3.6 Wideband sensor location

[Bullfighter]

Anybody install a wideband on their 3.6 Pent? I need to know where to put the sensor. Pre or post cat. Not a lot of room at all to put it before the cat because of the head/manifold cat combo. I don't want to guess this one and other forums are all over the place. Some say pre cat, some say post cat. Another words where do I put my bung-hole?

[UselessPickles]

Wideband O2 sensor should be before the cat for best accuracy. After the cat can still be useful for full-throttle tuning because the amount of O2 used up by the cat is very small compared to the amount of exhaust flow at full throttle. At part throttle, the cat would affect downstream O2 readings more.

[Bullfighter]

Wideband O2 sensor should be before the cat for best accuracy. After the cat can still be useful for full-throttle tuning because the amount of O2 used up by the cat is very small compared to the amount of exhaust flow at full throttle. At part throttle, the cat would affect downstream O2 readings more.
Thanks Pickles, I know you run a turbo so I know you have a lot of knowledge on the exhaust manifold etc but where do you see room to put the bung before the cat? Hell if there is room for the bung I still gotta drill a hole and weld It in and it is tight. Thanks I appriciate your help and knowledge.

[UselessPickles]

Sorry, can't really help you there. You'll just need to get up in there with and O2 sensor and bung to see where it could possibly physically fit, and mark the location. then you'll most likely have to remove the pipe to do the drilling and welding. Also consider installation. Will there be enough room to install the pipe with the sensor pre-installed? Is there enough room to get a wrench up there to tighten the sensor if you need to install the sensor after installing the pipe?

Also, by installing a sensor there, you are only monitoring one side of the engine. Is this good enough? Should you install a sensor on both sides?

And is it safe to install a wideband O2 sensor that close to the head (location of highest exhaust temps)? Might want to talk to the O2 sensor manufacturer about that.

Why don't vehicle manufacturers just use wideband O2 sensors to begin with? Seems like they could design the engine control systems to more precisely control fueling if they always had actual fuel ratio feedback, rather than only using narrow band sensors to target stoichiometric mixture when in closed loop.

[UselessPickles]

It might be best for you to find a local performance shop and see what they recommend.

[Bullfighter]

It might be best for you to find a local performance shop and see what they recommend.

Thank you Pickles again. I've been all over these 3.6's and at this point I feel like a Chrysler specialist. I 100% agree on,I will only be getting a reading off of 1 bank but installing 2 wideband sensors and gauges is a bit too much. Probably the best thing to do but damn you gotta know when to bow out haha. That thought occurred to me. At this point I'm looking at the pass/side to install since the drivers side has practically no room. The primary O2 sensor and steering shaft and cat take up most of the room. As far as being to close and burning up the sensor it says to mount as close to the head as possible and the O2 sensors are right there so that shouldn't be a problem. I don't trust shops doing my work, I've seen many grenades happen around here with local shops

[gbaumann]

Hi Bullfighter. There are a lot of custom setups out there and more data is better when a tuner has a car on the dyno. That said, wideband 02 sensors are typically installed on a single side, before the CAT and near the head (bank1/cylinder1, if you can). My Pentastar is out on a stand and the original JK exhaust is on the floor. If I can I'll look it over this weekend and see if a logical spot jumps out at me. I'll snap a couple of pics if I can.

[2k13jk]

I installed my wideband sensor in the collector pipe were both header pipes meet up.

[kevlar21]

can someone explain why a wideband sensor is important and how you go about feeding this data into the ECU?

[UselessPickles]

It's important for tuning. If you want to get custom tunes done, especially remote tuning via email, then you need to be able to log actual air:fuel ratio so that the tuner can compare the actual reading to the commanded value and figure out how to adjust the tune to get more perfect fuel mixtures.

You don't feed the signal to the ECU (can't be done; ECU has no input for wideband sensor). You feed the signal to a fuel ratio gauge if you want to monitor it as you drive, and also feed the signal to some device that you will be using to record data logs. For example, the Diablosport inTune supports up to 2 external analog signals that can be logged along with all the other stuff it can log.

[kevlar21]

ah! thanks... i just purchased a custom tune yesterday from here http://www.getoverkilled.ca/wrangler.html and it includes a rental wideband sensor. i didnt realize thats what i was purchasing. i havent heard back from them yet but i will keep the forum up to date if i make any progress and my tune gets better.

[UselessPickles]

That wideband sensor clamps to the tailpipe and is only for temporary use while recording a data log. The wideband sensors being discussed in this thread are more permanently installed to the exhaust pipe closer to the engine, like the factory O2 sensors, and typically come with a gauge to mount inside the vehicle.

[j0n]

ah! thanks... i just purchased a custom tune yesterday from here http://www.getoverkilled.ca/wrangler.html and it includes a rental wideband sensor. i didnt realize thats what i was purchasing. i havent heard back from them yet but i will keep the forum up to date if i make any progress and my tune gets better.

I'm interested in their E85 tunes! Please let me know how their gasoline tunes work out.