How and when does this become important? I have searched all over, and I haven't been able to find a really good description of why and what purpose it serves to have these real time readings in the cab. I am doing an L motor swap in my Screw and hope I dont have to spend another 400 bucks on something that I MAY not need right now, or for my application. Do the stock L's come with A/F gauges? narrow or wideband? Would it be OK, and more economical for me to get some datalogging info from doing some dyno pulls and sending them to my tuner? I could get that for under 100 bucks. I am not going to be changing a whole lot on the setup after the initial install. Just going with a 4#er, custom tune, and keeping the rest stock, maybe a cat back exhaust system, but thats it, and then its staying like that. So is it going to be completely necessary for me go invest that kind of money on the Wideband A/F system for what I'm doing? Thanks.

 

Stock L's come with a narrow band O2. There really isn't a need for a wideband for your truck unless you want the gauge or are planning on modifying your tune.

Any dyno place you go to worth it's salt will have a logging wideband that you can use to generate info for your tuner.

 

i would highly recommend a wide band guage. Is it necessary....no. Is it a good tool to have if you are modding......absolutely.

I have a wideband, fuel pressure guage , which i believe is equally important, a coolant temp guage ( not just a hot / cold indicator) and a boost guage.

Wideband is real good if you need to make some changes in your tune and don't want to have to go to the dyno and fork over the cash.

You figure 4 trips to the dyno and it's paid for.

 

Alot of people get them for either 1.)insurance (i.e. peace of mind) or 2.) tuning. It really isn't a bad idea once you start going above the stock boost levels. I'll admit that mine wasn't at the top of my list, but I got it because I was supposed to get tuned at the track. I am now using it for information since I'm getting e-mail tuned by JJ over on NLOC. To add, it was a livesaver this winter, we had alot of 20* +/- mornings here in VA. The first time I saw my A/F go lean in that weather I knew I needed to load up one of my less aggressive tunes.