Diy Tuning

[El Andrew]

Ive had a MTX for a year on my turbo Rotary, sensor died within 2000km of street use.
Innovate wheren't overalls helpfull and a bit of a pain to liaise with due to time zones.
I'd made sure to wire n plumb the unit 100% as per instructions knowing the reputation the company has for warranty claims.
After explaining to them the short sensor life they just said: #cosrotary.
Well documented that the sensors don't like rich mixtures n oil in the fuel, but others have had much success with other brands in Rotaries.
My tuner does alot of rotaries and said his sensors last a lot longer than that on his dyno, hopefully I just got a dud one first up.
 
Communication to the gauge is via serial port aswell which is very 2005....
 
If I was to purchase again , I'd buy this :
 
https://www.bmotorsports.com/shop/product_info.php/cPath/103_107/products_id/357/

Thanks for the feedback - that sucks that it didn't last.

From what I read it looks like a bunch of brands (Innovate, AEM, Auto Meter) all use the same/similar Bosch sensor so you'd think in most cases they would be fine.

[Ale]

Yeh, was bummed,hopefully this one lasts longer.

$100 latter and I've probs done 200kms on the new sensor .

 

My tuner prefers his cars to have bungs in the front pipe of his regular cars, I have 2, one for the gauge, and one opposite in the same section for the dyno that gets bunged when not being tuned.

 

My Rotary is only on 98 too.

 

They do work work well though, and IMO, 100x more important to have than a boost guage

 

 

Only really 2 sensors on the market, Bosch and NGK, both would require the same micro chip to be used in the gauge for them to read the afr. From my reading neither has better life span, but the NGK one is graded as a lab spec sensor.  Once shopping for a new sensor, it becomes very obvious the Bosch LSU 4.9 is used on millions of cars world wide with service lives in thousands of kms on OEM applications.

I think the difference lays in the software used to warm up the sensor in aftermarket gauges , some times under extreme conditions for extended periods.

 

Dont even bother with running them in race cars, the heat, pressures and vibrations plus the methanol has them die quicker than Apex seals ???

[bamk2f6tornado]

Iv got a mtx-l aswel. Can't fault it. Done about 1000km and it's run faultlessly. I mounted my sensor with the supplied heat sink bung just before the cat. 3ft cable is perfect length.
I was impressed just how quick it responds. Reads like it is directly attached to the throttle. Such a minimal time delay.
Havnt used it for any tuning coz iv not got a f*cking clue haha

[El Andrew]

Good stuff. Yeah I'm still reading as much as I can before taking the plunge with buying tuning software. I figured whether I tune myself or get it tuned then the wideband will be useful to know the thing isn't a hand grenade.

[rollex]

On ‎19‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 6:10 PM, Ale said:

Ive had a MTX for a year on my turbo Rotary, sensor died within 2000km of street use.

Innovate wheren't overalls helpfull and a bit of a pain to liaise with due to time zones.

I'd made sure to wire n plumb the unit 100% as per instructions knowing the reputation the company has for warranty claims.

After explaining to them the short sensor life they just said: #cosrotary.

Well documented that the sensors don't like rich mixtures n oil in the fuel, but others have had much success with other brands in Rotaries.

My tuner does alot of rotaries and said his sensors last a lot longer than that on his dyno, hopefully I just got a dud one first up.

 

Communication to the gauge is via serial port aswell which is very 2005....

 

If I was to purchase again , I'd buy this :

 

https://www.bmotorsports.com/shop/product_info.php/cPath/103_107/products_id/357/

 

That is the sensors problem not the fact it was MTX. They all generally run the same sensors anyway.

 

If you have a ported rotary, run two stroke mix, have it mounted too close you the exhaust you'll kill them quick on a rotary, mounted in the tail pipe would probably be the only way to get them to last. The exhaust temp and energy is huge out of them, even worse when you add two stroke to the mix. 2000 kms sounds low but I wouldn't expect anywhere near the same as the life out of a piston engine.

[Ale]

I agree mate, and have mentioned the above traits in my posts, but from my reading after the event, others have had better success using other brand gauges on their rotaries.

Where my gauge is mounted the EGTS would be low , even at WOT and we aren’t talking a methanol race car on the 2 step and 45psi, it’s a street car on 98.

May very well be the case of “you only ever hear the bad”, but if you google MTX failures, it’s not un common

[El Andrew]

I think what Rollex is saying is that the sensor itself is the same across many brands.

The gauge is inside the car and is the bit unique to Innovate, Aem, etc.

The sensor is in the exhaust. This component is common to many gauge brands and in your case is the bit that failed hence not Innovate-specific.

[Ale]

and Like I said, the sensor is used to read the AFR in the tail pipe, it has the smarts inside it that make the magic happen. But the magic can only happen using the micro chip in the gauge which controls the heat cycle within the sensor and turns the "magic" from the sensor into a Display.

This is where the gauges differ and if you read, many do say that how each gauge does this may effect sensor life.

When my Guage thur the E8 error, I rung Innovate, and the first thing they said was update the Firm ware and then re calibrate the sensor. After finding a laptop from the dark ages, I updated the firmware (emember the gauge was bought from them less than a year ago) but the E8 error was still there. They then said the next step was to throw a sensor at it, which got the gauge going again.

 

I've laid out the facts of my failure and under what circumstances, admitted the use of these on a rotary is less than ideal, make up your own mind  if its suits you.

[rollex]

The heating cycle algorithm is dictated by bosch in their datasheet, I doubt there are many differences in their implementation.

[El Andrew]

I suspect this is the dumbest question I have ever asked, and I will probably smack myself in the forehead when I hear the answer.  But where the heck is the desired boost table in HP Tuners??  The only thing I can see is the overboost/underboost data in the Diagnostics\Airflow section.

 

I'm assuming that there is a table to set target boost at whatever RPM vs load (and then the over/under boost bit says what the wastegate does when targets are exceeded by the set threshold), but I can't see it for the life of me.

 

I'm looking at a BA XR6T stock file.  I'm using the demo version, but I thought that was full featured just without the save option.