chpspecial Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 There has now been a lot of "are MAF sensors worth it" topics lately and the short aswer is NO. However I have not seen a reply that gives a reason as to why... so here it is. The purpose of the MAF is to read incoming air post the air filter and pre throttle body. however there is a hard limit on gen III motors on how much air the MAF can read. This is a hard limit is imposed by the PCM not the MAF. So replacing the MAF with and aftermarket one will not read any higher than the stock one. Nor will it read more or less air than the stock one, more/less air is dependant on the motor, the motor mods and the efficiancy of motor. On basically stock motors the limit is high enough that it will never be reached. It will take a very large cam with heads and full exhaust including long tubes to max out the MAF, or FI at around 8psi. and even then the PCM cannot read any higher than the limit so there is no need to get a different MAF. it is much easier to go to speed density. Therefore a new MAF will not make more power. There are MAFs that are supposed to read higher/lower readings from stock, in an attempt to FOOL the pcm to think its reading more or less air. These give the sense of more power simply by making the PCM think that it is reading more or less air when in reality the engine is not seeing more/less air. Also, there are a lot of secondary things calculated from the MAF that affect performance such as trans line pressures, spark, VE coorilation and so on. So this now leads to a DESCREANED MAF. Purpose... unrestricted airflow before the sensors. Hey corvettes come like this so why not the truck right? Reality... The corvettes have little to no bends/restrictions before or after the MAF hence the airfoil is not needed to straighten the air. On trucks there are several bends/restrictions that cause trubulance at the sensors and therefore an airfoil is needed so that the sensor can read properly. Once descreen, the MAF gives back inconsistant data to the PCM causing numerous problems from shifting to improper fueling and spark. If truck could run descreened MAF the general would of put them in from the getgo being as the already had them laying around form the corvette applications. No need for extra RD. And lastly the lingenfelter 100mm MAF. There are some people/tuners that belive in them however the only real advantage to them is that one can run a true 4" intake track with no bottlenecks. other than that they too are limited on the performance of the motor and the hard limits of the PCM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman31 Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Nice write up Reynaldo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelleyperformance Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 :thumbs: i honestly have exhausted myself on this subject, and im tired of saying generally what youve said! im printing this out and putting it on the shop walls lol. thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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