Testing AEM’s Failsafe on a Turbo D17

The 7th generation of Honda Civics are funny cars that never quite took off in the aftermarket segment. Many changes seperate the 7th version of Honda’s Civic from the previously very popular models, including ditching the double wishbone suspension up front, and the new D17 motor which most tuners never could figure out what to do with.

Mostly because the car wasn’t too popular to begin with, and nothing from the D17 crosses over to its venerable D16 family of SOHC motors.

That’s where Andy comes in, who is the proud owner of this 2003 Honda Civic with a Homebrew turbo kit consisting of a Dezod manifold, T3/T4 hybrid Turbonetics turbocharger and a Griffin double sided front mount intercooler.

At 8psi, the car belts out a healthy 161 hp and 152 ft lbs of torque a solid gain over the stockish numbers of 87/90 hp to the wheels.

Today we’ll be testing AEM’s new Failsafe UEGO Gauge, which promises to do a whole hell of a lot for tuners worldwide.

The new gauge from AEM will not only monitor Air Fuel ratios, but will warn you and enact a predetermined safety protocol when your A/F ratios fall out of the safe window.

All parameters are user defined, which means you tell it what to do when you want it! Pretty neat huh? So if you want ignition cut, fuel cut or boost cut, the optional 5v switched wire will allow you do any of that within any parameters you wish to define!

Another cool feature of this unit is that it also includes a full datalogger that will let you datalog, capture and record your engine’s vitals.

A look at setting the parameters in question, you can see here that I have set the warnings to below stiochmetric mixtures and under boost. In this example we’ll be alerted, boost will be reduced and the warning flashers will go off, very very cool stuff.

Not to mention that this gauge will also function as a full service UEGO, there’s really not much reason to purchase anyone else’s wideband kit now that this Failsafe UEGO is available.

Next up.. Hitting the dyno and cranking up the boost… all while using the new Failsafe UEGO from AEM!

Happy boosting!