TunerPro User Forum

Hello, i'm new in tuning world, i'm collecting my tuning gear and i really want your advice, i'm very limited in budget and also i cannot spend more than 100$ in one time because high custom import taxes in my country. (that sucks)

so, i'm searching wideband o2 sensor with gauge on ebay but kit from AEM costs about 160$, which is too much for me, as i said my max budget is 100$ to buy online. i see AEM kit contains too much stuff that i can replace them with simple stuff found in my garage. what i want is gauge and wideband sensor itself. wires, isolations, screws and that stuff i have plenty of them in my garage so it's not a problem, i dont want to pay for this overpriced items. i want to buy independently this stuff that is naccessarily needed to show correct AFR. i see Bosch sensors costs about 35$-40$ new on ebay, i'll buy it, i need also gauge which i see on ebay for like 20$ or so. is there anything that i need to buy? as i said wires screws and some diy stuff that needs simple "man" knowledge is not problem for me.

my build is E36 325i M50B25TU inside, with some mods for turbo, everything is made by me with help of my friends. it is budget build but we have too much work on it.

Thanks !!

hi gitto,

the AFR is a very important tool, because you will base your set up on your reading.
so the quality, realiability and stability is more than important to know what you are doing.
M50 is strong, but don't forget you will work on a turbo set up !

Old tuners in car factory, or old speed shop work with 5 gaz analysers.
It's much more powerfull to understand what is happening in the combustion process.
You can infer if temperature is too hot or if you have too much advance.
It's not only a matter of power or pollution, but how work your engine combustion.

AFR gauge at the end is the minimum tool to have if you want to tune your engine yourself.

Are you going to work alone ? or any friend to help you.
Because on high power cars, that's really complicated read gauges and driving in the same time.
having a passenger is helpfull, but this one need a very good level knwoledge of understanding the mappings, because he will have to traduce what is happening, when and why so ... where you need to correct.

Let's come back to your gauge resquest.
The best is probably to try to find one second hand.
Ask for local tuning shop, they have sometimes customers want to change their equipement or event the shop himself have some old second hand tool.
On aliexpress, you can find cheap AFR gauge for 30$ they look nice, but have no idea of the design quality. (chinese become more and more good)
Remember chineses have millions of cars on the road also, they can produce from crap to top level stuff.
Matter is to know what you are buying, so you can also loose money if you need to buy another one.

Another option is too get a sensor on a crashed car and buy only the gauge even on kit form if you want it even cheaper or have the electronic tool, but hard to garantee the whole system calibration.

Innovate have also good products, with data logging with you plan to work alone.