Wideband Help
 

I need a A/F gauge for my FD. I currenty gave a microtech LT8. My tuner insists on the buying the 500 dollar dash display and wideband kit. I only want to monitor the vital aspects of my car. Currenty I have a boost gauge and exhaust temp gauge. i would prefer to just buy a seperate water temp and air to fuel gauge. Which route is most cost effective. I also have a spare laptop i was thinking about using to monitor my LT8. Are there any good quality and affordable stand alone a/f gauge and controllers?

Widebands run you $300+ and lets say $100 bucks for a quality water temp gauge. That's $400... why not pony up the additional $100 and be able to monitor it completely without a laptop?

the display is 500.. and the wideband portion is an additional 200.

oh... well that's a different study.

How modified are you? if you don't need it then don't get it.

New Mazda Rotor Housing (Pinned)
Preciscion Turbo GT-37 BB
Greddy Elbow and IC piping
Fluidyne Radiator
Greddy 2 Row FMIC
ACT Stage 2 Clutch
Air Pump Removal
Jacobs FC1000 Ignition
NGK Spark Plugs
Custom Ignition Wires
Tial 44 MM Wastegate
Custom 3inch Exhaust
HKS Exhaust Manifold
HKS Hi-Power Exhaust & Pre-silencer
HKS SSQV Bov (In process)
Block Off Plate Kit
Bead Blast engine block and UIM
Kinetiks Battery
K & N Universal Filter
Microtech LT8 Standalone
Custom Wiring Harness
Denso Fuel Pump
Injectors 500cc 1000cc w/modded Fuel Rail

Soon to Come:
AST
A/F Gauge

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...3/DSC02189.jpg

If you only want to monitor vitals (and not tune the car yourself, per se), just get gauges. Boost, water temp, oil temp, fuel pressure, EGT, A/F ratio. Anything else is excessive, IMHO :) You shouldn't have to hook up the laptop to read things like I just mentioned. Your car has enough mods to warrant keeping an eye on things in-car w/o a clumsy laptop.

Your tuner on the other hand, he may be able to benefit from having all of those things (dash mounted WB display/kit/whatever). Why don't you tell us which model he's recommending? There are some really useful features with some of the units these days. I know that some of the units can read in data streams from all of those sensors and them some; that kind of information can really help the tuner to get consistent, safe power out of your car and trouble shoot when things go wrong, not to mention you have a record of what happened, instead of anecdotal types of things... the only catch is that half of that involves adding your own aftermarket sensors to your car.

What tuning vitals does your tuner want to make a record of? Does your current system allow you to capture that information? If not, then you can decide what you need to do. You may just need to have the gauges for your own benefit and add a WB with display for his benefit. The other more experienced guys will jump in I'm sure...

EDIT: Another gauge/monitor/sensor/alert parameter you may want to keep an eye on it air intake temp (AIT).

here is the display.

http://www.microtech-efi.com/product/2.html

This would be my recommendation for an A/F gauge that has an programmable output and and excellent software.
http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/x...cat=262&page=1

Paul

dumb question? does an A/F controller and gauge need any input from my stand alone, because if not I was going to get the AEM controller and gauge (below). Anyone have any experiecnce using this gauge?

http://www.rx7store.net/product_p/aemuego.htm

I have a VEMS wideband with a EGT built in. A great unit. Hooks up to a laptop for data logging too and is around $350. It also outputs the narrow band signal back to the ECU so you only need one O2 sensor

http://www.vems.hu/wiki/index.php?page=AFreshTiny

can anyone give an answer to this question? Would this be good gauge?