Factory installed O2 meter.

Hi There,

I am new to tuning and trying to figure it out how to re-flash the ECU not tuning aftermarket ecu.

So, I am planing to re-flash the BMW 323i E46 with all information I have learn from the course.

And I have found that in my car, it has O2 meter installed somewhere in the exhaust line that feed the info to ECU.

Which I can read and log it with software via OBD2 port.

(http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1830510-Diagnostic-program-with-realtime-graph-view)

Can I use this instead of AFR meter like LM-2? (for now)

What is the difference between factory installed O2 meter and aftermarket such as LM-2

Thank you,

Paritat

Factory installed o2 sensors are usually narrow band while tuning o2 sensors are usually wideband. The difference between narrow band and wide band is the actual measurement "band". Narrow band o2 sensors are designed to be accurate near lambda 1.00 give or take .02-.03 but wide band sensors are designed to be accurate over a much wider "band" from 0.70 to 1.10 so tuning full throttle on a narrow band sensor will not be as accurate as tuning full throttle on a wide band.

G'Day Michael, Cheers for the answer mate.

Michael's comments are right, a narrow band sensor isn't any use to us for tuning. Many late model cars are now fitted with wideband sensors and even the output from these I find is often questionable. Invest in a wideband meter and you won't be sorry.

Just to clarify when you say use a wideband sensor - is this as a direct replacement for the existing one or a standalone item as I'm a bit confused about this - if you are tunng a customers car over your own do you need to actually swap out the sensor for a wide band and then refit narrow band after tuning?

If the car is using a narrow band it is useless during tuning so I usually remove it, deactivate the feedback loop and instal an aftermarket system such as the Inovate LM2 or my dyno wideband. On more modern cars they use wideband sensors from the factory. These are ok for monitoring but for tuning I still prefer to use a known good set up which is calibrated. Andre has just published an article in the Articles section, you'll find this at the top of the page next to the tab for the forum and ' My Dashboard'

Or clicking here:

https://www.hpacademy.com/technical-articles/tuning-tools/

Many thanks for that.

Martin

I'm late to the game here, but the Innovate LC-1 that I've used has two outputs. One of those outputs can be programmed to output voltages in the range of the factory sensor; while still less resolution than standard 0-5V wideband, it will be much more accurate than the factory sensor outside of stoic.

@Duts87ss, yes the LC1 and LC2 both can replicate the output from a narrowband sensor. This is useful if you want to replace your factory narrowband sensor with something that's actually useful for tuning, while still keeping the factory ECU happy. You can also use this feature to trick the factory ECU into targeting a slightly different cruise mixture - Basically telling the narrowband output to swing rich and lean at a different AFR from stoic.