When did widebands become affordable and popular to the amateur car modder? Weren't they incredibly expensive years ago and people generally used EGTs to tune?

 

You could get widebands for 300-400 5 years ago. You just had to know where to look.

 

Before they became 300-400 how much were they? When did they start becoming affordable?

 

The price of an aem uego wideband has dropped around $100 in the last 2 years alone. That should give you an idea.

 

I paid 209 for my AEM. Cant complain.

 

Don't rely on cheaper ones though. I do not personally like the AEM, PLX, or Innovate (older LM-1, to be fair I have not used their new one yet). I've used all of them, and been unhappy with each one on more than one occasion.

The FJO I use now has been excellent to me. www.fjoracing.com

 

I know what you mean, back when steph was runing his yellow hatch a wide ban was almost $1k

 

The sensors were the key.When Honda started using them on thousands of vx's the price went way down.Then VW started using the Bosch sensor in a bizillion cars and the price went way down.

 

meh, I dont agree.

I've owned and tested all of those plus motec autronic techedge dynojet etc.

on the cheaper ones, the plx works well. just as accurate as the fjo, except the bosch sensor will not last as long, however the bosch is much cheaper to replace.

my least favorite is the aem.

 

Yeah, just speaking from situations I've been in, honestly speaking it usually winds up being the fault of the sensor (in the case of the bosch ones) or the user, if the car has been driven around overly rich with no functioning o2 heater. This one particular case with the PLX was when I was on the dyno with a fairly large turbo car and the AF readings seemed to be normal under partial throttle, and then the car would seem like it was just locked in at 11.8 ish. Didn't think much of it until the changes I made had no effect on the full load portion of the tune, WB would always read 11.8 ball park. Was that the fault of the wb? probably not, but enough to make me question it in the future. Just my op.

Now the innovate and AEM ones, Those have a high "sensor failure" rate, (AEM reading full lean all the time, and the innovate stating "pump error" or something to that effect. Those don't mark high in my book interms of good widebands.

Of the cheaper ones, I actually have liked the NGK "AFX" wideband a lot, pretty simple unit too.

 

Why don't you guys like the AEM and Innovate? I was under the impression those were a couple of the best, especially the Innovate.

 

Terrible experience setting up the older lc-1 and even at that questioning it at times. I know the aem is a bad unit as i have had controllers/guage and also sensors go all the time and this seems to be the same issue with everyone else.

I have a plx m300 for 2 years now and it has worked great and no issues. I can actually see when the sensor is acting up strictly on a cold start and the controller has always been very reliable.

unfortunetly they do not sell the plx m300 anymore.

 

I bought one of the very first LM-1's and I still have it. It's been really good to me with the exception that I go through a sensor about every 9 months, even on pump gas. This is with putting 30+ miles a day, 5 to 6 days a week on the sensor. The price has gone up on the sensors and it's starting to get a little expensive, but not enough to be in the market for something else with better longevity.

 

Widebands didnt become affordable until Innovate put out the first LM1 unit at $349. At that time, Motec, FJO, etc were all in the $1000 range.

Once this happened, and everyone started using the sensors, the cost of a Bosch sensor went UP. I used to be able to get them at a local VW dealership for $22.00 and now employee cost on these is over $50 at most VW dealerships. I dont think Bosch puts much thought into the tuner wideband market, I could be wrong.

Innovate at that time was usable with either the Bosch LSU4 or the NTK L1H1 (and still is I do believe) and set the standard...everyone else (in my opinion) has been playing copy cat or catch up since that day.

The XD16 unit I have in my car has been running straight for 4 years perfectly...im on my second sensor in so many years, but on my third motor

That should tell us all something about AEM as a company and their product quality...not the wideband market.

 

what would you guys recommend? im trying to get one so i can tune my gsr

 

I remember that, I called the VW dealer local to me and was shocked that the price had almost doubled.

 

so, i used to tune with my techedge v1 with a nth L1h1 (have in my hands right now), until the pc board fried. i just bought a aem unit for $216. do i expect a low $ unit to compete with a fjo?...no, but for a street tune to get me to the dyno...yes. when i tune @ the local dyno in WA i will post my results in the f.i. forum and here. i have been looking forward to w.b. units coming down to our price range for about 7 years now, and am hoping for good results.

if the aem fails to perform, i will buy the next best unit, and again post the results. i have not yet found a full test of all the available unit's against the dyno's in a head to head test.

the test on that other forum was plagued with bad feedback and criticism. i hope to silence this.

no, i do not have an endless supply of $, just time.