Brainless Nissan Skyline driver!!

[UNSWTIM]

I just saw something that made me laugh on the inside. Actually, I was pissing myself laughing!

Driving next to me down the highway was an R33 skyline.

The guy had a lambda sensor mounted beyond the tip of the muffler, and a big cable passing into the passenger side seat, where his mate was sitting with a laptop. The sensor was just your standard Bosch LSU type sensor. (Yes its true, shamelessly I can tell an LSU from a few metres away by the sensor and the connector)

Do you think that this guy realises that this sensor will be ingesting an enormous amount of oxygen from around the moving vehicle. These sensors are made to be placed inside the flow of exhaust gases, about half a meter from the engine/turbo, not all the way down the end of the car beyond the tip of the muffler, in a free stream of fresh air.

Id love to see his spark plugs and piston crowns after this intelligent tuning activity!!

Just thought id share my funny experience.

[Mikey Antonakakis]

At least he won't tune it lean....

[jrickert]

I saw something similar with a WRX about a month ago. The sensor was suspended by what looked to be a coat hanger about a foot beyond the tip of the tailpipe. If the guy had stopped i would have stopped with him just to set the poor bastard straight.

[UNSWTIM]

Haha, yeh I had to restrain myself from such an argument. I figured that he had missed the point by sooo far that it just wasn't worth my time.

[mech5107]

Wideband sensors can be mounted away from the engine itself.
Usualy, when tunning on the dyno, you use a special device to mount the lamda in the muffler, but it's built that way it get's only exhaust and not air.

http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/xcart/product_image.php?imageid=32

[coastertrav]

Originally posted by UNSWTIM:

Do you think that this guy realises firstly that tuning your car while your drive is pretty pointless

I am going to have to strongly disagree with you here. On a street driven vehicle (which I assume this is) it makes a lot of sense to tune on the street. You will hit just about every area you spend 95% of your time in anyways, and if you use det cans you can even tune ignition timing.

I do agree that doing full throttle fourth gear pulls on a public highway in a high horsepower vehicle is extremely stupid, but myself and a bunch of my close friends have all done street tuning with great success.

[Muad'Dib]

Dude it get terrible fuel economy because I tuned it! The smoke coming out the tailpipe is from all the extra POWER.

[DART-CG]

About that style of tuning: have a look at Top Gear S12 E3. In the end they also try to "tune" a family sedan Renault for $10000 to post the same lap time as an Evo X. Absolutely hilarious when they start mounting AP Racing 6 pot calipers and a Honda F1 rear wing which results in a two second slower time http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif Worth the look though. Haven't loughed that hard for long www.finalgear.com (http://www.finalgear.com)

[UNSWTIM]

Originally posted by coastertrav:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by UNSWTIM:

Do you think that this guy realises firstly that tuning your car while your drive is pretty pointless

I am going to have to strongly disagree with you here. On a street driven vehicle (which I assume this is) it makes a lot of sense to tune on the street. You will hit just about every area you spend 95% of your time in anyways, and if you use det cans you can even tune ignition timing.

I do agree that doing full throttle fourth gear pulls on a public highway in a high horsepower vehicle is extremely stupid, but myself and a bunch of my close friends have all done street tuning with great success. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

But, was your lambda sensor 100mm inside your muffler, with the correct mounting device, or was it 100mm outside of your muffler in a nice stream of fresh air. Id like to think you did the prior.

[coastertrav]

Originally posted by UNSWTIM:

But, was your lambda sensor 100mm inside your muffler, with the correct mounting device, or was it 100mm outside of your muffler in a nice stream of fresh air. Id like to think you did the prior.

Oh, mine is mounted 14" from the turbo outlet, so it is done properly. I wasn't arguing that that was seriously retarded, but the statement that street tuning was useless.

[JamesWolak]

Yeah street/track tuning is huge you cant just tune a car on a dyno. I feel like I can only get 60% of my calibration done on a dyno especially with fueling.

I really don't think the whole wideband at the tip of the exhaust is the worst thing in the world. My biggest issue with it is that you have to get your lamda sensor to temp and he probably doesnt have a heater on it. Plus you will have some huge delay in your reading but if you run steady state you would be okay. I would never suggest doing it, put if it was my only option besides a narrow band i would take it.