what's the advantages of a wideband O2 over a A/F Gauge?

Question

I recently bought a car with a Fuel Pressure Reg. and I think it may be too rich so I want to buy an a/f gauge. I know the Wideband comes with a gauge and a seperate sensor vs. the a/f gauge that taps into my factory 02 sensor. I've noticed a large $$$ difference between a Wideband Sensor and a A/F gauge. I want to know what's the advantage of the ($300) Wideband over the ($75) A/F Gauge?

Answer 1

the easiest answer is the wideband will actually let you drive and you can see the performance during actuall driving conditions when the a/f gauge you cant drive with as it removes your o2 sensor and you cant drive like that. if you think your fuel injected vehicle is running to rich, i would look at the o2 sensor because thats its job, to read the a/f coming out of the engine. a fuel pressure regulator has no bearing on the running condition of the vehicle, it only regulates the fuel pressure depending on the demands of the engine

Answer 2

A narrow band AFR gauge will tell you if the engine is where it needs to be for normal street driving. But it doesn't work very well if you are trying to tune a car to run rich at a specific mixture like 11.5:1, which is something that you might very well want to do if you are tuning a turbo car for the maximum safe performance you can get out of it. If this is a turbo or supercharged car, I would definitely spring for the wideband gauge. If it's naturally aspirated, it depends on how much tuning work you want to do.