I need to dial in my carb and want to use a wideband O2 sensor as a diagnostic device. The sensor only needs to mount temporarily. Since the car has 3" exhaust with cutouts, I ordered a set of header reducers and a walker 2.5" pipe with an O2 bung pre-installed. The other option was a unit that mounts an O2 in the tailpipe but I figure the cutouts get me closer to the engine.
The plan was to hook up the O2 to a basic multimeter, which would work for narrowband but apparently not for the wideband. So, back to the drawing board. I'm searching online for a cheap wideband gauge but that isn't going so well. The least expensive seems to be the AEM 30-4110 at around $170, which I have a hard time justifying. I'm thinking there HAS to be a super cheap way to link the O2 to either my phone or a laptop with basic freeware that will give me a digital AFR readout.
Again, this is a temporary, less than ideal hook up for the sake of having an extra layer of feedback for carb tuning. I know very little about oxygen sensors or electronics so whatever you suggest will have to be simple to operate. I'd like to use a LSU 4.9 sensor, which seems to be the standard in 2023. From what I've read, the 4.2s need to be calibrated, while the 4.9s do not.
Thanks
Cheap sounds like your mission statement
When it comes to quality, I haven't found any automotive diagnosis devices "cheap" yet.
I bought and have used a Innovate LM1 wide ban System and then upgraded it later to LC1 dual wide ban system later, It has HELP me a bunch on tuning carbs in the past
I highly recommend buying a good O2 system, not design and develop your own
You can use it now and if you don't want to keep it sell it later when your done learning on how to tune
all the circuits in this carb. Are you done hot rodding and are you SURE you won't want to the O2 system again on another car or engine project later
I have a A.S. degree in electronics and have been drag racing and winning and building Mopar H.P. street and strip motors for a long time, since the late 1960s. I worked for a Telephone company for 33 in customer services in outside plant years and know a little bit about electricity and electronic testing equipment. There are NO good CHEAP multimeters
I have several old Tripplett analog multimeters and another later Radio Shack cheaper digital read out multimeter and one good Fluke 80 multimeter that has served me well for a lot of ears, the bes testst instrument works the best
Can you afford to burn up a good motor due to a faulty O2 system you designed and developed yourself
I've burnt up and broken a lot of race partts in my pursuit of going faster and helping other racers, you can too or try and use thier helpi in preventing you from doing the same mstakes on your own
Good luck, either way. Stay safe, don't crash because of bad, cheap or broken cheap parts
