New wideband install, after tuning "wrong" on truck for 5 years
 

...or not.

Truck is 2002 Z71 w/5.3, 373's
Ebay longtubes, w/ORY pipe
Home Ported throttle body
LS-1 F body cooling fans
Home-made fresh air induction w/modded stock airbox, and 4" intake tube
3" replacement Y pipe back exhaust, generic AP brand w/big old muffler
Corvette servo

Bought an AEM UEGO wideband kit off of Ebay...$137.00 shipped, so I bought one for the truck and the car (71 Chevelle w/439ci BBC).

I mounted it in an A pillar pod for permanent install. Install was very straightforward, but I did have to weld in the new sensor bung as I wasn't able to remove any of the plugs from my 4+ year old Ebay headers... no biggie.

Everyone everywhere has always said you simply cannot "tune" using narrowband, stock O2 sensors, but that's how I've done it for the last 5 years using HPTuners. My truck's always ran very well, so I did it "the way I've always done it"...

Figured it was time to "do it right"...

Zero changes to tune, just added the wideband kit:
Cruising at light throttle, I get A/F readings from 14.6 to 15.3+
Light to Moderate throttle, higher loads (uphill or easy passing), 13.8 to 14.7
Full lean whenever DFCO kicks in
12.8 rock steady at WOT

So...why can't you tune with narrow band stock oxygen sensors again??? :shrug:

Not trying to start a debate...just sharing my findings...
I guess I was just lucky as my truck's been tuned and re-tuned probably a hundred times over the last 5 years.

Thats cool! What were your o2 Mv at WOT?

You can tune with narrowbands on mild setups, understand that your truck is pretty much stock when it comes to tuning. On a FI setup there is no way I would use the narrowbands.

I always shot for .890v. That seemed to be where the sweet spot was.

100% agree. I just thought it was pretty darn cool that I was pretty much dead on doing it the way most say can't be done. ;)

BUT.....

I had a supercharged laundry room built 306 in one of my old Mustangs and tuned it using the stock narrowbands with great success. Would I do it today? No. But back in the early 2000's when I built/raced that car (502rwhp/542rwtq, 10.24@133), tuning via narrowbands worked just fine. :D

By the way, I actually had no intention of buying a WB for the truck. I wanted one for my car. Since I dumped a good bit of coin building a roller cammed, aluminum headed big block for it a few months ago, I wanted to make sure it was "safe". ;)

Paypal had an instant 10% rebate, so for right around $320, I got two AEM UEGO wideband kits, and 2 A pillar gauge pods, one for the truck, one for the car. :thumb:

I have tuned low boost on narrowbands before, but its hard to dial in fuel just right so you have to go conservative to be safe. So on that note, you can do it but you are leaving some on the table for the sake of safety. I have seen narrowband readings of 920mv read anywhere from 11.6 afr to 12.6 so thats a large margin IMO to trust them.

Agreed. I think that's the biggest issue in trying to use narrowbands...their inconsistency. Like you mention, a 1 point a/f swing is large, and enough to do some serious damage on higher powered, especially forced induction, setups.

Like my original post said...I guess I was just lucky. ;)

Can ya PM me the details on where you picked up that WB at please ? Thanks bud .

Absolutely!

I wouldnt want to tune anything thats more than mild mods... but this is still really interesting. I'm still wet behind the ears in the tuning game, but I'm learning quick.