Anyone here ever use an aftermarket wide-band O2 sensor to tune their truck? I'm not looking to go EFI, I would just just use the O2 sensor to make sure the stock carb is properly tuned. I know lots of guys, especially you old timers can probably tune by feel, but I don't have as much experience and thought this would be a good crutch. I recently had a new exhaust pipe put in and I had them weld an O2 sensor bung in just in case.
Anyone with experience would be appreciated, and/or recommendations on where to get one, especially one that will work on 6v.
I don't think a wide band will work correctly on a 6 volt circuit. An 02 sensor is basically just a resistor that provides a signal back to an ECM. If you only have half the voltage going in, you wont't have the correct signal current. A wide band also has a heater circuit built into it, so 6 volts won't cut it. Just food for thought, I've used a 14 volt cordless drill battery for bench testing, you may be able to rig something up to use for tuning purposes.
Someone here a few years back (Deve?) did quite a bit of work with the same idea you have....stovebolt engine tuning with an 02 sensor. Enter the magic combination of search terms into the search box, and you a LOT of info and back and forth.
I don’t recall how it all turned out. Pretty sure he was working with a 12v system, however.
Someone here a few years back (Deve?) did quite a bit of work with the same idea you have....stovebolt engine tuning with an 02 sensor. Enter the magic combination of search terms into the search box, and you a LOT of info and back and forth.
I don’t recall how it all turned out. Pretty sure he was working with a 12v system, however.
I did a quick search, but maybe need to go more in depth. I don't intend it to be a permanent installation, so I may just convert 6v to 12v to supply the Sensor, gauge etc. Or I can drive around with a spare 12v battery on the floor board until I get it tuned up, then remove it once I'm done. I'm less worried about the voltage part, and more curious to get feedback on what make/model of wide-band kits that folks have had success with.
Maybe when all is said and done I do a write up for everyone.
An O2 sensor is a vital part of a "closed loop" computer controlled fuel system. By itself, it's worthless, unless you can blink fast enough to read its output at least 10 times per second. I taught computer fuel systems for 20+ years in the public education system and a series of private seminars.
"No Comment" on Deve. Jerry
"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and eliminate all doubt!" - Abraham Lincoln Cringe and wail in fear, Eloi- - - - -we Morlocks are on the hunt! There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway Love your enemies and drive 'em nuts!
"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and eliminate all doubt!" - Abraham Lincoln Cringe and wail in fear, Eloi- - - - -we Morlocks are on the hunt! There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway Love your enemies and drive 'em nuts!
We had an Allen scope/analyzer with tailpipe sniffer for years which was OK for passenger cars but a miserable failure on race cars (sprint, super modified). An old timer whose cars ALWAYS were kick butt saw my struggles and solved my problem with the "wet pant leg" approach. He said to fatten the mixture till raw alcohol exiting the collector would make my pant leg wet and then lean it till the temp just started to rise. No more flame from exhaust or injector tubes and several season championships later I was a believer. All this to express that sometimes working under driving conditions is a better approach than hooking to a machine.
An O2 sensor is a vital part of a "closed loop" computer controlled fuel system. By itself, it's worthless, unless you can blink fast enough to read its output at least 10 times per second. I taught computer fuel systems for 20+ years in the public education system and a series of private seminars.
"No Comment" on Deve. Jerry
Ok, I’ll bite. What about the all in one A/F gauges like “artinva” links there. Do those read with some degree of accuracy?
I think the manufacturer might have the initials P.T.B.! "There's one born every minute!" If that item is combined with a dynamometer, a wet bulb thermometer to calculate relative humidity, and a barometer to assure the atmospheric pressure hasn't changed since the last mixture adjustment was made, it might be of some benefit. Temperature sensors in every exhaust port made a lot more sense, as we could spot when an individual cylinder was running a little lean. That's how we did it for years when tuning racing engines. Then if the thing lasted a thousand miles before it wore out or blew up, we were happy campers! Jerry
"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and eliminate all doubt!" - Abraham Lincoln Cringe and wail in fear, Eloi- - - - -we Morlocks are on the hunt! There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway Love your enemies and drive 'em nuts!
Are you tuning your rochester carb'd stovebolt with a computer, dynamometer, etc? I'm guessing no? I assume you do tune it however?
BB wants to tune his and apparently doesn't have the experience to tune it "by feel". Surely making adjustments, although for driving I think we're mostly talking about jetting, and watching the O2 meter on each subsequent test drive will give him some useful feedback. BB says nothing about tuning race engines. Crude adjustments on a crude system seems attainable and not a fools errand. (6v to 12v is a separate issue)
If it makes him feel better to do it that way, I'm deliriously happy for him. It will be almost as effective as driving to the swamps of Louisiana and having Marie LeVeau mumble some voodoo incantations over that Rochester while shaking a dead, plucked chicken over it!
I've seen a 5% change in raw dyno torque figures from morning to afternoon runs with no tuning changes whatsoever- - - -other than the fact a thunderstorm while we were having lunch changed the barometric pressure and humidity. Jerry
"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and eliminate all doubt!" - Abraham Lincoln Cringe and wail in fear, Eloi- - - - -we Morlocks are on the hunt! There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway Love your enemies and drive 'em nuts!
I'll admit to being completely confused. If you have a Rochester B or BC, exactly what sort of "tuning" will you (or most people) be doing to it? Idle mixture adjustment? You only need a tach to set your idle speed and a vacuum gauge for that...and maybe somebody with a nose or a spark plug wrench so you'll know how much too rich it is running. If you have a Rochester B or BC, thousands upon thousands (possibly millions) of words have been typed here and on countless other forums about the problems with the design of that carburetor, how it self-destructs with use and time, the use of ethanol laced gasoline in it and the unavoidable consequences thereof and every other flaw of its design. I spent over 3 months studying those things with an open and hopeful mind, enlisting the help of others well-versed in carburetor design, showing on this very forum how "everyman" can with just a small 3/8" thick piece of flat steel and a gas grill straighten the castings...which were bent on every single carburetor I purchased for the study, by the way. And I explained in detail and with images why the power circuit (which possibly was designed by communist vandals or somebody who for reasons of nepotism had been promoted WAY beyond his depth) is not going to work once the carburetor gets warped, when ethanol gas is used, etc, etc.
On the other hand, if you're capable of restoring the Rochester B to 100% "as new" condition, repairing some of the other flaws built into it and then if you're capable of using an air/fuel gauge to tell you how to re-jet it for either altitude or performance and if you're capable of tuning the power piston spring to operate on the correct vacuum amount...then I say "Go right ahead." Get a good gauge, though. Nothing made in China. You may as well use a sundial as one of those. I'd suggest the ones made by Innovate Motorsports. $250 plus shipping and tax ought to get you one. Or you could spend that $250+ on a much higher quality carburetor like a Carter YF or Zenith and probably be done with the whole she-bang.
~ Jon 1952 1/2 ton with 1959 235 | T5 with 3.07 rear end
To expand a little on Jon's excellent analysis of the situation, I have spent a considerable amount of time road testing vehicles with a portable 4-gas exhaust analyzer in the back seat, powered by a 115 volt inverter. The results of those test drives were pretty enlightening, particularly while climbing hills, towing trailers, or doing stuff other than light throttle cruise on a straight and level road. All it takes is a slight upgrade or a couple of extra passengers to completely change the power/cruise/economy fuel mixture. Doing anything in the shop except setting the idle mixture is a total waste of time and effort, unless there's a chassis dyno available to simulate road conditions.
The equipment we used on those road tests cost somewhere in the $5K range. You get what you pay for, equipment-wise! Jerry
"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and eliminate all doubt!" - Abraham Lincoln Cringe and wail in fear, Eloi- - - - -we Morlocks are on the hunt! There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway Love your enemies and drive 'em nuts!
There was another post of mine about the B and BC carburetors, maybe 3 or 4 pages detailing the various problems with the Rochester B design, how running the B and BC models through the "rebuilder mixmaster" could irreversibly render them useless and how those problems and some design mistakes played into the overall performance of that carburetor and why it fundamentally can't be improved. I even came back later and added a couple of pages about what I was attempting to improve the power piston...adding PTFE and Viton 0-rings plus other ideas. The image links in that post are gone now that Photobucket kicked the bucket. I'll try to resurrect it and when I do, I'll add a comparison about how the Carter YF works, what the Carter folks got right and why it is better for the owner of a 235 engine.
~ Jon 1952 1/2 ton with 1959 235 | T5 with 3.07 rear end
Incorrect information, provided by Mickey Mouse equipment designed to separate a gullible customer from his money, is probably worse than having none at all. Jerry
"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and eliminate all doubt!" - Abraham Lincoln Cringe and wail in fear, Eloi- - - - -we Morlocks are on the hunt! There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway Love your enemies and drive 'em nuts!
Im not sure how to even awnser this after all previous replies but I’ll give it a go.... I have worked on both carbs and FI (I generally dont mess with carbs on cars or trucks anymore) and I would not call myself a “pro tuna” by any means but I have dabbled in more than a few ecu’s and tuned cars “open loop” off of wideband readings. Does it work? Yes sometimes. Can it be inaccurate? Yes sometimes. Would I call it useless? No definitely not. I see both sides of the fence here as Hotrod says its basically useless to him...... but has been effective for me any many others BUT i have seen people chase their tails around O2 readings in a less than perfect setup that would either give false data OR had some type of variables of input (examples-different fuel types or octanes, vac leaks past worn throttle shafts, oil in combustion chamber) The O2 might help you dial it in but you reslly need to already have the “ear” for it or sometimes you will make a good running setup run like crap following a A/F number. Im very comfortable in open loop fuel tuning on setups making 300hp up to 1300hp with turbos. Aftermarket closed loop fueling setups have really only caught on in the last few years and I will say I LOVE THEM. Holley terminator and dominator or similar systems will literally go for a target you set and no matter what happens in between it will aim to run that target even if it means the car is on its last cup full of fuel and fuel pressure is 1psi it will hold injectors wide open to hit the target haha. Its great. So that was a long winded awnser but moral of the story is if your comfortable try it. Worst case scenario you re sell the gauge and sensor later.
******* just remembered also you should be aware that you can have a what you think is good AF like a 13.0 on guage and cylinder 1 might be 17.0 dead lean burning up. That AF sensor is a average of all cylinders. I have seen widebands readings from different cylinders on dynos read wildly different to the point that it made me question A LOT of things in my past that I built or tooned. 🤣
+1 on the variations between cylinders! I had a pull truck MOPAR 440 on the dyno one night, pulling 700+ HP at 6500 RPM on one 4 barrel and gasoline (Super Stock class rules didn't allow multiple carbs or alcohol) when one intake runner developed a tiny air leak. In less than 10 seconds that piston had a half dollar sized hole in it!
The Holley 4 barrel that GM put on one of the road-racing 427 Corvettes had four different-sized main jets to account for intake runner variables! Jerry
"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and eliminate all doubt!" - Abraham Lincoln Cringe and wail in fear, Eloi- - - - -we Morlocks are on the hunt! There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway Love your enemies and drive 'em nuts!
