I agree. I had one.
it lied. then the gauge quit working.
I got a complete replacement set, under warranty.
it too lied. then the gauge quit working.
I threw it on the wall of shame, and have never missed it and my plugs were replaced 22 years later with about 110,000 miles on them, NOT because they needed to be changed, but because I thought the car was sold, and so I gave it a tune-up. Buyer backed out.
My AFR may not be perfect, but by the plugs, I doubt an AFR could do better., Plus, you know, the car has, with one size smaller cam, and a lil more cylinder pressure, gotten UNBELIEVABLE (to some of the smartest guys here on FABO), fuel economy.
IMO;
RPM/Load/AFR/ and Ignition Timing, all go hand in hand. If you cannot change the timing on the fly, Nor change the AFR on the fly, as is the case with a carburetor; what's the point of monitoring the AFR?
I mean, that's like watching your wife gain weight, and thinking you can talk to her about it. If yur stupid enough to try, as I was, stand well back, and be prepared to rough it for a week or a lifetime.
Just let her/it, be, Cuz just like my wife goes around complaining about how fat she is, that AFR will do the same.
I get what you are saying TB. And what AJ is saying, because as you both know (I don’t say that to insult your intelligence or AJ’s but as a fact that I know you both know what I’m about to say so it’s old hat to you guys) to use an AFR meter and understand what data it’s giving takes time to learn.
I get some guys don’t really care to learn. I’m ok with that until they start complaining their carb doesn’t run right. Then either pay someone to fix it that you trust or, learn yourself.
I always see on the side of FABO members are not stupid and that most of them want to learn to tune better. Or drive better. Or shift better.
I know my driving skills are in the crapper right now from lack of practice. I will soon be hitting it again and I’ll have to teach my dumb self how to drive again.
That’s kinda the same thing.
I get why AJ (and you) don’t want to bother with one, and that’s ok. Trust me when I say I’ll probably never do EFI not because I can’t do it and tune it, but because I absolutely HATE all that wiring and ****. Just hate it.
Am I actively looking at an MSD Digital 7 box so I can start learning individual cylinder timing and such. I know there is power in individual cylinder timing.
Would I expect AJ to do it? Nope. And probably 99% of the people doing this hobby wouldn’t even be close to needing or wanting an ignition like that.
But for the 1% (I shouldn’t be talking in “absolutes” because some guys get offended…not on this forum but others) we want to keep learning.
And then the customer ends up with a better end product because I learned how and what to do.
That’s where I come from.
Plus, I know how much time AJ spends massaging his stuff. He gets it dialed in. He isn’t getting paid to tune his stuff so any extra time it takes him to tune it doesn’t matter.
I like to keep my tuning time as little as possible.