[Razorback1980]

First...thanks for asking as I noticed my post said to twist but was suppose to say NOT twist.

Hey JivenJim...here is what I know and I'll try to leave out any personal opinions I have until the end. I know the connection between the wires must be a good one to carry the proper voltage up to the computer, you don't want to lose voltage as this is a pretty important reading which is why twisting is NOT sufficient. That is a poor connection and will lose voltage through that connection. I know the oxygen sensor reads the oxygen content in the exhaust and it reads it on the oustide of the exhaust and compares the two which regulates the voltage sent to the computer. That's oversimplified but I'll give you the science behind that if you like.

Now for my opinions....Most of what I have read says to crimp the wires although the really good car people I hang with say solder. Unless the wire was a special alloy of some type, I really don't think solder should reduce or lose voltage in the connection which is the only concern but I don't know that for a fact...I would actually think it would be much better. Should be an easy thing to check though. Here is where I THINK it came from. The oxygen sensor reads the oxygen content of the air on the oustide of the exhaust. It does this by circulating the air from outside of the exhaust into the sensor and if anything plugs that circulation, it will not be able to read the oxygen content of the inside exhaust gases correctly. So if you decide to splice the wires close to the sensor and some solder runs down the wire and plugs any of that circulation, you have just damaged your O2 sensor and it will not work properly. If you splice the wires on the bench, it really shouldn't be a problem at all. Using a crimp splice will always work...using solder will only work if done correctly, so I think that is why they suggest to crimp over solder. Personally, I always use the OEM one, but if I were to replace mine, I would solder but do it on the bench away from the sensor and then check it with an ohm meter. If you do it that way, you should be ok. I have heard the wire intices the oxygen from the exhaust into the sensor but I don't believe that is true at all...in fact you wouldn't want to do that as it would give you a false reading since you are trying to determine the PERCENTAGE of oxygen in the exhaust gases. If you pulled every oxygen molecule into the sensor, you wouldn't know the percentage, you would only know the total count of oxygen molecules and you couldn't compute air/fuel ratios with that.

Another thing I believe you do not want to do is buy the three wire and then not connect the heater wires. If you do that, the oxygen sensor will not work correctly. Those sensors are designed to operate at a specific temperature and the heater doesn't just run to warm it up, in most cases it runs constantly. If you do install a three or four wire sensor, make sure you hook up the heater properly. If your car was designed for a single wire, it's best to get a single wire sensor.