air/fuel meter shootout

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themadscientist
Posts: 26254
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 3:30 pm
Car: R32 GTR, DR30 RS Turbo, BRZ, Lunchbox, NSR50 Sportster 883 Iron
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I just picked up the latest issue of Import Tuner. I don't normally lay down hard-earned money for this rice-rag but it actually had an article that was not about applying vinyl stickers or mounting a knockoff plastic GT wing to an automatic Honda DX. It was a comparison of air/fuel meters and it was done pretty well so I wanted to share with everyone the results.

They tested them all at the same time in a pipe arranged so that none of the sensors were shrouded and ran them alongside the unobtanium Laboratory-spec NTK unit. (the NTK is top shelf stuff used by the manufacturers when testing new vehicles). All sensors were of the wideband variety, not those cheesy autometer cylon guages(old metaphor I know, I'm old!)

The players;HKS A/F knock amp $890.00reads a/f to three decimal places, can be wired in to OEM knock sensor for warning purposes, can be dataloged to an external medium; laptap, engine management system?comments "only unit with NTK LH1 sensor", "identical numbers to NTK"

Motec PLM-LSU $1299.00(not a typo, the name says it all)reads a/f to three decimal places, dataloging.comments "fastest sampling rate in the group"

EFI systems UEGO 1000 $449.00reads a/f to two decimal places, upcoming model supposed to datalog.comments "tended to read richer by a few points over the majority of the field"

AEM $????dial-type gauge, scale only reads down to 11.0, analog output for datalogging.comments"monitoring tool for carburetted engines"

Zeitronics Zt-2 $269(with datalogging software, $389 with LCD displayreads a/f to two decimal points lambda to three, can also display boost EGT RPM and TPS,comments " this meter went toe-to-toe with the the NTK and Motec", "screen scratches and dents to easy"

Innovate Motorsports LM-1 $349+$99 for more analog imputswill datalog to onboard memory and display no laptop needed, looks like BIG multimeter not an on-dash gauge, will store 44 minutes including RPM and 4 additional analog imputs($99 extras)

Turbo XS Tuner $699.00includes knock sensor and takes 1/8" headpnone jack to listen to it, can plug into Gameboy advance to monitor and datalog

The test results. they captured data at four RPM levels, NTK sensor is considered "perfect" and all others are trying to track with it. two tests with the sensors in different spots on the test pipe.

test#1 Idle 3501 5154 7200NTK 13.6 11.6 11.1 10.7HKS 13.6 11.7 11.4 10.5Motec 13.7 11.7 11.2 10.7EFI systems 13.7 11.1 10.8 10.1AEM 13.7 11.5 Offscale OffscaleZeitronics 13.7 11.9 11.1 10.7Innovate 11.2 11.5 10.9 10.8Turbo XS 3.8(typo?) 12.0 11.5 10.6

Test#2NTK 13.4 11.6 10.9 10.7HKS 13.4 11.4 10.4 OffscaleMotec 13.6 11.7 11.7 10.7EFI systems 13.5 11.0 10.8 10.1AEM 13.6 11.4 Offscale OffscaleZeitronics 13.6 11.8 11.9 10.7Innovate 13.7 11.4 11.7 10.8Turbo XS 13.7 11.9 10.9 11.1

here are the websites;HKS, http://www.hksusa.comMotec, http://www.motec.comEFI Systems, http://www.efisystems.comAEM, http://www.aempower.comZeitronics, http://www.zeitronix.comInnovate, http://www.tuneyourengine.comTurbo XS http://www.turboxs.com

Jeez what a PITA that was, don't say I never dun nuthin fer ya.

;)


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Hijacker
Posts: 14373
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

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i'm pleasantly surprised by this! at first, i was expecting the crap AFR guages that try to represent the 1v signal coming off the stock O2 sensor


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