Tapping into front O2 sensor

Since the front O2 sensor is a wideband, can, those wires be tapped to use as a wideband O2 sensor as long as you have the wiring to connect straight to your laptop/gauge? I was tossing this idea around in my head as something I might try next month but wanted to see if anyone had any glaring reasons that it wouldn't work.

The stock O2 in the stock location provides useless readings under boost. It only really works if you relocate the sensor to somewhere post turbo. Not sure if you can tap into it but you could monitor it via romraider of cobb AP II.

For some reason that basic concept slipped my mind when i was thinking about this.

I think NSFW has his stock sensor relocated to a bung on the DP..he monitors it via laptop. I think he also has a dedicated WB02 mounted right next to the stock one (on the DP). From what I recall - the stock O2 is almost as useful as a WB02 when mounted there.

Well the stock one is used for fueling adjustments, which is why it needs to be as close as possible to where all 4 exhaust ports meet, right? I don't know how much of a difference relocating it to the DP bellmouth would make in terms of fueling responsiveness, but tapping into it there would allow you to use it for fueling changes and in place of an aftermarket wideband. Unless there is an issue with a wideband pulling double duty.

I don't think the latency would be a big issue when adjusting fuel trims - but not sure. I would opt to just log it (instead of tapping into it). It should work.

 

I think the stock O2 is capped on how rich it will read, around 12ish AFR. Anything richer will not show up...not sure you could use it to tune high end WOT.

I thought that the sensor would give much richer readings than that but the ECU wouldn't interpret it, but that you could bypass that by tapping into the wires.

hmmm..I dunno. Try it.

I have tried something similar to this. I have a Autometer Wideband that has an output signal. I wired a narrow band Gauge into the signal and it gave me a reading. It read the same as my wideband but was much more responsive and undelayed.

Just to bump this the 5th gen has the front o2 sensor immediately post turbo in the downtube, which should be an ideal location. However the ECU only reads down to 11.14. I logged the AF sensor #1 current and saw that even though the current hits -1.30 mA at the 11.14 AFR, the sensor continues down to -1.62 in places where my map calls for 10ish AFRs. I suppose if this could be scaled properly it could be useful, but I still dont knowwhat the rich floor would be

There was a nice discussion about this here, although it's 4th gen. LittleBlueGT even went as far as to tweak the scaling on his front O2 sensor.