NTK Wideband only reads 16.00...?

[schnellTTZ06]

I have a new NTK AFX wideband that I am trying to use as a mobile setup. I have the Innovate tailpipe mount for the O2 sensor. I connected the pos and neg wires directly to the battery and performed the calibration exactly as the instructions state. Everything appears to work correctly, the O2 heats up like its supposed to and HP Tuners can log it just fine on the scanner, but no matter what I do, I only get a reading of 16.00 when the car is running, and its not possible the car is actually at 16. Im assuming that perhaps the sensor is supposed to ground through the exhaust and maybe it's not getting a good enough one. Any advice or help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

[umrjmac]

If the sensor is mounted right at the exit to the exhaust, and if you're only running the car at idle, it's probably picking up a lot of free air, thus the false lean reading.

What happens if you pull a rear O2 sensor and install it there to test it?

[DSteck]

I have the Innovate tailpipe mount

There's your problem.

[eatgoat]

If you are wanting better tuning results you can put the wideband in the stock narrowband bung closer to the collector. Put the car in openloop and tune as normal. Once your done put everything back to normal.

I found it much easier just to have a new bung welded in for a few bucks so my wideband had a permanent home.

[schnellTTZ06]

Yeah, Ive been tuning a lot of cars lately and most people dont even know what a wideband is so I wanted to have my own portable setup to not have to convince people to spring for one. I didnt have the time to try to pull one of the narrow bands and tune in open loop. I will have to try that later, I just hope there is nothing wrong with that Wideband, it would even read 16.00 when I blew through the Innovate mount tube.

[WS6Fury]

The NGk will only read up to 16.00 that's it. It's not like the Innovate LC-1 where it can be programmed up to 20.0.

Strage thing I find is if I use the pre determined pid in HPT for the NGk, my log only shows as high as 15.67 which is very odd, so there is a mis match in the pid somewhere.

Anyone know how to get the voltage offset right on this thing. It's a moving target and it's not like the LC-1 where you can program what voltage to output so hpt can by synced. I'm about .1-.2 off in certain ranges.

Edit, doh! Read to quick, you mean your only getting 16 and nothing lower. Sorry.

[DSteck]

Yeah, Ive been tuning a lot of cars lately and most people dont even know what a wideband is so I wanted to have my own portable setup to not have to convince people to spring for one. I didnt have the time to try to pull one of the narrow bands and tune in open loop. I will have to try that later, I just hope there is nothing wrong with that Wideband, it would even read 16.00 when I blew through the Innovate mount tube.

Blowing fresh air into it would make it read lean...

Those tail pipe sniffers are garbage. Do it right and install it in the exhaust. It's a pain in the ass, but it's the only way to be confident in what you're seeing. 2010 Camaros are an absolute nightmare to put the wideband in if they still have stock manifolds, but I deal with it anyway.

[schnellTTZ06]

There has got to be a way to make it work though without having to install it with a bung. Afterall, when you go to a dyno they just clip on the WBO2s to the tail pipes and that usually reads exactly or at least very close to what the WB that I have mounted on my own car. Any thoughts on how to make a mobile WBO2 work correctly then using some time of portable means?

By the way, I do know a way to make HP tuners read exactly what is on the display.

[DSteck]

There has got to be a way to make it work though without having to install it with a bung. Afterall, when you go to a dyno they just clip on the WBO2s to the tail pipes and that usually reads exactly or at least very close to what the WB that I have mounted on my own car. Any thoughts on how to make a mobile WBO2 work correctly then using some time of portable means?

By the way, I do know a way to make HP tuners read exactly what is on the display.

The farther the wideband is from the engine, the more lag you'll notice in the readings, and the less accurate it will be. Just because dyno operators put it in the tail pipe doesn't mean it's right... those same guys push out garbage tunes all the time.

Also, just because HP Tuners matches the gauge display doesn't mean the gauge itself is reading inaccurately as a result of being far from the engine. It's not that bad to put a wideband in a bung.

[Rhino]

This might be too obvious, but do you still have cats in your exhaust? I would assume they would lean out the mixture as well.

[schnellTTZ06]

I realize ther is a lag in the readings placing the WB so far back, but under wide open throttle the gasses travel fast enough to get a good reading. And I believe the cats would make it appear a bit richer, aside from that, the car I was trying this on did not have cats installed. But yeah, for my own car I do have a bung and a WB hard mounted with the guage on my pillar, Im just trying to figure out how I can easily take my WB that I use for tuning from car to car without putting a bung in every car I tune.

[umrjmac]

If you dont want to add a bung, just pull one of the rear narrowband o2 sensors and put your wideband 02 in the hole (assuming that the car doesn't have cats). If youre tuning in open loop (OLSD or OLMAF), then you could replace one of the front o2 sensors with yours, i think...someone doublecheck me on that. I added a bung to my exhaust vs pulling an existing sensor.

[Rhino]

Have you tried measuring the analog output voltage to see where it's at? I'm trying to determine a situation where the display reads 1 full point above the output voltage I'm experiencing. At this point I'm not certain what to trust. I wonder if we're having similar issues, however mine is slightly less extreme.

[schnellTTZ06]

That's a totally different issue. I initially had a .3 volt offset that I did correct for. I wont be able to completely figure this out until I experiment with my own car. It's somewhere in the Atlantic right now, I just hope the pirates dont get it before I do. I still think its some time of grounding issue though.

[umrjmac]

Rhino, if you log the wideband's voltage or afr, when you turn the key to the on position or start the car, the AFX box will "warm up" for 20 seconds. while its doing that you will see the max and min output voltage. Take those values and create your own custom transfer function. The voltage output is linear, so you should be set with doing that and the values that you log should match pretty closely to what is displayed on the afx box.

I had that revelation this morning and updated my scanning config...gonna try it out tomorrow and see how it goes. Mine was off slightly...not nearly as badly as what you mentioned.

[Rhino]

I would agree that my issue is unrelated. It ended up being two fold. I originally did a free air calibration for a few minutes, when the truck was shut off. I did a longer calibration (~15 minutes) at idle that accounted for most of the error. The second issue is that I started a scan once my ECT got close to temp. For some reason the AFX seems to lean out the longer I drive it. Mine is closer now, however I think there's still a little error in it.

Does the min/Max show on the display, or will I measure it on the analog out? I've been using a set of alligator clamps at the battery. Because of that it's usually a few seconds before I get in the seat. On the display I usually see it flash 2000, then start the 20 second count down.

The PID I've been using I lifted from a thread DSteck replied to. It's V/10.42 + .62

[umrjmac]

It won't show on the display. It happens while its counting down from 20, but if you log it while its doing that, you will see it peg max, then drop to stoich-ish, then drop to min, then start reading normally once the 20 seconds is up.

I would probably start the vehicle, start logging, then hop out and connect the positive alligator clip.

You can log the raw voltage from the sensor by creating a PID for that, or you can work backwards using the AFR readings (or lambda, based on your transfer function) from the log, send it back through your current transfer function to get the raw voltage, then use that to make your new function. My lambda transfer function wound up being V/10.05+.62 and my AFR transfer function is V/.689+9 (untested yet, but I think that the math is correct)

Just in case...I'm not sure if you did this or not, but I believe that when you do your free air calibration, you should have the sensor hanging in "free air". i.e. pull it out of the exhaust to perform that.