Innovate Motorsports Wideband Controller

For any natural aspiration to turbo conversion project, a wideband controller is almost a must have item for the absolute serious tuners and enthusiasts.

Most natural aspirated cars comes factory fitted with a narrow band sensor where it could only read air fuel ratios between 14.5 and 15.1, which is pretty much useless for turbo cars whereby the air fuel ratio ranges are much more wider.

Toyota Vios turbo has been using the LC-1 wideband controller from Innovate Motorsports since the very first day it left GT Auto's garage, and the reason why we chose Innovate over other brands like AEM, DynoJet and Zeitronix is pretty much self explanatory here.

The test conducted by Ford Muscle clearly shows that the Innovate LC-1 wins hands down in terms of accuracy and response time over others, put aside the other features such as the logging capabilities of the software.

Besides that, the thing we like about the LC-1 is that it has 2 programmable analog outputs, a feature very useful for tuners to tune OBD-II compliant cars where the ECU relies on 2 narrowband sensors to adjust the air fuel ratio during closed loop operation.

OBD-II car owners should take notice what I am about to post next.

With the analog output feature, we're able to fool the stock ECU to keep the fuel trims in check by wiring an analog output to simulate narrow band reading to the ECU so that it does not correct any adjustments made by the E-Manage piggyback unit during closed loop.

Think of it as an O2 remapping device if you will, and the only other devices that we have seen in the market which has similar capabilities is the AEM F/IC piggyback, HKS F-Con iS and the F-Manage from Trust Japan, whereby even the mighty R35 GTR's ecu was also defeated by it.

As far we know, Innovate is the only producer of digital wideband controller in the market which is capable of auto self calibration, whereby the rest are all analog based and had to rely on the factory sensor calibration. This is a major factor to consider when deciding on your purchase of a wideband controller because when the sensor ages, so will the accuracy of the reading.

So if you were somehow unlucky and purchased a unit which is not capable of calibration, you wouldn't have any idea when the sensor is going bad. There won't be any compensations for changes in temperature, altitude and sensor condition.

In simple terms, your engine is basically blinded but with its eyes wide open. In this case, you might as well just throw it away and run your car fully map based, lose your fuel economy rather than risking an engine blow.


LC-1/XD-16 kit package



XD-16 gauge showing stoich during idling

14 comments:

smokey said...

new toys! Bro it does look cool! Can i have one of those for my birthday? Hehehe

Chew Soon said...

haha no lah bro been using it since day 1, just that didn't have time and mood to take picture and blog about it only.

when your birthday coming? i send u a sticker can ah :P

kaivern said...

hey bro, i just booked my toyota vios trd today and it's coming next week.
I need to ask you a lot question since we're the same car same brand :)

kaivern@live.com
or you can give me yours for me to add you. thanks =D

Chew Soon said...

TRD Vios huh! Cool~~~welcome to the club man :)

kaivern said...

haha, hey bro did you added me on msn? i really wanna talk to you and ask you about this

smokey said...

no lah bro, i just need the empty box for my box collection,so i can put sun flower seed ( kuaci )inside hahaha.

Bro in those picture you can change the apperance or what?
And true those gauge is really useful when it comes to fuel checking whether is lean or rich.

Woah the new trd vios, is it true that the new trd vios comes in one colour only? Or there is more?

Chew Soon said...

ah haha, bro you really like the sunflower seed huh!

yeah i can change the appearance of the gauge and also the colors via the software. all i need to do is just plug the connector to my notebook and configure it.

i actually discovered that the gauge is actually measuring the air/fuel ratio faster than the stock ECU, and had to slow down the response time for the feedback to ECU in order for it to work properly.

as for the new TRD vios, hehe you need to ask vern.

and yes bro vern, i've added you in MSN.

kaivern said...

hmm, it comes with a lot of colour
hhaah.

Xpo said...

hi there,

When you said tuning close loop...is there a need to tune close loop? I thought its taken care by the stock ECU to keep fuel in check?

Chew Soon said...

hi xpo, there are many reasons why people would want to tune their closed loop.

for example, they want to run a richer air/fuel ratio especially on a NA to turbo conversion like mine.

and during closed loop, the stock ecu is actually hunting for a stoichio air/fuel ratio and if we would wan't to run it a bit tad richer then we'll have to do something about it don't we? :)

Xpo said...

Ah, that makes sense. For your application, close loop is on until which RPM range?

Lets say if you were to uprate the 4 stock injectors to higher CC, do you still need to tune close loop? Was thinking whether the bigger injectors would indirectly pump more fuel, even at low revs.

Chew Soon said...

different cars will have different parameters, its a combination of your TPS vs RPM if not mistaken.

also during cold start, your ECU goes in to open loop as well until your O2 sensor heats up enough.

there are a couple of things u might want to look into before upgrading to larger injectors.

for example, are u running a returnless setup or a return setup? with a returnless setup u can't use an external fuel pressure regulator .

also, u might want to see whether your piggyback is able to calibrate the larger size injectors or else your engine will run poorly, like overly rich and stuffs.

Xpo said...

Hi Chang,

in regards to your fueling setup, can I have further info on your:

current injector size? (stage 1)
stock/upgraded size injectors/additional injector

current fueling return/returnless

Chew Soon said...

hi man,

my current injector size is 185cc with an additional side feed injector. the current fueling setup is a returnless.

for my stage 2, i purchased a set of FIC 445cc injectors.

cheers!