trying to narrow down which one to buy for daily use at a decent price and good accuracy. mainly for just a piece of mind (will NOt b using to tune with, will be professional tuned on dyno with tuners equipment)

Innovate lc1-$229

Plx-$269

NGK afx-$260

AEM-$218

FJO-$300

 

NGK AFX is supposed to be the best of those, but it concerns me a little that it doesn't read leaner than 16:1. I actually seem to spend a fair amount of time running leaner than that at low load levels.

 

Ive got 3 PLX 1 in my 180hp sled and 1 in my 300whp d series and 1 in my soon to be 260whp sc civic. I just installed 2 this summer into 2 turbo projects and did another 2 last year. By far the best. Ive used aem and plx and inovated i love the PLX. They seem to work great for me. Plus they allow narrow band and wideband outputs.

 

i got the 60mm plx wideband, awesome gauge, easy install

 

I don't see why you'd want to read past 16:1. I've never had any motor run smoothly past 16:1, even in high vacuum. (never tried a D15Z1 though) Regardless, all widebands are just calibrated to guess correctly when 2 points richer or leaner than 14.7:1.


I use an Innovate LC-1 to interface directly with my EMS, but for every-day monitoring AFR's I use a TechEdge unit in my cars. My stock B16 is set to cruise at 15:1 afr's because I changed the output on the simulated narrowband wire.

Innovate offers awsome an datalogging program, easy to adjust wideband's outputs, can connect to other cool stuff like SSI-4. Downside is people say they "eat" sensors quickly.

PLX offers a very nice product, sometimes gauge is slightly off from the afr of it's output. They've really improved their products over the last couple years, mainly to emulate Innovate's product "extras".

AEM is hit or miss with everyone. Based on the number of misses I've seen, I wouldn't touch it with a 20ft stick.

FJO is great if you can afford the right sensors. Everyone seems to love them, although the added accuracy isn't all it's hyped up to be. It's mainly that it maintains a higher accuracy over a much longer period. Dollar per milage, it's nothing amazing over the bosch sensors.



BTW you can save money by using a cheap Autometer narrowband gauge on the wideband controllers that offer an adjustable narrowband output. You can adjust it to a linear scale, and have the gauge read exactly how you want it to.

 

This is interesting stuff. . . HiProfile, you didn't even mention the NGK (unless my reading comprehension is even worse than normal this morning), and from many people "in the know", it is the only lower end wideband they will consider. Other than the NGK, they jump up to a several thousand dollar wideband.

I have run an AEM for a couple of years now, and it has been fantastic, but I mounted it on top of the pipe in an area near the back of the car, so it never sees high exhaust temps, and it is pretty much impossible for condensation to sit in the sensor. Still, without a provision for calibration, I wonder about its accuracy.

The proof in the pudding though is that I have never had any indication that it was giving me bad readings, and according to everyone my stock Neon motor should have blown up long ago from the abuse I've given it. My tune must be pretty good.

With regard to the ratios above 16:1, my cruise and low-load AFRs start at about 15.8:1, and go leaner from there. If I can get a clean cruise out of a lean ratio whether from advancing the timing a bit or whatever, I go with it. I regularly see the upper 16s, but 17:1 is where I usually have reduced operational qualities.

The question remains though, are these readings accurate, or are they from an uncalibrated AEM WB? ? ? ? ?

 

I personally only like using PLX for 2 reasons. The first being that you don't have to calibrate them they do it automatically. (I am too old and lazy to be pulling out O2 sensors every now and then.) The second being that I always use Hondata S300's for my engine management and they recommend it as the best O2 plug and play to use. I have never had problems with any of my PLX stuff I have the DM-5 & SM-AFR. I also have the Tuner series M-300TE so it easy to take from all the cars I have and see what is going on or to tune them. I take it from my cars running Gasoline, E85, and my truck that is diesel running propane injection to easily see how everything looks with a turn of a ****.

 

wow, good responses,

iv been doing some more research and found that innovate x16 is best in few different wideband shootouts...i personaly am leaning towards three guages, ngk afx, PLX, and Innovate DB

but please keep it going! more personal experiences only not what u heard

 

For portable wbo2/tuning, I use my CWC0002 FJO kit.

For static installs into cars, I have had good sucess with both PLX and JAW units. The new JAW NAW-OEM is super tiny, and I have found a good way to mount them inside Honda ECU's. It can run a simulated narrowband output, and connect to a gauge of your choice. Plus, it is under $90 (w/o sensor).

I should note we've had to RMA my dad's Innovate LMA-3 AuxBox 4 times since 2007. If we could get a refund, we would. Its a complete POS.

 

http://www.paceperformance.com/pacep...ndshootout.pdf

This should help.

 

i like the plx m300 because it has the narrow band output and it works good in hondata s300. The only thing i dont like about it is after 14.9 it just says lean and after 10 it says rich. But you should stay inbetween those anyway

 

Sure, if you want to cut off part of your options for fuel economy.

 

it still shows past that in hondata. I dont like to go any leaner then high 14s when crusing anyway.

 

I have an NGK AFX and it is very reliable so far, I like it alot. The install is simple, can output narrow band, reliable, cost effective, accurate, etc I cant ask for much more.

 

That's fine for you, but MANY people do go a lot leaner than that at cruise.

Now I'm curious, why wouldn't you? ? ? ?

 

I had a LC1, AEM and PLX


I Prefer the PLX anyday

no calibration
and just 3 wires,
Power, ground, and output!

 

I think its funny how they rate the innovate as being so good ( fast/acurate)... I think someone got payed off. I even have the motec set at 1/2 update speed when compared to the innovate.

Just watch this vid I made....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iyw8p1JB7E

 

plx hands down, m300 or the dm5 setup, cant lose with either one... lm1 is junk, aem is TRASH, ngk seemed ok, just recently started using one on a few different gm's, not bad, but i really love my plx's!

 

plx

 

i've owned both a PLX M-300 and an Innovate LM1/LM3 kits for couple of years now. i like the PLX for it's simplicity along with either CROME Dealer and eCtunePro which i constantly use.

I bought the Innovate Kit cause i thought of taking advantage of its software(Logworks) when i use to have CROME Free. I did but not for long. It's a very versatile and fantastic software if you know what you're doing. It's just time consuming when analyzing overlayed graphs when doing pulls whilst tuning. However, with the newer release of commercial tuning softwares, data logging feature in particular, the PLX wins my vote. I just wish the built-in datalogging features of these most popular obd-1 tuning software can have the graph overlay feature of the Logworks. It's this tool's feature that I miss sometimes specially i when i do street tunes most of times and hardly my customers can pay for a dyno. It's nice to see a "before" and "after" results when mapping multiple sensor inputs and compare them, without a dyno.

If i were to buy another WB, i'll go for the PLX M-300TE. Unlike the older M-300 units, i love how you can simply mount that piece anywhere where you can easily have a quick view.

 

Burgermass i dont know if that is good place to test difference of lambdas. Im using innovate lm1 + xd16 gauge and taht gauge is fast as hell. Programmable output is too fast for bre datalog or then its my laptop, but i maybe need to slow that output, its really fast... Maybe i take some video....

 

I have been using a PLX m300 for over 5 years with no problems from it at all.

 

Twkd, did your NGK come with an NGK sensor, or a Bosch? After re-reading the test above, and the rest of the posts on here, I am totally confused again. . .

Assuming that the NGK AFX comes with a Bosch sensor like all of the other cheapies, and it scored badly in both areas of the test, it seems like it could be ruled out, which is the opposite of what tuning gurus have told me ("don't consider any cheap WBs other than the NGK").

This test and user accounts seem to really like the basics of the Innovate (LC-1 would be my pic, since I run my WB output straight into my MegaSquirt, and don't need a fancy gauge). But almost every place you look people complain about Innovate reliability.

Strangely though, with LC-1s they mostly complain about the sensor going bad, and the Innovate was the only one in the test that indicated a bad sensor. I guess they're the only ones that would make you replace the sensor then, aren't they?

For me, having had good luck with my AEM, which is widely regarded as garbage (IT WOULD BE NICE IF PEOPLE WOULD DESCRIBE THE PROBLEMS THEY HAVE WITH THE AEMS!), I guess it would be good and simple for me to get a new sensor to pop in and see if my tune appears different or not. Other than that, the latency issue definitely gives me some issues in getting my tune perfect.

The PLX scored badly, and people on here who widely love it seem to say that just based on ease of use. . . What about them is so good other than that?

Other than for Bugermass' video showing very slow response on an Innovate, I think I would try one of those if I was looking for a wideband right now. As it is, I am totally confused, and glad I'm not in the market for one at the moment. . . . .

WTH.

 

I have never had a problem with my aem, going on 3 years and 6 tunes on the same sensor. I just replaced my injectors yesterday and starting on tune number 7 with it today, but it has crossed my mind to just go ahead and replace the sensor just to be safe.

 

The idea wasn't to show difference in lambda, if you stay at one AFR long enough the innovate eventually catches up, I was just showing how much faster the Motec PLM responded.. I did 2 different cars where I tuned them on the LM1 then hooked up the motec and rechecked them just to see, and the AFRs were pretty darn close according to the LM1, then when I hooked up the motec there were all these spots where the LM1 didn't catch because it reacts to slow.

Also with the LM1/LC1 there have been cars here and there that had subpar electrical systems ( IE our all motor hatch ) and the LM1/LC1 would never make it through a whole pull without getting all glitchy and throwing an error code, put the motec in and not 1 single glitch the whole time..

Basically you get what you pay for.. I've used PLX too and never really had anything bad to say about their stuff but with as many cars as I tune and with some of the $$$ that goes into some of the higher end cars I tune having the Motec PLM is a no brainer and its all I use anymore..

As far as lower end widebands I'd have to go with the PLX as well since I never had any issues with them. We run a FJO with the L1H1 on the RSX for logging at the track through the AEM EMS and its been pretty solid as well, I refuse to use AEM widebands, they are total junk.

Just my $.02