Innovate LC1......The shit or just shit

[Kouki]

Ok, so I've got an Innovate LC-1 and DB gauge. It was either the innovate or AEM. I got the innovate because it seemed like they had great reviews. Well I've had it installed for a couple weeks, but just got my car running the other night. I installed it exactly how the instructions said, all soldered, calibrated to free air, sensor mounted about 18" from the turbo, etc. So I start my car for the first time, get the idle/timing set. The gauge is reading all over the place from full rich to full lean and everywhere inbetween. That was yesterday, then today, I start the car and mess with some more stuff. Well it started to settle somewhat, but was still bouncing between like 10.5 and 15.5 at idle, wtf? And then all of a sudden it just reads full lean 22.5, so I tap the throttle for a second, then it goes to full rich 7.5 then straight back to 22.5. What the hell is going on with this thing? Should I just throw it away and get an AEM?

God, I have an appointment with the dyno tomorrow for some tuning and wanted to have a day or 2 to get some street tuning done myself to save dyno time, now I'm going to have to pull the downpipe tonight and weld in my extra bung so I can use their wideband.

[MADE]

Did you check Innovate Forums or call the tech hotline. I remember a couple of owners posting the same thing but I forgot which site it was one. However after they corrected the problem the loved it hands down.

[louisdaboois]

ground are a big thing with the LC-1's. iirc, green and white on one grounding point, and blue on another grounding point, both of which should be close to each other, but not on the same ground. If thats good, try doing another free air calibration by starting the car, reving the motor to about 2k and shut off the car with the gas pedal to the floor. the car shuts off kiind of sputtery and rough, but that usually fixes my problem.

[Kouki]

Yeah, I've checked all over the innovate forums. There are lots of people having the same problem, but nobody can really tell why it does it or how to fix it. All connections are good, Grounds are good. I think I'm just gonna sell this thing and get an AEM. I should have done that in the first place and saved myself some money.

[louisdaboois]

Understandable. people love it or hate it. LC1 is really just finiky, you just have to mess with it and you'll get comfortable with it. Ive never really ran into a problem with it and love it to death. good luck to you bro

[Kouki]

It's up in the for sale section now, I'm just gonna get an AEM, they are soooo much more simple than this thing. I'm sure that they are great, but just too complicated and touchy for me.

[lostmenoggin]

i know it's not the LC-1 but I just installed my LM-1 yesterday. love it.

18" from the turbo?!?!? The LM-1 instructions say to mount the bung before the cat. I had a shop weld a bung in my test pipe. Here's what my directions said...

"Install the bung downstream from the turbo before the catalytic
converter. The high exhaust pressure before the turbo interferes with
the lambda measurement and the high exhaust temperatures
encountered there can damage the sensor."

The LC-1 directions say to do the same thing. I'd try mounting farther down the exhaust stream and see if that fixes it. You also want the bung mounted between the 10 o clock and 2 o clock positions on your pipe.

[steve shadows]

Typically 1 meter from the turbine is standard procedure.

I have a bungs closer and farther, in case I want to compare readings along the strem. my car is more of a test bed though

[johngriff]

Did you make a copper heat sink for it?

The other bitch about reading ANY guage is that they jump around quickly.

To fix the guage output, hook up the serial com cable to the Lc1 controller, go into the LM programmer and increase the response time, it will act as "smoothing"

ALL widebands set on a guage to instant output will FREAK YOU OUT, so you will get the same results with AEM unless smoothing is on.

Welcome to tuning.

[Kouki]

Well I did finally get it to smooth out and settle down. I checked all connections like 30 times, recalibrated the sensor to open air about 10 times. Finally it just started working right. I tried to program the extra analog output for my datalogit after I got it working, screwed it all up. Went in the lm programmer reset defaults, works good, Guess I just can't get it in sync with my datalogit for now. I'll mess with it some more later and hopefully get it going on both the gauge and fc-datalogit.

Also I shouldn't need a heat sink, I checked temp at the bung with my infared thermometer and highest I saw was about 800F, so I should be good there.

[johngriff]

It promotes sensor longevity by putting the synch in.

And, put that thermo on there on the dyno.

[louisdaboois]

wow, i actually have the wideband sensor replacing the factory 02 sensor and just connected the yellow wire to the factory 02 plug and the brown wire to the gauge. Everything reads accurate for me, and still running good on the sensor.

Just wondering on you guys' opinion (sorry to thread jack), but you think my ecu is freaking out because the factory 02 sensor isnt on there and just getting voltage readings from the narrowband wire on the LC-1? Since my afr's are fine, im not too worried about it, but jsut wondering.

[Kouki]

It promotes sensor longevity by putting the synch in.

And, put that thermo on there on the dyno.

Well, went to the dyno today. Used their innovate wideband, they used the exh clamp that puts it just inside the tailpipe. Mine was working then, and our readings were only off by about .2 or so.

[johngriff]

Thats about perfect, always the way it ends when comparing readings between the sensor in the DP and the one in the tail pipe.