Wideband O2 Sensor set-up

[millarg]

Happy New Year all ,

Added an Innovate wide-band O2 sensor and gauge for my 78 SC 3.0 Bitz EFI.

Eager to fit it and my cat bypass pipe and not wishing to waste time by reading the instructions I installed and cranked the car up.

Car running OK but gauge reading low 8's, finally check instructions and realize that I should have run things initially with O2 sensor not in the exhaust, so that it could get a baseline O2 level.

It's been this way for a couple of months, during which time I've probably put 300 miles on her - reading on gauge has been slowly creating up, reads in the 11's now, but always 7-8 on start-up.

Question, is it too late to calibrate or do I simply unscrew it (do I need to disconnect the battery for awhile?) Then run in open air to get the baseline????

TIA

[tobluforu]

It's not to late, I calibrate mine before each use.

[millarg]

Good news, but how do you do it, as above or do you use the innovate software - which I honestly haven't messed with

[K Sykes]

you can calibrate it in the pipe if it's been sitting for 12 hours or so. That allows any residual fuel vapors to disperse and the air in the pipe to be pretty much the same as the atmosphere. There should have been a calibration button that was part of the wiring package. I Forget the exact instructions, but it takes a min or two to do.

[VFR750]

I think we are assuming you installed the calibration button and LED indicator.

If you did, the process is fairly simple:

1) Cold engine. Remove sensor from the exhaust, and disconnect the O2 sensor from the controller

2) turn on the ignition (power up the Controller) and wait >10 seconds to clear the heater calibration.

3) Turn off the ignition and reconnect the sensor, and wait >10 seconds.

4) Turn ignition back on. Slow and steady blinking means the sensor is warming up. Then it will calibrate the heater, (Fast blinking). When the LED is steady on, you are done with the controller calibration. This should take 2 minutes or less.

5) Push and hold the calibration button for 3 second and release. The LED should turn off. After about 10-15 seconds the O2 sensor should be calibrated to "Free air" which should show up as ~21.8 on the O2 gage. The LED should be on, no blinking.

6) Turn off the ignition and reinstall the O2 Sensor. Do not touch the hot sensor tip.

You should be good to go with a calibrated heater and O2 baseline. You could leave the O2 sensor in the exhaust if the car has been siting for a while, but I would not recommend it, simply because the assumption is the exhaust gasses have been replaced with fresh air. This may not be true if the O2 Sensor is deep in the plumbing and fresh air is not naturally pushed into the pipes. It takes only a few seconds to do, so you might as well do it to be properly calibrated.

Calibration should last for quite a while, unless the sensor gets confused. The recommendation to keep it isolated from the heat of the exhaust pipe is likely true, I have not added a copper heat sink and I find on hot days, the sensor goes nutty and stops working. After that, I do a free air recalibration.