I just bought a new Motec PLM from Tony, I used to have one a LONG time ago but in a long chain of events ended up having a PLX and a bunch of Innovates (mainly cause they keep breaking).. So finally thanks to a good deal from Tony and complete sickness of all the $400 wanna be widebands I bought another motec plm.. I made a little video showing the difference in speed between the 2 units. The Motec i using an older style LSU4.0 and the innovate is running the standard LSU 4.2 . . The motec will also run the 4.2 4.9 and L Series NTK sensors.

This test was done with both units running in tailpipe sniffers, which I totaly will NOT use for tuning cars, but they worked well for this test .. The AFRs read lean at idle due to the sniffers sucking, but this flaw allowed me to show a good sweep of AFR. The first test I have the motec set on a slower update speed (4 of 10) with minimal filtering (.5 of 25), On the second part I have the motec on a higher rate (8 of 10) with filtering a little bit higher (1 of 25).. Heres the vid..

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

The thing I noticed that really bothers me is that the update rate is so slow on the innovate that it doesn't catch variations in AFR that happen too fast, in the video at one point you can see the motec do a full point swing and back in about 1 second and the LM1 doesn't even hickup.. 1 sec could be quite a bit of RPM in a 800HP car.. Anyways, just wanted to share this since I have never seen this comparison done before except for that stupid ford magazine article that was totally bogus..

I will have to admit that the LSU4.0 is known to read slightly faster then the 4.2 on its own. But I seriously dought its THAT much faster, and if it is why wouldn't Innovate give the option to use the faster sensor. I'll be doing more testing with the 4.2, 4.9, and L series sensors when I get some more time and I'll post the results.

 

I have a brand new $250 L1H1 NTK sensor I might be willing to ***loan*** to the cause...

As much as I love talking with Klaus Alledinger(sp?) and respect the hell out of the man, I have grown to greatly distrust Innovate products. I've had 2 dead LC1s (apparently I got some of the first Chinese ones. Go figure?) but the discrepancies between the LC1 and my PLX M300 and the dyno's Motec PLM have always been enough to make me hesitate.

Interesting comparison, Chris.

I think you'll be even more afraid when you do a comparison between the Innovate and PLM on cars that are running excessively high EGTs (i.e. rich + conservative timing) with the sensor close (<24") from the turbo. My experience is that the Innovate has a very annoying tendency to drift closer to 14.7, giving the impression that the car needs more fuel making it run even richer leading to higher EGTs and misfires if you blindly follow the wideband.

Tony tells me that the NTK sensors are a world of difference vs. the Bosch sensors for really rich mixtures. Unfortunately, my customer base isn't wealthy enough to justify buying $250 NTK sensors vs $90 Saturn Bosch ones.

My 2cents... Thanks Chris.

 

No problem.. I'd be totally willing to test with your NTK .. Yeah I noticed you basically have to be melting the LSU before the innovate will throw the overheat error.

 

After tuning with a PLM for a long time, I have a real hard time putting much faith in any other widebands.

 

Yeah, I've been feelin uncomfortable ever since I lost my last PLM..

 

Bumping this up from the dead. It has been 8 years since anyone replied to this thread but just curious if anyone has found an equal or better alternative to the Motec PLM. I'm starting to take tuning a bit more seriously and I need a wideband that is accurate and has fast response times. I would like to stay around the $2k price point but if there is a cheaper alternative out there (please no AEM or Innovate products) I'm all ears.