I would like to gather some reviews before buying another wideband.

1)tuners and dyno shops only please vote which brand of wideband you use.
and leave a post how often do you replace the sensor.
1.1)how many cars you tune with it and replace or how long you had it and replaced...

2) why did you choose that wideband and not the other.


3)I'm reading a lot of mixed reviews about widebands mostly from car owners that owned one or two widebands.
that's why I want to get input from the tuners and shops since you go through a massive amount of cars a year and you would be the best to ask about it.

4)if you use more than one post whatever you use most in poll option.

 

turbo car has a plx m300. a bit old but new sensor. ita not bad but can be slow to respond at startup.

daily driver has a plx smafr ir whatever the hell it is with the red box. it was easy to set up but the gauge is ****. after less than a year the digital numeric readout broke but the color sweep still works. it also works fine in the neptue.

my suggestion is find a unit that doesnt use Bosch sensors. I hate them and feel like the get slow or go bad often.

 

Just buy the Innovate MTX-L or AEM with the new Bosch LSU 4.9 sensor. Very durable and best for the money spent.

 

Aem is garbage.They work ok as a stand alone gauge. Suck with trying to use them tied into an ecu with anything other then an aem ecu. I've used plx,zeitronix, and innovate. With great success. Don't get a mtx-l. Stick with the lc2. I hate the bulky wiring on the mtx-l.

 

Yes I agree, the innovate is very good with the ability to program the analog outputs (it has 2) to anything you want.

 

All of the Innovate gauges have worked well for us. They respond very fast and have all of the outputs needed for any datalogging needed.

 

Maybe you just have a garbage ems?

 

when you say worked for us do you mean sales?
or do you mean dyno tune?
I'm mostly interested how long the sensor lasts either how many cars or how many months on average

 

They have all worked well for us when tuning, as well as all of our customers who have purchased them have been happy with them.

As long as the sensor is always ON when the engine is running, they seem to last for the life of the car.. If the engine is running without the sensor powered on, it will quickly ruin the sensor.

 

^x2.... have to make sure that O2S heater circuit is hooked up in conjunction with the ignition.

 

I guess that could be possible. Had the same results over multiple platforms though. Pro efi, haltech, hondata, ecmlink, evoscan etc, etc, etc.

They work best with aem. Pretty simple.

 

I used an innovate lm1 (the big grey/beige box) with great success on multiple cars (a long time ago).
later had a no name using a lsu 4.2 that i only used on my own car, it seemed to be a bit laggy in updating to the ecu as it was hard to tune anything but wide open throttle.
then got the plx in the red box with lsu 4.9 and it has been really good, though again i am only using it on my own car. I stopped messing with other cars than my own close to ten years ago since i just did not have to drive to deal with other peoples BS and cheap *** honda people. If I was going to get into that again i woujld en up with an innovate setup, their stuff has always impressed me with what it offers especially when tuning multiple cars.

 

I have pretty much the same story. i still have my lm-1. it still works (new sensors of course). i bought it somewhere around 04-05. i keep it in case i want to verify my own widebands, or occasionally a friend needs to borrow it for something random. i also stopped working on cars for random people many years ago. same scenario. cheap asses that wouldnt listen to me and break **** then blow up my phone at like 1am. now adays i just have a half dozen people that im actually friends with (not my boys cousins baby mammas boyfriend) who ill help out. all those cars are still up and running some of which for over 4-5 years already

 

what about MTX-L kits?
I see a lot of mixed reviews about those

 

3 sensors dead in last 4 months on MTX-L
I think I'm good with that sht.
first one lasted a year lsu 4.2
second one died 30 minutes after sartup on customers car. brand new kit with lsu 4.2

I bought an LSU 4.9 sensor and it lasted less than a week in my car.

innovate of course claims user error which is very suspect to me
their excuses:
sensor either too far or too close to the head no matter what I say its a universal excuse. I say stock location they say too far. I say 12 inches from turbo. they say too close( the downpipe had the bung already welded)

incorrectly wired:
I say its wired into thermostat and battery relay constant power
they say it should be wired to ecu.
even though most dyno shops have them wired to the battery

needs a longer o2 bung. then why supply a short bung with your kit if its not correct length innovate???


other thing that don't make sense
if the sensor was so ****** sensitive then dyno shops would be replacing them after every car
yet you get cars that are literally spitting fuel out and then you tune the hypermileage car that is lean as sht. and somehow the sensors are alive

my car runs at normal AFRs for stock motor and sensor doesn't even last a ****** week
innovate can you explain that?
I don't know if innovate is on this forum or not but maybe they read it because they are ignoring me and giving me lame excuses when I call them...

I'm pretty ****** frustrated with this crap. 3 dead sensors and over 500 dollars worth of useless wideband kits laying in a pile now...

I know I wired it right. and car is street tuned to safe afrs
the sensor saw 10afr maybe for few minutes as I adjusted the idle and cold idle.
its placed correctly and wired correctly and I don't preheat sensor its not freezing temps here either..

 

Sounds like something isn't quite right! 3 sensors in 4 months.......
That really sucks!


I've been running the LC-2 controller with a LSU 4.9 sensor for well over 8 months in two different daily driven vehicles. I've been watching the AFRs and STFT & LTFT and they have only changed slightly. (+/- 2%) I haven't done a fresh air calibration since I installed them.

Now only thing I can see that I did differently is that I hooked mine up to the ECU for the sensor wires. I also used the stock O2 bung instead of the one I ordered. Not sure if there is an install height difference or not???? I replaced the stock O2 with the LSU4.9. Now for the heater circuit I used a dedicated 12v KOEO, 1A fused line. I have read that if the O2 heater cycle is not correct it can lead to premature failure. Cold weather or not! The EGT's can get hot fast. And if the sensing element isn't up to temp fast enough, it can foul or crack.

 

not on same car.
first sensor lasted a year after the car was tuned. then very slowly died and now only works during idle and light throttle. any kind of movement in the exhaust freaks it out and it throws E8 code

there shouldn't be any difference where its wired besides accuracy.

even if I wire it underdash it shouldn't be damaging the sensor it would only give less correct reading.

I had it grounded from thermostat and relay from battery

second one died after very short run before I even got to adjust anything in crome

I mean when my car was on a dyno it went through some crazy AFRs but it didn't die and it was possibly hooked up to cig lighter (the wideband that tuner used was PLX I belive)

I'm almost convinced that the MTX-L controller just sucks at keeping the sensor safe

I looked inside and didn't see a bosch wideband controller I saw atmel chip.


I'm definitely done with innovate.

simple logic here
if the LSU 4.9 is made to last 10 years in stock cars this means the controller sucks *** if you have to replace the sensor every year and failure rate is this high with mtx-L

I don't belive the LC-2 has as many complaints but I still see a reasonable amount of complaints about damaged sensors, pretty much same complaints as MTXL just not as many

 

We have no problems with the MTX-L. There is something else going on!

 

like what. after the first one stopped working I spent 3 weeks looking for the reason.
everything is hooked up correctly and installed correctly according to the manual and from reading forums. I install car audio and alarms for over 10 years now I know how to wire up 4 wires for a wideband lol
this is an older gauge from 5 years ago and probably has some defects that were fixed with a controller circuitry I have no other explanation for why the 4.9 sensor lasted only a week in a stock car.

 

Lol. Most wide band sensors use 5 wires or even 6 wires.

 

Come on bro.
Its power ground dimmer and analog output from the gauge.

ur joke fail

 

Ah, I thought you meant the WB sensor itself.
If you use the analog output (yellow and brown wires) then make sure the ground (black) is connected very close to the ECU ground wire.
This WILL greatly minimize ground offset.

 

ground offset is irrelevant when the gauge is stuck at 22.4 lol

when I google search wideband stuck at 22.4 guess what brand comes up the most ....

https://www.google.com/search?q=wide...+22.4&start=10


every single forum I read theres at least 2-3 replies with exacly same:
I tried multiple sensors then said **** this and bought another brand and now it works great
or I sent the unit for warranty and keep having same issue until I sold it and went with another brand and problems stopped..
wouldn't that be interesting, I'm shopping for either PLX or AEM it seems they are the most reliable even a bit more expensive.
it would be even funnier if this sensor starts working again once hooked up to a different wideband controller.

 

May be the MTX-L controller is broken.

 

one thing people often forget when it comes to Innovate products is to check if there's a way to update the firmware, and check your current firmware version compared to what's out now. more often than not, all issues can be resolved by simply updating to the most current firmware.

my LC-1 used to go through sensors about every 3 months like clockwork, sometimes faster when tuning. Updated the firmware and immediately saw a night and day difference in performance, and I'm still using the same sensor I installed about 4 years ago, and still tune cars with it too, and still zero issues.