Recommended Innovate LC-1 Installation

Installation of the Innovate LC-1 wideband kit is pretty straight forward. The LC-1 Installation manual covers most of the basics for a general install. We do, however, have a few specific suggestions below, including a change to their grounding instructions.

The following is provided for reference in the sections that follow. You can also get detailed pin out information, including ECU wire colors, off our ECU wiring page.

ECU	Connectors (viewed with male pins pointing out towards you
1G DSM
2G DSM
EVO1-3

The red wire typically goes to a switched +12v source. The ECU pins listed above are good choices if you're wiring near the ECU. This wire would also typically be fused with at least a 5A fuse.

A good, solid high-current grounding point here. The ECU pins listed above are good choices or you can try a good, clean chassis ground point too.

The LC-1 install notes suggest that you tie the BLUE and WHITE wires together. They suggest this to keep things simple across all their different customer installations. In our case, we want the best possible reference point for this wire. And that's the ECU's sensor ground.

The ECU pins listed above are good choices or you can use any of the sensor ground points under the hood too (MAF connector, TPS connector, MDP connector, etc.). But, really, the best place would be right near the ECU since everything you need is right there anyway.

The only major concern with connecting something to the ECU's sensor ground is that it might draw too much current and blow the ECU's internal sensor ground track. But we've measured current draw on the WHITE wire to be a measly 45-50 mA. This will not cause any problems on the ECU's sensor ground circuit.

NOTE: Do NOT connect the BLUE wire from the LC-1 to the ECU's sensor ground. You will damage the ECU's sensor ground track if you do this. ONLY connect the WHITE wire from the LC-1 to the ECU's sensor ground, NOT the BLUE.

The YELLOW wire from the LC-1 is defined by default as the “narrowband” simulation output of the LC-1. Because you're using ECMLink, you can leave this wire disconnected (but isolated from ground with some heatshrink or electrical tape) and simply use ECMLink's narrowband simulation function instead.

The BROWN wire is defined by default to have a mapping of 0V = 7.35 AFR (0.5 lambda) and 5V = 22.39 AFR (1.52 lambda). This will work nicely using ECMLink's LC-1 datalogging item. So run the BROWN wire into your selected ECU input for logging and then configure ECMLink to use this input for the LC-1 log item (ECU Inputs tab) and, optionally, for the narrowband simulation function as well.

We generally recommend installing the LC-1's wideband sensor in the front O2 location directly off the turbo. That is, of course, if you plan to run without a narrowband sensor installed in that location. We have been running our sensor in that location for years without issue. We do not believe there are any “heat” concerns what so ever.

When running an LC-1 wideband, you can simply enable narrowband simulation in ECMLink and use nothing but the LC-1's analog output for both wideband data and narrowband closed-loop operation.

However, if you have the option of running both a wideband sensor and a narrowband sensor, considering doing so. This is probably more common on a 2G where you can run the narrowband sensor to the factory Front O2 pin while logging the wideband sensor on the factory Rear O2 pin, but there are enough inputs on a 1G to do the same thing.

The advantage to running a factory narrowband is that you get a good data point for checking up on the LC-1's calibration. The narrowband sensor is going to switch around stoichiometric. It's really good at that. So as long as you're running in closed loop operation using the factory narrowband sensor, you should see an LC-1 logged value of about stoich as well.

It's not a big deal either way, though. So don't go out of your way to make it happen. If it's convenient, great, give it a shot. If it's not, don't worry about it.