How to install a Zeitronix Wideband

[Junior]

Well, here's another "what you need to know" kinda deals. It's not intended to be a step-by-step, just more of a "Here's the important stuff" thread. It'll make a lot more sense if you've got the things in front of you than it will if you're just reading it ahead of time.

I'm not going to show every connection, as the few of them that you need to do are simple connections - join one wire to another.

I paid good money to have mine installed, because when I opened the box I was a little bit intimidated. Once I saw it installed, it was clear how straightforward it was. I took some pics when I did Nitta's, and wanted to show you what you need to know to DIY.

I don't have pics of the O2 sensor or the lower harness, as that part was done by someone else - you have to drill a hole in the headers, and weld a steel bung in there for the O2 sensor. The bung size is M18x1.5, and you can get them HERE. Here's some more info on welding the bung: LINK

Once the bung is welded in, and the sensor is installed in there, the lower harness just needs to get routed up into the engine bay, by the firewall somewhere on the Driver's side.

Here's what comes in the kit, not including the lower harness:



Here's how things get plugged into the module:



The phone cord is where the signal leaves the unit and goes to your laptop. It includes a RJ11 to Serial adapter, and unless you have a Serial input on your laptop, you'll need to get a Serial to USB adapter cable. The CAT5-type (RJ45) connector that's labeled O2 Sensor is where the upper harness plugs in. The other end of the upper harness plugs into the Lower harness coming from the O2 sensor. Pics of that in a minute.

This is the part that looks a little bit intimidating:



But you actually only need to use four of those wires. Red is for 12v power, Black is 12v ground, Green is RPM signal, and Brown is signal ground. That's it. Tape the others together and out of the way:



Since you need the module to end up inside the cabin, you'll need to cut a slit in the firewall grommet shown. The RJ45 end of the upper harness needs to go through there, as well as the wiring for power, signal, and signal ground. You can grab the 12v ground from under the dash.



Once the RG45 end of the upper harness is routed through the firewall, connect the upper and lower harness together like so:





Now, to get the RPM signal, you can tap into an injector like so. Use the wire that enters the red dot on the injector, not the blue:





In the background, you can see the ring connector for the signal ground. That can mount on the stud at the rear of the head, where the black module is mounted (the one you can see behind the ring connector).

Since you can't get an end free to slip some heatshrink on there, you'll need to tape it up well after you solder a signal wire on there. Tape all around the solder joint by itself before you tape the bundle back together.



Up underneath the dash, you've now got the 12v power source wire, the signal wire, and the signal ground, along with the RJ45 end of the O2 harness. You can place the module there behind the knee kick plate or whatever you want to call it - the lower dash. Connect the 12v power wire to Red, the Signal Wire to Green, and the Signal Ground to Brown. Connect a short black lead with another ring connector to the Black, and ground that ring connector anywhere under the dash, such as the screws below the PCM.

As for 12v power, I came off the post in the engine bay (the charging post under the red hood). Pics of that later today if I think of it. You MUST MUST MUST use an inline fuse if you come off here. Pics of that will do wonders. I'll get them up and edit this. EDIT: as MadCharger points out below, this should really be a switched power source, and I'll make that change.

So once those connections are made, and each cable is plugged into the Module, like in the second picture up top there, you can bundle things together, and leave just a few inches of the phone cable available, and route that down to where your OBDII port is. That's the only thing you'll need to have access to for datalogging. I'd suggest you leave the RJ11 to Serial connector attached to your Serial to USB cable, and simple plug the RJ11 into the connector when you datalog. Pics of that will make it easier, and I'll add those soon too.

As far as the software setting, here's what you need to do. Set the number of Engine Cylinders to 1, and set the COM Port to whatever the laptop assigns to the USB port where your cable is plugged in. You can deselect the options that you're not using, to make a nice clean screen. All you need are AFR and RPM.



Here's what the logging screen will look like. You may get an occasional RPM spike like I did here, but it's no concern:











I'll come back and do some edits and clean this up when I'm back at home, but that's really all there is to it.



.

[MadCharger]

Hmmm..... Shouldn't you get a 12v connection from a switched power line?

Very nice write up!

[Junior]

Hmmm..... Shouldn't you get a 12v connection from a switched power line?

Very nice write up!

You know what, you're absolutely right. Let me fix that on the car, and then fix it here.

[MadCharger]

You know what, you're absolutely right. Let me fix that on the car, and then fix it here.

Don't forget to take pics. Mine is connected to my TCM power line, but I'd love to move it someplace else (I'm terrible with electric though )

[Big Boy]

Another great write-up. I could have used this last week when I did my install.

I'm confused about the brown wire situation, there are 2 brown wires and I connected neither, but my gauge seems to be working fine.

Also, I hooked my 12v power up to the cig lighter power wire, is there a downside in getting the power from that location?

[Junior]

Another great write-up. I could have used this last week when I did my install.

I'm confused about the brown wire situation, there are 2 brown wires and I connected neither, but my gauge seems to be working fine.

That's strange. I'm surprised it works with neither ground connected. Especially the 12v ground. Not sure how that circuit is complete without it.

You reminded me too, about the gauge - I forget to include any talk of it, because mine was near worthless - the readout would fluctuate wildly, from say 11 to 15 - just back and forth constantly. No idea how to obtain an accurate reading from it without some smoothing or something. Even at WOT, it was just too erratic to get anything useful from it.

Also, I hooked my 12v power up to the cig lighter power wire, is there a downside in getting the power from that location?

That should work fine, and you can swap that fuse in the rear so it's switched power versus always hot.

Also, I fixed Nitta's power source with a relay. I just reverse-engineered my own install (which someone else did), and it works great. No power supplied unless the engine is actually running.

I'll have to take some time to explain that install, but any way you want to do it to get a 12v switched source, you'll be fine.

[Redfox0099]

Careful running the A/F wiring so close to the headers..... I have burnt theough...um 5 harness so far on my car to the point I finally routed mine through the fender well to get where it needed to go (my car runs HOT )

[Big Boy]

That's strange. I'm surprised it works with neither ground connected. Especially the 12v ground. Not sure how that circuit is complete without it.

You reminded me too, about the gauge - I forget to include any talk of it, because mine was near worthless - the readout would fluctuate wildly, from say 11 to 15 - just back and forth constantly. No idea how to obtain an accurate reading from it without some smoothing or something. Even at WOT, it was just too erratic to get anything useful from it.

I have the red-power, black-ground and green-RPM wires connected, but neither of the brown wires. I have not verified my RPM signal yet, but A/F info looks good.

As for the gauge, I have the rectangle one and my A/F is rock steady at 14.6-15.0 in daily driving.

[Junior]

I have the red-power, black-ground and green-RPM wires connected, but neither of the brown wires. I have not verified my RPM signal yet, but A/F info looks good.

Oh, gotcha. That makes more sense. Sounds like the signal ground isn't necessary, unless there's something else different - I only have one brown.

As for the gauge, I have the rectangle one and my A/F is rock steady at 14.6-15.0 in daily driving.

I wonder if that's a difference in the gauge's abilities or what? Maybe I should disconnect my brown wire and see if mine smooths out.

[scoot13]

Great witeup!

[1fastsedan]

Depending on what your dash looks like, you may need to ground off the back of the driver's side cylinder head to get a clean RPM signal. My remote start was creating a lot of interference, so I had to change my grounding to get the logging to work well.

[budoboy]

I put mine in yesterday. Hook up to switched 12V power (cigarette lighter worked). I initially hooked up to a power wire for the clock (not used in a Charger) and it killed my battery dead overnight.

Also I'm not sure if you need to ground the brown signal ground wire although I grounded it with the black ground wire under the dash under a screw that goes into the metal tubular frame.

The 2010 software is different than previous and it is kinda time consuming removing plots you don't want.

[JimIsland-SRT8]

Jeff, I've had one for a year and haven't had time to install it. Where did you mount it? What is different about the software?

[MadCharger]

Jeff, I've had one for a year and haven't had time to install it. Where did you mount it? What is different about the software?

Bring it with you to the next event Jim. Takes 30 minutes to install......

[JimIsland-SRT8]

That's cool of you Nick. i need to do some research and see if my Kooks LT's came with an extra bung. Where do you think the best place to mount it is? I'm not crazy about losing my sunglass holder