just as the title says.. I've done some mods to my engine to help it breathe better, and now I need to make sure I dont lean it out. So I just need to know if I will get a useful reading from it, or if there is a better way.. (and no $500 wideband ones for me)

 

An EGO analyzer would work. They were part of the old Sun 720, 920, and 1120 machines way back in the early '70s. I remember using them on plain old carbed engines.

 

Ok, I might try that.. Now to find where I can get my hands on one..

 

As well, or as poorly depending on your choice of gauge, as it would work on a OBD2 car.

A/F is A/F; whether it's FI or carb, whether the carb is computer-controlled or not, or whatever. It's a physical reality.

 

Yeah, I was just referring to it bouncing all over the place because of the computer making adjustments, and how my car left it's computer at the assembly line...

 

I had one on my carbed nova, it was ONLY accurate at idle it seemed, the a/f on dyno showed a HUGE difference over the gauge.

I had a autometer gauge

 

The a/f guage is always going to bounce around. I have one right now and im carb non computer controlled. It hunts around when u are just cruising or idleing put when u are on it holds steady. So it gets the job done only at WOT. A wideband is the only way to keep it from bouncing all over the place. But on a carb car it will move the least since the carb really cant adjust as much like a computer can.

 

Which is where it's least accurate too.

 

Hmm.. I'm getting the feeling that it would be a good idea to skip the gauge and find a better way to tune it...

 

Best way is to dyno tune it with a wideband or buy a wideband. As far as dyno tuning most shops around here charge in the 500 range to fully dyno tune a car. So if u are going to keep changing things and u want to be precise by a wideband if u search u can find some in the 3-400 range.

 

If your in a budget which most of us are just buy and a/f guage it will let u know if your running rich or lean it just won be exact but its better than tuning blind.

 

True that. my fuel consumption sucks, though that may just be due to my driving.

 

It will only tell if you're rich or lean compared to stoich, which isn't all that useful for tuning from a performance point of view.