Hey all. jsut installed a super-expensive (14.95) sunpro AF gauge. I had it on my legacy turbo before, so I know the gauge is good. it stay all the way over to "rich" till it gets warmed up which I guess is what it is supposed to do on Hondas? it was the opposite on my legacy but whatever. it does the "knight rider" thing when I'm cruising, and points to the rich side of stoich, or the leaner end of rich when I'm on the throttle. cool. fine.

it reads nicely... it's one of the 10-LED types of gauges, but the LEDs will get dimmer and brighter as the "pointer" moves between them. so usually like 1 or 2 LEDs are lit and you can tell where the "pointer" would be. am I making any sense? it's like it's an analog gauge with LEDs overlayed. why am I saying all this crap? well...

like I said, normally one or 2 LEDs are lit up and I get a nice precise reading. but after I go WOT if I've been driving for a couple minutes and she's all warmed up, all the sudden the "span" of the pointer gets bigger. 3 or 4 LEDs light up and move around. I loose any meaningful resolution. it never did this in my turbo legacy (3-wire O2, BTW I don't know if that makes a difference...). if I drive around for a while the effect fades away. at the end of my commute I was still getting this effect if I go WOT, but it was more like just 2-3 LEDs wide instead of 3-4. I can extrapolate where the pointer wants to be, but I really wish it wouldn't do this.

so, is this perhaps a bad O2 sensor? my car runs fine, and the "knight rider" effect on the O2 when I'm cruising tells me that it's pretty much doing what it should be. the AF gauge reads a steady mid-stoich at idle. even when I'm at like 75% throttle she's still fine. is it normal for the O2 to get funky at WOT like that? am I making any sense at all?

hey, at least I'm not asking what ECU pin to splice into

 

i've got the same guage, and it does the same thing. at WOT i have like 3 rich bars lit up, but if i play with my FPR, i can change the ratio a little. so i think that is a pretty normal deal, at least with this guage

 

well I'm glad someone out there is having the same results I am :D . I'd buy a better gauge but as long as Ramen i sgood enough for me, Sunpro is good enough for my baby.

I'm just reading it by whatever the "middle of the cluster" is. I figure if it's putting out the proper wave function, taking the middle will be like taking the crest of the wave as a reading.

 

That's how all narrowband A/F gauges are supposed to work

 

well in that case I guess I feel a lot better :D . I wonder why the sensor in the legacy was different... Must be Subaru magic.

Thanks for the help so far, guys!

 

I had my autometer on my old nitroused Cavalier and it bounced around like a madman. Full rich at WOT, and a pretty even bounce the rest of the time.

I am trying to install it on the civic and its not working like it used to. I also know the gauge is good. But there is no 'knight rider.' It stays very still, and even at WOT wont go full rich, it just stays solid at about mid stoich.

is this how the hondas work or what? im used to alot more motion. I know the a/f gauges suck, but my addiction to the bottle forces me to have at least SOME warning if anything is going wrong. better a slim chance then none, of catching a problem early. Wideband is out of my budget.

 

The ECU is making it "bounce" like that when you are cruising. It cycles back and forth between rich and lean. They only give you a "good" reading under WOT. Sounds like it is working fine.

 

it doesnt go full rich under WOT in the civic. it stays mid stoich the whole time after its heated.

I think I might have tapped the coolant temp sensor, which is on the same circuit as the 02. I guess I have to keep playing with it.

 

my autometer doesn the same thing in my crx, but at idle its in the rich zone(mid) and when i drive around for a bit(3-4mins) it fluctuates to stoich and rich. i also have some soot in my pipe too. whats wrong? does the car/o2 sensor have to warm up more?

 

screw it, i just wired it to the engine bay. Works fine now.

for the nitrous/fuel solenoid dummy light.