Please share your power adder A/F ratio's and EGT's I would like to start a thread for people that have wideband's, EGT's, or have been on a dyno and tuned.

I will start but I am very interested in hearing anything different. What we found and targeted for was in the 12:1 range usually around the middle.

But what I have very little of is EGT info. I don't really intend to get a wideband O2, and would like to run and EGT. I have seen some pretty wicked nasty rides at the track running EGT's, but if the costs are in line with a wide band, I suppose I could consider one of those. I know EGT setups are also not cheap. I have seen the innovative O2 kit but the prices listed vary widely and seem to be more confused when options or "with or without" sensor is discussed.

Please share what you have...

 

Get a Wideband 02. I have a couple, one from tech-edge, You can buy these with a sensor for $550.00 last I checked. I also have a Accel unit that you can get for $899.00 list, but actually you can get them cheaper. I like the tech-edge as I can use it on anybodys car (accel's also can, but the sensor has their plug on it so I get scared moving it from vehicle to vehicle, it is still a L1H1 bosche) Egt's are great on race cars but there is a ton more going on then temp. I have lost pistons at 1500 degrees and not at 1600? If your car is set up with a WB02 at a specific AF, full throttle, x amount of time, and RPM, and air temp and then you know the egt, your good, BUT I have seen correct AF's at different EGT temps. And this only works at full throttle. What about driveability???? WB you can use all of the time, with/without load, idle, full throttle............ I will take a pic (no scanner) of my last dyno graph and post the AF ratio.

 

$550!?! $900!?!?

I'll pass, I thought they were available for alot less...

 

Hey a Motec one costs $1500.00!! I am sure there are cheaper ones. BUT what is your engine worth? You could always borrow one from someone to tune your car. I saw some posts a little while back one for aroud $300.00.
My AF ratio on my last dyno runs started out at 12.5 and was down to 11.8 at max HP/boost. keeps it safe on pump gas.

 

hell for $1500 you can have a batchfire wideband FAST

 

I'm planning on running a DIY-WB wideband sensor with a megasquirt ECM. Once a get a reliable tune set, Im going to swap back to a NB sensor. I just cant see having a $200 sensor dangling from my y-pipe for everyday driving. It will still allow me to see if anything goes very wrong with the system.

I'm pretty sure i can get into the whole setup for under $250. (the wideband kit, that is). I've heard pretty good things about this kit, but I can't back up anything yet.

 

is there something Im missing here? For some reason I thought the innovative setup was cheaper.

 

With my Accel DFIV7 I only use a WB for tuning. then remove it and use no 02 at all.

 

FWIW, I'd shoot for a safe, around 11.5:1 with a power adder and work from there, and somewhere in the mid 12's na. With power adder cars, there's a lot of people out there that just put them together and don't do any real tuning, for them I'd recommend keeping it at 11.5:1, and that way they won't blow stuff up when something goes wrong. When tuning you'll find that you'll go faster with less gas then that, but how much is really up to the combination. If you've got relatively low compression often you don't need to add any extra fuel to control detonation and you can usually run leaner mixtures, even with a power adder you might find that you make the best power at around 13:1.

With EGT's there's 2 things going on. First, you need a baseline for that engine. Once you find out that you're running at whatever you want to run at you'll start to see the relationship between the EGT and tune. WRT to mixture you'll usually see the highest EGT's when you get close to stoichometric, and they will drop off if you go to either end (lean or rich). Once you figure out those numbers then you just try to keep it where you know you run best and at a reasonable temp for parts (typically in the 1400* range or lower, but part of that depends on where you mount the probe) and you're good. The thing that EGTs will show that O2's will not is if something goes wrong with timing and sometimes even misfires (O2's show lean misfires as going rich… you still need to know what you're doing…).

To be honest, I've avoided both with almost all the tuning I've done. Either are fine for getting you in a "safe" range, and then from that I usually tune by feel/sound and then once it's what appears to be running right for me it's usually very close to where it will run the fastest at the track, then some tweaking at the track and you're good (most cars will not run fastest in a range where they are destroying engine parts… but in some cases it will be on the ragged edge).

 

I have both a WB O2 and EGT gauge, but have yet to take a pass. It will happen in the months go come.

WB O2 with LED bargraph display:

 

I'm expecting to see EGT's in the 1300 deg F range. I understand that 1400 deg F should be considered the maximum.

My digital EGT gauge:

 

Willie- I love the extra lettering inside the tach. Subtle stuff like that is always cool.

My Malibu's A/F and EGTs? Probably not as fat as I think it is- it makes more power than it should, in my book. Probably around 12.5:1 in cool weather (richer in hot weather- remember it's got a carb, not FI). EGTs are somewhere below the melting point of steel. That's as much as I know. With only 28* of WOT total timing I'm sure my EGT's are real hot. Too hot to run at WOT for extended periods of time, I'm sure.

 

Willie,
That's a pretty slick setup for all the extra gauges & sensors! Is there a write-up or summary posted somewhere? To stay on topic, I tuned to low to mid 12's w/ the TPIS wideband (Myron brought it down to the F-body.org event at Memphis, and let me borrow it for a few hours). So far, no EGT's yet, but it's in the works for this year. Timing has a huge effect on EGT's as well.

 

Damon, thanks!

Andris, go to my sig above and click on the link, "SC Z!!!!" Then click on "Interior". Although some info is outdated, it will give you an idea of how my car is set up. It does not include write-up of my digital gauge panel. For it, go to:

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...09#post1295209

Willie

 

Your fasten seatbelt light works!!

 

My pal Brian used the fasten seatbelt to show his nitrous system was on/armed on his 1979 camaro

 

here is the other wideband setup.
http://www.plxdevices.com/index.htm

 

We usually tune 'em for around 12:1 max on the street, 11.5 on the dyno.

 

Here's a resonably priced one that a lot of people seem to like.

http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/

I haven't used either an EGT or wideband, although it would be nice to know how close I'm at. I have always tuned for 0 knock retard. You make an adjustment and datalog. Its a time consuming process but in the end, it works.

 

only thing i don't like about that is the display. i don't want ot hang that on my dash or anything like that. IIRC they have an external display available, or are going to, and speedshop.org/dynotune makes a nice external display that utilizes the 0-5v output. the innovative one is also nice because it has internal datalogging, BUT you have to spring for the RPM converter in order to log RPMs vs A/F which really begins to make it unreasonable for me to spend the money on that.

the one from PLX devices is cheap, relatively, has a 0-5v output, has a nice external display that you can easily mount under the dash, on the steering column or take it out of the case and make your own 2 1/16 display for it as we've before but the one drawback is that it has no datalogging. you can however use the output to datalog via the ecu, depending on which system you're running.