Narrowband o2 sensor myths...

[JaredKaragen]

I have a guy that believes that \"No matter what, you need to have an o2 sensor plugged into the ecu and operating\". That is the shortest explanation of what was said. (contrary to all advise I was giving, especially since I have been doing this for years. When I am being told I am wrong (chuckles), and generally condescended..... It really gets to me: given the expireance I have. I won't give my opinions here; mainy he needs to see some from other tuners, etc, plus everyone in the world should have accurate information. So it's not entirely for me.... But it's things like this that make business a steeper uphill battle. Feel free to comment, as I am sure there will be many.

[David974]

on my car supercharged and one of my customer turbo charged car both on ectune they don't have O² sensor anymore it has been tuned open loop and work nice

[kgx]

on my car supercharged and one of my customer turbo charged car both on ectune they don't have O² sensor anymore it has been tuned open loop and work nice

^+1 i've been running open loop for 3 years. i get almost the same gas mileage on the highway using E85 that my stock ECU did with premium unleaded. i've thought about goign back to closed loop, but i need to build a circuit first to turn the WBO2 into a lean-burn narrow band O2 value.

[TopMountGSR]

Jared is right, narrowbands are not needed.

[JaredKaragen]

Yeah; all this controversy over a set of: BLOX 'B' cams... So the cams were a nightmare in the vacuum region; and I had to make a calibration .bin that had the table set completely to 16.5 anywhere under 1500rpm, and the same fuel value for all the cells, adjust it until afr holds and set timing. Later, I had to make a huge idle map range, which needed the timing slope curved out a LOT... It was 3 hours of idle time. Oi... Ya. I remember cams being fun... Those blox cams... Couldn't get piss for power out of them (wasn't the mechanic), and somehow doubt cam physical timing now.... But it could have been the cams.

[dbsharp]

on my car supercharged and one of my customer turbo charged car both on ectune they don't have O² sensor anymore it has been tuned open loop and work nice

^+1 i've been running open loop for 3 years. i get almost the same gas mileage on the highway using E85 that my stock ECU did with premium unleaded. i've thought about goign back to closed loop, but i need to build a circuit first to turn the WBO2 into a lean-burn narrow band O2 value.

If your not already aware of it, you can use your wideband output for closed loop operation and set the target voltage to whatever you want. I don't understand why you would need a circuit. Back on topic, a car does not need an o2 sensor to run properly. I hate it when someone learns a little bit about something, thinks they know it all, and then second guesses what you say or do when you are right.

[DSMR]

There are so many people out there that won't listen to sound advice so I hear ya man. I have issues like you have had before. Here is an example: Guy wants me to tune his turbo car and has a MSD box. I tell him that it will prally not work. He is amazed I would say that and wants to keep it on the car. I say ok and we proceed to make the first boost run where it blew out spark and cut up. Guy first assumes my tuning first (lol). I tell him to take it off and make another pull. It cleared up. So it took me physically showing him that it was junk before he would listen. It is very frustrating. On your matter Jared, just ask the guy how many cars he has tuned. Tell him that you can prove that what he is saying is incorrect (not just pointing him to some post online). Sit him in front of a car and show him this. But, the best option is to do nothing because no matter what you tell him, he is going to have it figured out in his head the way he wants. I have found out long ago that sometimes you need to just walk away. The dangerous thing about this is that sometimes that person will actually have followers that believe what this fool is saying. In the long run I believe that the proof is in the pudding and when him and his buddies cars are slow and broke down while you will be quite the opposite, that will be the judge on who knows what.

[Bindegal]

The thing is, we´re not always given enough time to complete a full tune for all temperatures, loads etc. So for cars used primarily on the street I more or less insist on a working o2 sensor on the customer car. It´s normal to do some fairly fast cruisng around here so I don´t take chances. /Allan

[JaredKaragen]

Ironically; hes a Subaru guy; and he has tuned his own Subaru... that's it.... and from the idle/start-up characteristics of his car... I just keep my mouth shut; even though I have some good input to give. Its all said and over with, that's what matters. It irked me when the owner knew I was not finished tuning [I was actually rushed for the time I had so he could \"get it home and a-b when needed\"] ended up breaking down 150+ miles away and paying $450 for a tow... That surprised the hell out of me. During the removal of the cams and them monkeying with physical timing... I was getting heavily scrutinized about the wideband sensor being left in his car unplugged in-between tunes. I do agree that we never get enough time with a car.... I feel the same about my car sometimes. I have generally seen no negative results from people about drive-ability issues to warrant the need for a stock o2 sensor in place. On my own vehicle I was able to maintain a 42+Mpg average on the freeway running open loop (90mph avg). I spend a good 80% of my tuning time on the day to day driving ranges with the owner behind the wheel. This way they way they drive it is correct; and I do my own driving session to make sure nothing is abnormal or needing changes like tipout, etc. WOT pulls are sooo quick to tune if you concentrate on the driving range first. At-least I still am selling him a chipping job and P30 stock basemap to get him off that OEM P28 (he has a B16A2).