I received my DJ Wideband Commander from Xtreme last week and installed it yesterday. Here are my first impressions.
First, the intructions leave a little to be desired. I received 2 cables that were not listed in the instructions. One was a short peice that had a 9v battery connectot on it and the other was a long cable that looked like the others with a single wire that was stripped on one end and had connector with a weather grommet on the other (no plastic plug though). I called tech support to find out what these were for.
The 9v was to power up the WB Commander when not in the car so you can configure it through the software before installing it in the car and so you can remove it from the car to download stored sessions without bringing your PC to the car. Sounds like a great idea except for 2 things.
1. To remove it from the car you have to take the back off the commander and unscrew the wires coming from the O2 sensor harness. There's no plug. I hesitate to put a plug there because the resistance could change the readings.
2. It didn't work. I bought a nice new 9v battery and connected it. The computer saw the WB Commander as a HID device in Device Manager (XP Pro) but the software constantly reported "Connecting to Wideband Commander" and all the device menu options were disabled. I called tech support on this and they didn't know why it didn't work. The one guy they transfered me to was going to try to get hold of an engineer, but I haven't heard back from him. I tried it with 12 volt power going through the harness and it worked fine so I proceeded to install it.
The other wire is for use with the an external warning light feature. The instructions say the gauge has this built in, but evidently you can hooke this wire up to an external diode as well. The reason there was no plastic plug on the other end of the wire is because it is meant to be pushed into one of the existing plugs on one of the harnesses, so that works out nicely. No extra wire hanging out if you choose not to use it.
I tapped into the negative coil wire on the #4 cylinder fo rmy RPM feed. On there web site they tell you that you can use the negative side of your injector wire instead, but I didn't see that until after I finished the install. I think I would have rather tapped into that. I did not hook up the TPS sensor wire. Maybe in the future. I'll be wireing in a switch to turn logging on and off later this morning.
They recommend putting the sensor before the cats. I wanted to put it on the drivers side because 7&8 typically run hotter on these motors and therefore will probably be the first to lean out. I brought the car to Meineke and they welded in the bung. The exhause has to be dropped to do this because there is only about 6 or 7 inches of pipe between the exhaust manifold and the first cat on the 03. The o2 sendor plug has one of those serrated (sp?) tree like push mounts built onto the plug. Like those flat plugs that push on to hold dorr panels an trim peices. There's plenty of room for the sensor and wires and there is a hole in the frame rail already there to push the plug into to keep the wires from moving around and melting on the cat.
The install itself went pretty smothly. I drilled a hole in the firewall between the throttle cable and the clutch cable for the sensor harnes and the RPM lead. All other wires are under the dash. I use a laptop for reflashing my computer so I left the USB cable connected to the Commander and I tucked it away under the carped on the passenger side since I won't be removing the unit to check logs and monitor it.. The Commander itself is tucked away nicely under the carpet next to the trans tunnel behind the radio on the drivers side.
I'm suprised at how much the gauge moves around while driving, but it seems to be working properly. I haven't had the chance to really get on it and watch how rich the car gets up high. I have a stock tune and stock motor, at least until later today when the 2.8 goes on and I reflash my computer with my EFI Solutions software.
I have to figure out where I'm going to permenantly mount the gauge. I got the gauge with the white face, it has a black trim ring and my ultra lites have a silver trim ring. I'll probably paint one of the ultra lites to match.
All in all so far I am quite happy with the package. It worked out well for me because the WB Commander came off backorder the same week the reflashing software was finished. I didn't want to start doing mods until I could see the effect on my A/F and make changes.
jim
First, the intructions leave a little to be desired. I received 2 cables that were not listed in the instructions. One was a short peice that had a 9v battery connectot on it and the other was a long cable that looked like the others with a single wire that was stripped on one end and had connector with a weather grommet on the other (no plastic plug though). I called tech support to find out what these were for.
The 9v was to power up the WB Commander when not in the car so you can configure it through the software before installing it in the car and so you can remove it from the car to download stored sessions without bringing your PC to the car. Sounds like a great idea except for 2 things.
1. To remove it from the car you have to take the back off the commander and unscrew the wires coming from the O2 sensor harness. There's no plug. I hesitate to put a plug there because the resistance could change the readings.
2. It didn't work. I bought a nice new 9v battery and connected it. The computer saw the WB Commander as a HID device in Device Manager (XP Pro) but the software constantly reported "Connecting to Wideband Commander" and all the device menu options were disabled. I called tech support on this and they didn't know why it didn't work. The one guy they transfered me to was going to try to get hold of an engineer, but I haven't heard back from him. I tried it with 12 volt power going through the harness and it worked fine so I proceeded to install it.
The other wire is for use with the an external warning light feature. The instructions say the gauge has this built in, but evidently you can hooke this wire up to an external diode as well. The reason there was no plastic plug on the other end of the wire is because it is meant to be pushed into one of the existing plugs on one of the harnesses, so that works out nicely. No extra wire hanging out if you choose not to use it.
I tapped into the negative coil wire on the #4 cylinder fo rmy RPM feed. On there web site they tell you that you can use the negative side of your injector wire instead, but I didn't see that until after I finished the install. I think I would have rather tapped into that. I did not hook up the TPS sensor wire. Maybe in the future. I'll be wireing in a switch to turn logging on and off later this morning.
They recommend putting the sensor before the cats. I wanted to put it on the drivers side because 7&8 typically run hotter on these motors and therefore will probably be the first to lean out. I brought the car to Meineke and they welded in the bung. The exhause has to be dropped to do this because there is only about 6 or 7 inches of pipe between the exhaust manifold and the first cat on the 03. The o2 sendor plug has one of those serrated (sp?) tree like push mounts built onto the plug. Like those flat plugs that push on to hold dorr panels an trim peices. There's plenty of room for the sensor and wires and there is a hole in the frame rail already there to push the plug into to keep the wires from moving around and melting on the cat.
The install itself went pretty smothly. I drilled a hole in the firewall between the throttle cable and the clutch cable for the sensor harnes and the RPM lead. All other wires are under the dash. I use a laptop for reflashing my computer so I left the USB cable connected to the Commander and I tucked it away under the carped on the passenger side since I won't be removing the unit to check logs and monitor it.. The Commander itself is tucked away nicely under the carpet next to the trans tunnel behind the radio on the drivers side.
I'm suprised at how much the gauge moves around while driving, but it seems to be working properly. I haven't had the chance to really get on it and watch how rich the car gets up high. I have a stock tune and stock motor, at least until later today when the 2.8 goes on and I reflash my computer with my EFI Solutions software.
I have to figure out where I'm going to permenantly mount the gauge. I got the gauge with the white face, it has a black trim ring and my ultra lites have a silver trim ring. I'll probably paint one of the ultra lites to match.All in all so far I am quite happy with the package. It worked out well for me because the WB Commander came off backorder the same week the reflashing software was finished. I didn't want to start doing mods until I could see the effect on my A/F and make changes.
jim
