Update on drilling O2 sensors and wire heat shielding

[dave6666]

While I had the car in the air for some fresh Mobil 1 it was time to see if drilling the O2 sensors
would eliminate the preheat code (0135) that I am getting after about every 4 to 6 cold starts, using
the Belanger supplied single tube **** location. The heat wrap that I installed as I was putting the
headers on performed well, as some had suggested melted wires. Nope...

No, I haven't put enough miles on it to see if it's the fix, but with temps forecast sunny and in the
80's for the next 6 months, we'll know by Tuesday.

I'll follow up with the outcome.

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[Camfab]

Have you tried quick fire oxygen sensors?

 

[dave6666]

Have you tried quick fire oxygen sensors?

That will be the next step if this does not work. As it is Tuesday now, I have not thrown any codes yet.

It was suggested by Dan at Viper Specialty - Viper Specialty Performance - that I try the drilling thing first.

Thanks for the tip Dan. For now, we're holding station on "good."

 

[dave6666]

Final follow-up for now is that after a full week of driving the car to work and to the Quikie Mart at lunch time for tacos and Lone Stars, no pre-heat codes.

I will however point out that some have said the drilling worked for a while, and the final final solution was either quick fires or moving the sensor to the merge collector.

I had previously forgotten to thank Viper Tony for the advise he gave on this subject, so thanks Tony. Takes a real man to open up and start talking about his sensors.

 

[99 R/T 10]

Is it possible a sign that the sensor/sensors are failing and just need to be replaced?

 

[dave6666]

That was offered into the equation by Dan at Viper Specialty, but he suggested drilling them first as part of a logical learning path forward kind of thing. So in other words, if drilling did not work, then maybe new OE's would be the next step before quick fires.

 

[ViperTony]

I had previously forgotten to thank Viper Tony for the advise he gave on this subject, so thanks Tony. Takes a real man to open up and start talking about his sensors.

LOL. After drilling and butchering the OE sensors I went straight to the quick fires from DC Performance. A bit pricey, $99 each I think, but problem solved. I'd really like to know who makes these quick fire sensors as well as what makes them so special. Months of investigative work has yielded nothing.

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

Before drilling I tried the single tube solution when it was first offered up....and got the same results as you.

That's a lot bigger hole than I drilled, but whatever works. Mine worked that way just fine for 40K miles. I would set an occasional heater code every 1000-2000 miles, almost always on initial start up when cold. My drilled out sensors were in the merge collector area.

Your belangers should have come with a **** in the merge collector area. I would put the drilled out O2s there instead of the single tube. If that doesn't work, I think Quick fires in the merge collector area is the final answer. Why monkey with OEs. The single tube solution, is the wrong place to be.

Steve

 

[dave6666]

Before drilling I tried the single tube solution when it was first offered up....and got the same results as you.

That's a lot bigger hole than I drilled, but whatever works. Mine worked that way just fine for 40K miles. I would set an occasional heater code every 1000-2000 miles, almost always on initial start up when cold. My drilled out sensors were in the merge collector area.

Your belangers should have come with a **** in the merge collector area. I would put the drilled out O2s there instead of the single tube. If that doesn't work, I think Quick fires in the merge collector area is the final answer. Why monkey with OEs. The single tube solution, is the wrong place to be.

Steve

As mentioned on my first post Steve, I am using the Belanger supplied single tube location. I got "the schooling" from Lou on why the single tube is better than the merge collector, and took the Belanger Oath to not move those sensors!

Seriously though, Lou's explanation does make sense, as does everybody else's about why the merge collector is better. For now, the #10 drilled holes and the single tube are working. I've got the next 6 to 9 months of premium driving weather in front of me here in Texas. We'll post any undesirable results on more codes thrown.

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

As mentioned on my first post Steve, I am using the Belanger supplied single tube location. I got "the schooling" from Lou on why the single tube is better than the merge collector, and took the Belanger Oath to not move those sensors!

Seriously though, Lou's explanation does make sense, as does everybody else's about why the merge collector is better. For now, the #10 drilled holes and the single tube are working. I've got the next 6 to 9 months of premium driving weather in front of me here in Texas. We'll post any undesirable results on more codes thrown.

Here’s some food for thought as to O2 placement. There is a reason why the OEM placement senses all 5 tubes. It is an average of all 5 cylinders in that bank. The PCM then takes that info and adjusts the AFR accordingly in closed loop. If the PCM can only see one tube…then that’s the only cylinder it can attempt to correct…. both with STFT and LTFT. Prior to late 2001, all Belanger headers came with the O2 **** located in close proximity to the OEM location. More importantly, it still sensed all 5 tubes…like every vehicle does. Most prior Vipers had no issues with this location. The 2000-02 cars were a different animal with almost every car setting a heater code light. I was part of this early group (4/01). I spent a summer erasing MILs. I believe the Belanger ‘fix’ came out late 2001 or early 2002. They thought the MIL would be eliminated by moving it closer to the engine (more heat faster I guess). The problem with this was it was a band aid approach as although it took care of lights for many people (not me), ……it sacrificed the PCM being able to sense all 5 tubes per bank. It only makes sense that the PCM should be able to see an average of all 5 cylinders…..not just one. In a perfect scenario, there would be an O2 per cylinder. I was always a little skeptical about moving the **** up to the single tubes, but my mechanic said that although it was not right, it would not likely break the engine, so to speak, in the event the other 4 tubes were running lean and the sensed tube running rich. In other words, the PCM could theoretically be removing fuel for the sensed cylinder while the other 4 were craving gas. At the time all this was going around, Dan Cragin chipped in to say that we should be sensing all 5 tubes per bank for all the reasons above.

I’m not sure where Lou’s rational comes from with his single tube placement. ….. Four tubes per bank are not being factored in at all. The PCM is tuning only 2 cylinders out of 10. I had a long talk with Lou a month or two ago about exhaust. After that part was done, I relayed my experience with the single tube solution because of my recent experience with our 2001 car. This a good example of what may happen when only sensing one tube per bank. When we bought the car in 06, it would spit black smoke on start up….actual soot on the floor. Going WOT produced a small cloud of black smoke. The former owner attributed this to his easy running and being just a little loaded up. (Roe blower, Belanger headers -- single tube O2s). I had the 2003 VEC on this car upgraded to be able to log. I checked LTFT and it was +10-15%. (not too bad) The car had been tuned on a dyno and was REALLY rich for AFR at WOT. I removed a lot of fuel and got to 11.5 desired AFR at WOT. Unfortunately, that did correct at all, the problems above: big soot on start up and lots of black smoke on transition.

Last winter, I bought some quick fires from Dan and put them in this spring. I then rechecked my LTFT. It was close to setting a rich light -26% ( the pcm was trying to remove -26% fuel). There was the answer. The two plugs the single tubes were sensing were burning perfect. The rest were WAY too rich. I redid my LTFT with the QFs in the merge collector area (the original Belanger ****) and presto: no black soot, no black smoke on transition to WOT. Lou was interested in this story and said he was going to call Dan Cragin and talk about it. He was also happy to hear I had over 76,000 miles on my Belanger headers. he couldn’t think of another he knew of with that many miles. I have never touched them since install. I checked the bolts once or twice the last 7 years. Got half a turn out of a couple. That’s it. Mufflers replaced once.

I guess whatever works is good enough, but I think only sensing one cylinder per bank is definitely not the proper way to do it. I am quite curious Lou's reasoning. He did not go into it with me.

Steve

 

[ViperTony]

I share Steve's experience including the soot on the exhaust tips. To sum up my experience:

Stock Exhaust, O2 in Collector Area = Not Rich
Borla Headers, O2 in Collector Area = Not Rich (CEL thrown O2 Heater issue)
Belanger Headers, O2 in Single Tube = Rich
Belanger Headers, O2 in Collector Area = Not Rich (CEL thrown 02 Heater issue)
Belanger Headers, QuickFire O2 in Collector = Not Rich, No CEL.

The fact of the matter is, how can the PCM accurately adjust an entire bank of cylinders based on the output of a single cylinder? This ASSUMES that all cylinders are behaving exactly the same which is not always the case. I had a heck of a time tuning with the Vec3 until I moved the O2 sensor to the collector area. Suddenly, my tunes became much more affective. Go figure. I think that one good thing does come out of the single tube location is that it forces you to periodically pull and read your spark plugs.

 

[SYNFULL]

I don't want to take off my side sills because I have sill covers that are glued on top of the sills and will require being pulled off and replaced to get the sills off. Can the 02's, or quickfires be placed a little further up - right in front of the "pickle"? I have been trying to lean my car out with the vec but it is still running rich and i am wondering if the belanger 02 placement is the cause.
Thanks

 

[dave6666]

I don't want to take off my side sills because I have sill covers that are glued on top of the sills and will require being pulled off and replaced to get the sills off. Can the 02's, or quickfires be placed a little further up - right in front of the "pickle"? I have been trying to lean my car out with the vec but it is still running rich and i am wondering if the belanger 02 placement is the cause.
Thanks

You glued your sills on??? Whaddup with that?

'splain the glue to us sober folks...

Anyway, I assume you're wanting to come in from the top and weld the **** in w/o disturbing other stuff, like this view?

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[Steve 00RT/10]

I had a driver's side O2 short out on the aluminum cover plate (removed above). The engine torques to the right and lifts slightly. The stock clearance here is very tight. I have since put some spacers under the plate....maybe about 3/16". I did both sides. Easy to do if you remove the plates for any reason and well worth considering

Steve

 

[EllowViper]

I don't agree...maybe for a stock set-up OK, but not for a ROE. I've had my 02 sensors in one tube, two tubes and all five. I can only get a good tune in the single tube location. Here is my rational. With the ROE sytem, you cannot get equal cylinderloading during closed loop in each cylinder (because of the short runners and open plentum) so you have to compensate by working the individual cylinder trim and reading the spark plugs. From my experience, cylinders 1,3,5 and 2,4,6 are pretty consistent/evenly trimmed. 7,9, and 8,10 tend to run really rich; especially below 2k RPM. This is acknowledge by Sean himself. I work my LTFT based on the 02 sensor in the single tube, trimming those specific cylinders for a great LTFT (under 3% +/-), and trimming the others based on reading the plugs. There is no way to get all five cylinders (with a ROE) to trim correctly with the 02 in the **** since the rich cylinders will always through off the equation for the others on each bank (can't get around this even with seriously trimming the rich cylinders). I have zero soot and no transition issues with this set-up. When I located the 02 in the ****, soot soot soot and piss-poor bucking and poping closed loop operation and CELs being set for wildly swinging rich/lean conditions. AFR was 10-11 in closed loop and I could not tune it out. I guess there are two schools of though on this. Mine is that once the individual cylinder trims are set, its a moot point. With a stock system and Belagers, not the same equation. With a ROE..apples and oranges.

 

[dave6666]

I had a driver's side O2 short out on the aluminum cover plate (removed above). The engine torques to the right and lifts slightly. The stock clearance here is very tight. I have since put some spacers under the plate....maybe about 3/16". I did both sides. Easy to do if you remove the plates for any reason and well worth considering

Steve

So when you put the sensors in the merge collectors they do point up right there?

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

From memory, the stock header O2s are located exactly under this plate....looking staight up.... with very little clearance for the wiring out the top. My Belangers came with a **** in this same location....matching the stock location. When I tried the single tube location, I had to cut them in.

Steve

 

[ViperTony]

I don't agree...maybe for a stock set-up OK, but not for a ROE. I've had my 02 sensors in one tube, two tubes and all five. I can only get a good tune in the single tube location. Here is my rational. With the ROE sytem, you cannot get equal cylinderloading during closed loop in each cylinder (because of the short runners and open plentum) so you have to compensate by working the individual cylinder trim and reading the spark plugs. From my experience, cylinders 1,3,5 and 2,4,6 are pretty consistent/evenly trimmed. 7,9, and 8,10 tend to run really rich; especially below 2k RPM. This is acknowledge by Sean himself. I work my LTFT based on the 02 sensor in the single tube, trimming those specific cylinders for a great LTFT (under 3% +/-), and trimming the others based on reading the plugs. There is no way to get all five cylinders (with a ROE) to trim correctly with the 02 in the **** since the rich cylinders will always through off the equation for the others on each bank (can't get around this even with seriously trimming the rich cylinders). I have zero soot and no transition issues with this set-up. When I located the 02 in the ****, soot soot soot and piss-poor bucking and poping closed loop operation and CELs being set for wildly swinging rich/lean conditions. AFR was 10-11 in closed loop and I could not tune it out. I guess there are two schools of though on this. Mine is that once the individual cylinder trims are set, its a moot point. With a stock system and Belagers, not the same equation. With a ROE..apples and oranges.

Wow...I didn't know this was a common problem with Roe S.C. and O2 sensors in the merge collectors. I guess I'll just have to install a Roe and find out for myself.

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

I don't agree...maybe for a stock set-up OK, but not for a ROE. I've had my 02 sensors in one tube, two tubes and all five. I can only get a good tune in the single tube location. Here is my rational. With the ROE sytem, you cannot get equal cylinderloading during closed loop in each cylinder (because of the short runners and open plentum) so you have to compensate by working the individual cylinder trim and reading the spark plugs. From my experience, cylinders 1,3,5 and 2,4,6 are pretty consistent/evenly trimmed. 7,9, and 8,10 tend to run really rich; especially below 2k RPM. This is acknowledge by Sean himself. I work my LTFT based on the 02 sensor in the single tube, trimming those specific cylinders for a great LTFT (under 3% +/-), and trimming the others based on reading the plugs. There is no way to get all five cylinders (with a ROE) to trim correctly with the 02 in the **** since the rich cylinders will always through off the equation for the others on each bank (can't get around this even with seriously trimming the rich cylinders). I have zero soot and no transition issues with this set-up. When I located the 02 in the ****, soot soot soot and piss-poor bucking and poping closed loop operation and CELs being set for wildly swinging rich/lean conditions. AFR was 10-11 in closed loop and I could not tune it out. I guess there are two schools of though on this. Mine is that once the individual cylinder trims are set, its a moot point. With a stock system and Belagers, not the same equation. With a ROE..apples and oranges.

I guess everyone's car is a little different. Yours may well be an exception, but never the less, I guess you have to work with what you have. We have two Roe/Belangered cars. All plugs burn evenly, all O2s are now in the merge collector area. I would add that our 2001 car has a first production run Roe blower and our 2000 car has a sixth production run. I believe the main difference being the plenum was reworked as Sean sought to get the back cylinders running better. I think the real improvement to solving this problem came with the addition of individual cylinder trim to the VEC

I agree with some of the above although it's 9 and 10 which run the richest. 7 and 8 are kind of in between. For me that's reflected in the trim per cylinder I'm using. As you state, your 3% LTFT is not the engine FT. It is one cylinder in each bank as LTFT consists strictly of closed loop operation. I would much rather have an average input from all 5 per bank and work the trim from there. I had no problem getting the trim corrected. I pull my plugs every spring (9,000-10,000 miles) and they are all almost identical

My example above of what happened to our 01 car is the exact opposite of yours. With the O2s in the single tube, my LTFT was 10-15%, not the best, but within factory parameters. moving the O2s to the collector area and sensing all 5 cylinders showed LTFT at -26% due to all 5 being factored in.

Someone a lot smarter than me will have to speak to why there are these completely different results.

To me, it remains a fact that sensing 5 tubes is better than just one. It's kind of like running a little blind if you don't. I feel even more strongly about not having a WB set up on a Roe car....especially with ambient temp differences.


Steve

 

[SYNFULL]

You glued your sills on??? Whaddup with that?

'splain the glue to us sober folks...

Anyway, I assume you're wanting to come in from the top and weld the **** in w/o disturbing other stuff, like this view?

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This what I'm talkin bout

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These are glued on top of the sills and would need to be ripped out in order to remove the sills.

Thanks!

 

[EllowViper]

I'd love to sense all five tubes "equally", just can't with my 1st run production ROE since, depending on RPM and boost, each cylinder is being tuned differently in Closed Loop (especially at idle). One really needs a WB in each cylinder to see what is really happening and an ECU that can do individual cylinder trim based on individual cylinder readings....not based on a average of five unrelated and different readings(thus my reading the plugs). I guess I could try measuring the exhaust temp on each cylinder at idle to set the fuel trim too. Might mess with that idea soon! Above 2K my WB is normal (13.5-14.9). At idle and low RPM my WB is around 11.5-13.5 due to the fact that those two rich cylinders are feeding into the equation (I have to believe Lou put the bungs in the center cylinders for a reason and not in #9/10 for this reason...maybe for wire legnth too...). With my 02 in the collector, the ECU is trying to adjust all five injectors at the same ratio thereby overly leaning out three of the five in order to get at 14.7 (can't physically achieve 14.7 in this manner). My only fear is that if I lean out the rich cylinders at idle (need to go beyond -1.00ms from the others) to get 14.7 AFR in the collector, under boost/open loop these cylinders will be too lean since in theory, all cylinders should receive equal filling under forced induction. I agree that sensing all five is the best situatiion, but all five must be equally contributing to the AFR before you can make across the board injector pulse changes. With a ROE, you will never have identical AFR in each cylinder across closed loop operations. The best you can do is tune each based on individual fuel trim/injector offset/plug readings. If you can tune each cylinder via reading plugs and a WB, and then reference all off a properly measured/tuned individual cylinder, then you won't be changing AFR on cylinders that don't need any changes since your baseline tune won't require much (if any) LTFT. Just what has worked for me and its screaming right now.

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

I'd love to sense all five tubes "equally", just can't with my 1st run production ROE since, depending on RPM and boost, each cylinder is being tuned differently in Closed Loop (especially at idle). One really needs a WB in each cylinder to see what is really happening and an ECU that can do individual cylinder trim based on individual cylinder readings....not based on a average of five unrelated and different readings(thus my reading the plugs). I guess I could try measuring the exhaust temp on each cylinder at idle to set the fuel trim too. Might mess with that idea soon! Above 2K my WB is normal (13.5-14.9). At idle and low RPM my WB is around 11.5-13.5 due to the fact that those two rich cylinders are feeding into the equation (I have to believe Lou put the bungs in the center cylinders for a reason and not in #9/10 for this reason...maybe for wire legnth too...). With my 02 in the collector, the ECU is trying to adjust all five injectors at the same ratio thereby overly leaning out three of the five in order to get at 14.7 (can't physically achieve 14.7 in this manner). My only fear is that if I lean out the rich cylinders at idle (need to go beyond -1.00ms from the others) to get 14.7 AFR in the collector, under boost/open loop these cylinders will be too lean since in theory, all cylinders should receive equal filling under forced induction. I agree that sensing all five is the best situatiion, but all five must be equally contributing to the AFR before you can make across the board injector pulse changes. With a ROE, you will never have identical AFR in each cylinder across closed loop operations. The best you can do is tune each based on individual fuel trim/injector offset/plug readings. If you can tune each cylinder via reading plugs and a WB, and then reference all off a properly measured/tuned individual cylinder, then you won't be changing AFR on cylinders that don't need any changes since your baseline tune won't require much (if any) LTFT. Just what has worked for me and its screaming right now.

I'm glad your car is running great with your tuning procedure. I still wonder if your car is the exception and not the norm? I guess Sean's the only one to answer that. What is your base injector set %? I set this first before doing any cylinder trim. I actually had to go up to 70% (from the 65% it came at).....that was on the 2000 car. The 2001 car I dropped a couple % out

As for Lou putting the bungs in the tubes he did, that seems a little far fetched as there are only a handful of Roe blowers out there with Belanger headers. We have 2 of them (one with a GEN I Roe) and none of the issues that troubled your car. There are likely a few hundred other Vipers with Belanger headers and no blower. I don't think the stock pcm runs the back cylinders rich. I had Belanger headers for 5 years before installing the blower. Never had any plug issues...only O2 heater code lights. I think the tube chosen was physically the easiest to install the **** in, achieve the heat, and run the wiring. Even then it didn't work for me. I had the same issues as Dave.....heater code every few starts....usually on cold start up. As for wire length, a little re-routing was all that was required to make the stock O2 wiring work from the merge collector area on the Belangers.

Steve

 

[KenH]

While I agee with the basic logic of sensing in the collector, I had a very similar experience as EllowViper. On my car with the O2's in the collector the car ran too lean (instead of too rich). Moving the O2's up to the single tube location solved the problem.

These are Vipers and if we prove on thing over and over, it is that one size does not fit all.

 

[EllowViper]

Steve, I tried the tune you sent last year and worked with that awhile with the 70% offset (before I had my wide band). Now I'm back to the standard 64% offset. I'm running W/M and just got a 6.5 pulley that I'm going to put on this week. W/M is a blast and when that comes on, all the timing is put back in (zero retard) and zoom zoom zooom. Looks like I'm going to be close to KenH set up now!!

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

Steve, I tried the tune you sent last year and worked with that awhile with the 70% offset (before I had my wide band). Now I'm back to the standard 64% offset. I'm running W/M and just got a 6.5 pulley that I'm going to put on this week. W/M is a blast and when that comes on, all the timing is put back in (zero retard) and zoom zoom zooom. Looks like I'm going to be close to KenH set up now!!

I completely forgot I had sent you that Eric. ....a by product of age I guess . Too bad we never got to meet up last winter when we were down there.

According to Sean, anyone having trouble / can't dial in cylinder trim in from the merge collector area should check the firmware package in their box. It needs to be 5.108 to have the updated software tools for tuning. My 1/06 box had it in it. Even though cylinder trim may have been available before this .... like any Windows update...it got a little better as it went along. He says the software in 5.108 is correct and should be able to trim properly with the O2s in the merge collector area. Any box number above 682 should have the 5.108 in it. You can find your firmware and box number on the bottom of the box. The firmware update can be downloaded from his site.

All that being said....the bottom line is "whatever works"

We are about done for this year. I saw the 4 letter S word mentioned for tonight. We will get some more nice days, but the best are behind us now.

Steve

 

[Jim Wilson]

Dave, thanks a bunch for posting this thread. I have been throwing heater codes for a while now and by opening up the holes on the sensors......no more codes.

 

[EllowViper]

Back from the dead. In my never-ending quest for fiddling with my car, I have installed my 02 sensors in the collectors just to see if I can continue to dial it in better and better. So I'm now sensing all 5 cylinders on each bank...and getting the O2 sensor heater CEL too at cold startup (yes I have drilled out the stock sensors too)! My observations at this point is that closed loop cruising my AFR is a bit leaner than before based on my W/B. Just what I assumed would happen given my earlier discussions regarding cylinders 8/10 and 7/9 with the ROE manifold. Less soot on the tailpipes too. I need to pull the plugs to get some observations of where my individual cylinder trims need to go since I think 1/3/5 and 2/4/6 are probably running a bit lean now having changed nothing thus far from the previous tune. Also, my LTFT is really rich and I need to get a few more miles on to see if I can dial that out as well. Might have to get the QuickFires if I can't live with my current O2 sensor heater problem.

 

[dave6666]

I ended up getting the quickfires. The preheat codes came back after I moved the sensors from the single tube to the merge collector.

Now I only get codes when I wash the engine bay down!

 

[2001 GTS]

I put the quick fires in right way when I put the B&B headers on and never had a problem until I put a stock sensor in the passenger side trying to trouble shoot other problems. So back in went the quick fire..no problems since.

 

[ViperTony]

No codes with the quick fires here either. Unrelated, I did get a code recently for a catalytic converter inefficiency, I forgot the code. Very odd, after a 3 hour drive to PA I got caught up waiting in line at the hotel entrance with the Viper running/idling for about 25 min when the code was thrown. Cleared it and never came back.