Southern fried...

I also initially installed the single wire O2 sensor, and just like you said, the damn "check engine" light kept coming on because the ECM did not sense the presence of the O2 heater wires...and it would not reset until I installed the 3 wire sensor.

Also, as far as "twisting, untwisting and pre-twisting" the three wires before and during removal and installation of the O2 sensor, I eliminated that problem.

The autozone universal 3 wire O2 sensor comes with a short (8 inch?) pigtail with a quality male plastic connector. I asked the Autozone folks to identify the connector part number in their master part ID manual..turns out connector is a Ford product; 85 -87 taurus, sable, etc..got several from junkyard for $1.

Rather than cut a perfectly good connector off my new O2 sensor, I cut the old O2 sensor off under the car and then soldered the junkyard female connector to the three wires. Presto, I now have a perfect and convenient connector located near the O2 sensor. If ever need to remove or replace the O2 sensor, I can "unplug" the 8" pigtail and not worry about twist/untwisting/pretwisting the wires...

just a thought...