What is it and how does it work?
Thx!

 

i wideband is an o2 sensor that reads a "wider band" than narrowband o2 sensors. it's more accurate and is used for finding exact measurements for tuning whereas narrowbands are used by ur pcm to see whether your mix is rich or lean so it can adjust accordingly. when you hear of a wideband it usually includes a controller for it and a lot of times also a display ie:lm1. hope that helps a little bit.

 

Ok so why would you want to monitor the wideband when FI? Can you adjust on the fly?

 

With FI it is crucial to have the afr in the 11.5-11.8 range so you won't blow the motor. The wideband is an accurate way to tune the afr. You cannot adjust on the fly. It simply monitors the afr.

 

The narrowband O2 sensors are designed to switch from high voltage to low and back and forth when your AFR is at stoich, about 14.7:1. They are not good for accurately measuring any other AFR. If you want to know exactly what your AFR is, you need a wideband.

If you hook up a digital AFR gauge to a narrowband O2 sensor you will see what I am talking about. The light will just flash back and forth from lean to rich until you get on it, then it will just show rich.

 

So it's an aid for tuning as well as something I would want to monitor? Once tuned properly, what might cause the AFR to be to lean or rich and be a problem?

 

You could go lean if you run out of fuel pump of if an injector gets clogged up. I'm sure there are other reasons, I just can't think of any at the moment.

 

I gotchya. Thanks for the explanation guys.