too bad. I just wish it's display could fit in an A-pillar pod for a clean install.

 

I have tested about 7 or 8 different RS232 to USB/PCMCIA adapters for the company I used to work for. We did this as we made medical hardware and software that interfaced with medical devices like scales, blood pressure machines, Blood Oxygen, etc... We sold different laptop versions that needed to interface with the devices as well. This is where I did a lot of testing, and believe me their is alot of differences in RS232 adapters out there. I highly recommend the SocketCom if you want a Ruggedized PCMCIA adapter that will hold up in a car environment. It has many configuration options from Minimum baud rate to maximum for each port and it allows you to map the external ports to any available internal port number. Also SocketCom has been the most reliable for all the medical devices as they all have many different RS232 protocols and it would handle them all without any trouble.

The TechEdge Wideband also has Narrowband outputs so you can use it with normal A/F guages, but the difference will be that your's will be accurate as it will show the true A/F ratio instead of just showing you the voltage of your stock O2 sensors.

 

You lost me here. Mind simplifying that a little for me?

 

Most of the Autometer and other type A/F meters that you see in cars without a wideband are fed directly off of the stock O2 sensors which output a voltage level of 0 volts to 1 volt MAX. Within this 0 - 1 volt range is what indicates to the PCM what A/F ratio you are achieving. The problem with the stock O2 sensors are they are only accurate around 14.7 (stoichiometric) which is the chemically correct ratio where all of the oxygen and all of the fuel are consumed.

When people install the A/F meters and hook them to their stock O2 sensors and all they do is basically display a light show. The stoichiometric range Which is around .250v to .749v @ cruise (Not WOT) and anything out of this range is unknown as far as A/F ratios are concerned. You could be SEVERLY lean and it would only show lean on the guage whereas a Wideband with Narrowband outputs would give you more granularity on the A/F meter.

A Wideband is typically a 5 volt sensor but the TechEdge unit can translate that voltage to 0 to 1 volt to mimic the stock O2 sensor ranges. So you can then hook your A/F guage to the translated signal from the TechEdge unit and get a TRUE Rich or Lean Reading vs the stock O2 sensors which are only effective around stoichiometric (14.7) anything out of this range is unknown.


These voltages are not exact but used as an example:
These are typical STOCK O2 Sensor readings

LEAN RANGE: (.050 to .249V)
STOICHIOMETRIC RANGE: (.250 to .749V)
RICH RANGE: (.750 to 1.000V)


If you where to hook a Wideband up using it's narrowband outputs it would be truely accurate as it can go from 9.x to 19.x A/F ratio depending on the unit and sensor.

Note this is just an example as far as voltages are concerned but you will see the idea here.

So it would ouput .100 volts for 19.x A/F
.200 volts for 18.x A/F
.300 volts for 17.x A/F
.400 volts for 15.x A/F
.500 volts for 14.x A/F
.600 volts for 13.x A/F
.700 volts for 12.x A/F
.800 volts for 11.x A/F
.900 volts for 10.x A/F

This would make the LED's on the display show a truley accurate A/F setting vs just showing what is out of range of the stock O2 sensors.

 

Thanks again, Monodax. It took me a while to reply since I had to do some outside reading. Thank you for getting me started.

After a lot of research, I came to like the FJO Wideband units. I know they're pricey, but the facts that a few friends have them, they're "established tech", and that they have a nice clean A-Pillar gauge now leaned me toward that unit.

How does the Techedge stack up to the FJO?

Can any of these widebands integrate with HP Tuners?

 

The FJO Wideband units are good units for most applications and will do most people fine, but the TechEdge units have alot more features which you may or may not use. The TechEdge has several inputs to tap into your existing sensors so it can integrate the data into your log data. The 2A0 and 2BO doesn't contain any user configurable hardware adjustments. All of the adjustments are made by changing software parameters that are saved by the WBo2's processor in its private EE (Electrically Erasable) memory. It can be upgraded with the latest firmware from their site. The sampling rate can be 10 to 50 frames a second and doesn't need a laptop to do the logging as it has onboard memory to store the samples. The TechEdge also can use a variety of WB Sensors which have different characteristics. These are just a brief overview as some of it's features are pretty advanced. They have alot of info on their site that may answer your questions a little better. @ wbo2.com

As far as integrating it into HP Tuners not at the moment. I am looking into writing the software that will combine the logs into one and it may resolve that problem.

 

http://www.hptuners.com/forum/YaBB.p...0947;start=4#4

Sounds like the HP Tuners guys are working on it as well. I WILL stay tuned