question for those w/ Air/Fuel meters
 

I know there can be variances in the readings, but i want to get some opinions.

Recently i started a gas mileage thread, and somebody mentioned o2 sensor location, and it occured to me that this might be my problem, although i am not sure. Looking at my gauge today, I noticed that it reads alot differently than it did on my stock exhaust. Of course, I had a blower then also, but other than that the engine is very much similar.

Before, on the stock exhaust, the gauge almost always read rich, and I got 18+ mpg. Now, the gauge barely reads stoich, and reads lean sometimes. The car doesnt on the other hand, ping at all.

My question is, for people using autometer A/F gauges, what readings do you usually get under normal driving conditions, such as cruising on the highway? Do you always get readings, or does the meter sometimes go blank?


Thanks in advance
dino

mine bounces all over the place, i think they are worthless. i guess if its just bouncing somewhere in the middle your good.

If you go to Auto Meter's site and read up on them you will find that they only give an accurate (and I use that term "accurate" very loosely when talking about narrow band O2's such as the Auto Meter) reading at wide open throttle. The rest of the time it bounces around and means nothing. You really need to take your car to a dyno shop with a wideband O2 hooked up and at the same time and tune that way. I would suggest getting a custom chip burned at that same time or getting a tuner such as the "TwEECer" http://www.tweecer.com/ the PMS http://www.andersonfordmotorsport.com/ or one of several others out there and you have something that you can change your tune with as you need to with out having to pay for a re-burn each time plus you have a lot more things you can "control" and with something like the TwEECer RT you can even data log! Then you can get a wideband O2 and not even need a dyno shop! But anyway you really need to either get it to a dyno shop or do the wideband and tuner thing and find out where you are at AFR wise... Good Luck...

A/F Meters
 

Ford states that 02's should be within 17" from the exhaust port for proper operation, reason your gauge read rich all the time with stock exhaust is FORD programs the EEC rich for safety reasons (extended WOT).

My A/F gauge was my digital voltmeter hooked to 1 of the 02 sensors, the reason it bounces all over when just driving around is because the computer is constantly trying to achieve the Stoichometric A/F ratio of 14.7:1, which is perfect, you will only get a "constant" reading when at W.O.T.

Hope this helps.....Good Luck! Camaro's suck!

Jay

if the 02 sensor is only on 1 header will it get a false reading? Should the sensor be well behind the collector?