Recently i have gotten interested in an air/fuel guage to mount into my vehicle. After alot of searching im am confused as to narrowband and wideband o2 sensors. I have been reading up on the difference. I do know how an Oxygen sensor works and what it does to the engine and mixture but:

Wideband O2 Sensors -- What is the difference from narrowband O2 sensors?
Narrowband O2 sensors are designed only to measure the stoichiometric air-fuel-ratio (AFR) for gasoline, i.e. 14.7:1. Wideband O2 sensors have a broader effective range of sensing. The effective ranges of narrowband (upper image) and wideband O2 sensors (lower image) are represented in the two graphs to the right . The voltage range between the two black bars indicates the greater range of the AFR in which a wideband O2 sensor can operate. Narrowband sensors can only tell you when the AFR is 14.7:1. Although it can also tell you when you are richer or leaner, it cannot tell you by how much. A wideband O2 sensor can.

But why is this necessary? isnt telling you whether you are rich or lean good enough?
Is a wideband for people who run race fuel?
what are the tuning disadvantages of owning a narrow band as opposed to a wideband? would i get a better tune with a wideband? and shouldn't the "tuner" already have access to this information during the tune?

Lastly due to localities and whatnot im not sure ill be able to get a true "custom" tune in the really near future but is it better for me to still have a wideband? would this help a remote tuner? lastly is there any advantage having a narrow band rather than nothing?

I appreciate the insight here guys. Please if you are just guessing dont post here.

 

*BUMP*
Come on, 67 people viewed this so far in "drivetrain modification" but no one knows their beans?

 

I have no more experience with the 2 types than you, however, IMO, the wideband has the advantage of telling you exactly how lean or rich you are, as you said. I'd consider that very helpful because the more you know, the better. It would give you serious benefits if you were to be tweaking the car on a regular basis.

 

This may help...
http://www.competitiondata.com/air_f...2_wb_vs_nb.htm

 

I APPRECIATE THE RESPONSES!
but...
shouldn't the "tuner" already have access to this information during the tune?
and
Lastly due to localities and whatnot im not sure ill be able to get a true "custom" tune in the really near future but is it better for me to still have a wideband? would this help a remote tuner? lastly is there any advantage having a narrow band rather than nothing?

 

Send Hubie a PM...he's "DR FUH" on here. The dude is wicked cool, very easy to talk to(unless he's in his Clubman using Bluetooth) and knows his stuff. He will answer all your questions concerning wide vs narrow, and if he can't, he'll probably refer you to Mike at Mynes Performance... between the two of them you should be good to go.

 

If all you plan on doing is getting your OEM ECU reflashed...then there is no need for you to go out and buy a wideband. Widebands allow for much more accurate tuning, but as you mentioned tuners typically have wideband sensors in your tail pipe while performing the dyno tuning. If you have your own thats just less wear on their sensor and possibly $10 saved in your pocket.

This is why you'll occasionally see AFR printed on a dyno along with the hp/tq readings. The tuner was using a wideband sensor, their own wideband sensor to tune. In some cases having your own does not help as (unless you have dataloging capability) you can not plot AFR vs RPM which would making tuning difficult.

Hope this makes sense

 

^^^ exactly

If you aren't planning on data logging and tuning yourself, then you don't need a wideband, but if you are going to spend the money on a A/F guage setup, how much more would it be for a wideband vs narrow? If it's next to nothing, why not go for it. More knowledge is better IMO... at least in this sense.

 

Wide bands typically have their own O2 sensors, which requires another bung welded onto the exhaust manifold or header. This means more work and money.

 

This is so weird...really it is... because you found a picture of narrow band off some site you googled right? And you didn't get any information on it? Well, the difference between narrow band and wideband for tuning is simple. A narrow band sensor is mainly designed to let the ECU know what is 14.7:1. This range is only from 14.0:1 to 15.1:1 very narrow range. When you are on power, the ECU goes into open loop and doesn't care about the air/fuel ratio. When you are on power, the air/fuel ratio ranges in the 13.0:1 to 10:0:1 which a narrow band can't read. So if you are trying to tune your air/fuel ratio to 11.5:1 throughout the power curve... your narrow band sensor can't read that. So that's where a wideband comes into play. Since a wide band sensor voltage ranges from 0 to 5 volts it has a wider range to read lambda and air/fuel ratios instead of narrow band's 0 to 1 volt range. A wideband can read air/ful ratios of 8.82:1 to 17.64:1 see that wide range? Hint (wideband). You can tune your air/fuel ratios between that range. So if your car is 10.0:1 and your target air/fuel is 11.5:1 you can tune the ECU fuel map by leaning it out to try to get your target 11.5:1 AFR on the dyno or on a street tune. I hope this helps.

 

Jaytech pretty much nailed it. An air/fuel ratio of 14.7:1 is the ratio where (theoretically, at least), there's just enough air in the mixture for all of the fuel to burn - no more, no less. That's with "pure" gasoline, though. Additives such as detergents, MBTE, or ethanol generally push the ideal A/F ratio a little richer, perhaps to around 14.1:1.

A narrow-band A/F meter will only tell you if you're at or very near 14.7:1. Unfortunately, that ratio is only useful for steady-state, low-load cruising. You don't want the ratio to stay at 14.7:1 when you're making serious power, because that mixture burns very hot and will damage your engine under heavy load. That's why the ideal A/F mixture under power may be as rich as 10:1.

So if you just wanted to tweak your fuel settings for maximum highway efficiency and monitor the A/F ratio under those conditions, a narrow-band A/F might be useful, but it's not going to be good for much else.

 

Hey, Thats the explanation i was looking for.
I did google and read up on narrow and wide but my searching could only bring up the differences and not why you would want one over another. For me google is great but its sometimes hard too find the information im after due to the overwhelming amount of info google tries to retrieve for you. I even asked one of my friends who has a wideband O2 sensor and instead of explaining why you would want one over the other for tuning he started to try and "sell" me one and tell me about what all it can do. IMHO i just want to understand something before i buy it, so...Whether you answer my questions with support or contempt i still appreciate the bottom line!

Thanks