How does a C&L Maf work on our cars?

c&l uses the old electronics out of your MAF i have the kit on my 94 and absolutly love it ..a lot talk it down but i noticed a much better throttle response as well as a nice cast tube that allowed me to tap easily for a nitrous nozzle...

I see no mention of a tune

Having said that ...
You're relying on the meter being caled to the injector size

That is not in itself necessarily a bad thing
but
As you go farther and farther away from 19lb inj's .....
you stand more and more of a chance that method will cause issues

This throws off the load factors and the larger the inj's .........
the more the error is gonna be

See ... the thing about a tune is .......
you can accurately tell the pcm two critical things

1) the air flow through the meter
2) the size of inj's you are using

Thus ... load factors are in harmony with the spark/ fuel tables, etc

If you think you are gonna be doing any self tuning ............
I'd lean more toward a ProM - PMAS meter

Lightning meter might not use much of the curve with a combo that
provides air flow requirements of 30's

If you're not gonna self tune ... the C&L might be good as any other
meter you could use

Grady

poboys 94 said:

Hey Grady thanks for the reply, Tuning is DEFINATELY coming up soon, Ive been on the Tweecer and tuning boards picking up some info and trying to school myself up on that, and also the C&L site which says any self tuning should be done in conjunction with a Dyno etc so now Im thinking maybe recalibrating my Pro-M and putting the flow specs in the maf transfer when I get the Tweecer, but Im wanting the bigger injectors because I have stroker plans over the winter, 347, I already have the block, so basically Im trying to see if it would be more cost efficient to 1- buy the C&L package, or 2- recal my Pro-M and buy the squirters else where i:e E-bay,the Ford 30lbers are going for 300.00 now a days and the C&L kit with the Maf and injectors are 389.00-sooo, Im trying to save a little $, what do you think?

Click to expand...

where did you find a c&l kit with injectors!!?!?!?! i bought just my c&l for 300 ..im pissed now that i could have gotten injectors for 90 more bucks!! oh well soon i will be carbed anyhow...i cant speek on behalf of pro-m meters since i have not used them but i can tell you the c&l units are quite nice especially with the calibration tubes they offer

poboys 94 said:

Hey Grady thanks for the reply, Tuning is DEFINATELY coming up soon, Ive been on the Tweecer and tuning boards picking up some info and trying to school myself up on that, and also the C&L site which says any self tuning should be done in conjunction with a Dyno etc so now Im thinking maybe recalibrating my Pro-M and putting the flow specs in the maf transfer when I get the Tweecer, but Im wanting the bigger injectors because I have stroker plans over the winter, 347, I already have the block, so basically Im trying to see if it would be more cost efficient to 1- buy the C&L package, or 2- recal my Pro-M and buy the squirters else where i:e E-bay,the Ford 30lbers are going for 300.00 now a days and the C&L kit with the Maf and injectors are 389.00-sooo, Im trying to save a little $, what do you think?

Click to expand...

Well ... No way in the world I could say I know more than a major
manufacturer like C&L

BUT

I do got a bit of experience fooling around with a Tweecer and a 95 GT

I gotta bring out the smiley I rarely use on this site at this time when
talking about the need for a dyno to self tune

As a matter of fact
I've seen those really smart guys say the dyno doesn't load the car
like the street does ... so ... you get more accurate results or you
might say ... you can more duplicate things when you tune on the street

I just don't buy into that at all

All you need to self tune for max WOT power is
a WB for accurate fuel ratio evaluation
a knowledge of how the fuel & spark tables work
a way to talk to the pcm
and
a road that provides safe driving conditions

Myself and too many others have shown that to be so :Word:

Now that I've got that off my chest

I want to say some good stuff about C&L

The concept of just changing out a little tube when you go to different
size inj's is quite thoughtful

These days ... more and more peeps have done the leg work or
paved the way for you ... as they say ... when it comes to using
accurate data about the air flow which is obviously ..........
building yourself an accurate maf transfer curve
You can find these curves all over the place so that is a good thing.

True ... Some have had bad experiences with the C&L meters
but
Some have had issues with the bullet 75mm ProM meters as well

What should you do

The easy ... slam dunk one first ... Stay with your choice of 30's
We've hashed all that out in many other threads :Word:
so
I ain't gonna waste any time on it in this one

Note what I said above about the Lightning meter
Maybe Greg, Wes, Don, or some of the other guys would chime in on it

You don't have a ProM meter that is caled for 30's at this time so
if you could get your money out of that bullet ... I'd do it .......
rather than put more money in it for a recal.

I've seen others say you can't get a 80mm from PMAS any longer
and you now have to go with a 90mm unit ... that is ... if you go
for a brand new meter.

If you wanna go with a ProM and wanna go used ....
77mm and 80mm have the same electronics that are usually
pretty accurate but the 77mm meter is a larger meter than the
80mm meter as I understand it

IIRC ... Greg has done a good bit of research about using OEM
meters other than Lightnings
Might wanna find some of his old threads where he laid out
all the details

Grady

wow nice type up grady ....and for the record my kit is a 76mm

poboys 94 said:

Agreed, good info and thanks, C&l and 30s, Ill call thier tech line and see if I can get a flow sheet for future reference( Tweecer) AND to ask about my 90 degree CAI elbow and if they could bench flow it for that setup? Ive downloaded the Tweecer manual and read and RE-READ about how to "talk" to the PMS But for now I wanted to upgrade the injectors which has been something that should have been done when I did the HCI, but $ was a problem. Again thanks to all for the input, tommorrow I snag the parts for my Fox TB setup off my buddies 86, valve covers tooIll Keep youz posted,

Click to expand...

I would not worry about that elbow as you are gonna have to fine tune
the curve anyway

N O provided curve is gonna be 100% on the money :Word:

If you look on the .org site, Yahoo site, or EA site .........
you can find curves for C&L meters as I talked about above

Grady

I am bias to the factory style mafs for a few reasons.

Easy to come by maf transfers that will be really close out of the box.

Avail. all over the place and the non-big demand ones(Lmaf/03 cobra) can be had CHEAP.

I would say put on the stocker (when you get the tweecer) and log the meter to see were your at. See how soon you peg the stocker. I would install the 30's along with the slopes/breakpoint/offsets out there and see.

The Lmaf would prob. work well but I say see were your at as what if your not going to use over 4.2 volts on the Lmaf? Its kind of a wast if you ask me...get one that will best use the most of the transfer without maxing it out (at or over 4.7volts).

That said Pro-M/PMAS makes a good meter...just tuning with them can get wierd with load/inj. values and what the meter is "thinking". For a noob one of the fool-ing mafs is kinda jumping off into the deep end.

For tuning I rank the meters like so...

1. factory meters
2. SCT meters
-------------------------------------------
3. Pro-M/PMASS
4. C&L

with the meters above the line for self tuners and the ones below for those that want to be more "plug n' play". The ones below the line are not BAD just an added PITA for self tuner taking into account the way they offset the signal to the eec.

Personaly, since self tuning is going to be the specific combo you have with how YOU want the car to drive...and that gets more and more "nit' pickie" the more you learn and understand. Why add more to your plate? Just start off with a meter that is designed to work with the eec the way the eec was designed...you dont need to fool something if your telling it the correct information from the beginning.

The one thing you may not be aware of with the Pro-M/PMAS they do give a flow sheet but its only in a 10pt format that is GOOD. However, the factory maf is a 30pt transfer meaning you only have 1/3 of the picture and its not a linear one.

Dont get me wrong the Pro-M/PMAS is prob. the best "fool" type maf out there. Its just you will still have to come up with the rest of the transfer, EA will be a HUGE help in that though. Dont forget that you will also have to work within its offset...as its going to intercept the maf signal and "step" it to a diff. one to make up for the inj. size from stock diff. So your going to have to think in reverse and redo your load as well probably...

I am not trying to talk you out of the Pro-M/PMAS meter just making sure you know what the details of going that route are.

Like Grady said no meter will be exact for your combo's needs. Even the factory meters often need alittle tweecing at some point of there transfer. Its just how much will you have to do and the factory mafs tend to need less. Pro-m/PMAS units do tend to have good flow numbers, support good power levels, and have top notch electronics.

If your going to tune with a tweecer anyways why not go ahead and buy the tweecer dial in the maf curve then buy injectors. If you already have a pro m and you are not pegging it there is no reason to have it recal'd if you have the tweecer is there???

Well if he did get it "cald" for the inj. it would be easier to tune...if he just tuned with it now he would have to account for the "cal" it has for the inj. he now runs. Then adjust the eec to compinsate further as he would need to more or less sque the transfer further to get the other inj. setting to work with the actual inj. he will be running...you see from time to time people going insane on the forums trying to compinsate a "cald" meter to run with what they have.

At least if he had it "re-cald" it would just be getting the rest of the transfer, dailing it in, working with the load scaler, and fine tuning the inj. All of which is just a little more complex than handling the maf transfer seperate from the inj. like the factory does it with a factory maf.

blksn955.o said:

I am bias to the factory style mafs for a few reasons.

Easy to come by maf transfers that will be really close out of the box.

Avail. all over the place and the non-big demand ones(Lmaf/03 cobra) can be had CHEAP.

I would say put on the stocker (when you get the tweecer) and log the meter to see were your at. See how soon you peg the stocker. I would install the 30's along with the slopes/breakpoint/offsets out there and see.

The Lmaf would prob. work well but I say see were your at as what if your not going to use over 4.2 volts on the Lmaf? Its kind of a wast if you ask me...get one that will best use the most of the transfer without maxing it out (at or over 4.7volts).

That said Pro-M/PMAS makes a good meter...just tuning with them can get wierd with load/inj. values and what the meter is "thinking". For a noob one of the fool-ing mafs is kinda jumping off into the deep end.

For tuning I rank the meters like so...

1. factory meters
2. SCT meters
-------------------------------------------
3. Pro-M/PMASS
4. C&L

with the meters above the line for self tuners and the ones below for those that want to be more "plug n' play". The ones below the line are not BAD just an added PITA for self tuner taking into account the way they offset the signal to the eec.

Personaly, since self tuning is going to be the specific combo you have with how YOU want the car to drive...and that gets more and more "nit' pickie" the more you learn and understand. Why add more to your plate? Just start off with a meter that is designed to work with the eec the way the eec was designed...you dont need to fool something if your telling it the correct information from the beginning.

Click to expand...

how can you rank stock #1 and c&l last it is a aftermarket housing with stock internals so i would say if stock is your first pick then c&l should be right under that

This maf calibration thing can be kinda mind blowing

You can see very simple but detailed info on my site
and
I think Wes has some good stuff on the Wiki site as well

Try to think of a meter in this way

One made by Ford (OEM) for a stock Stang
and
One of the same for a Lightning

Each one has to be able to accurately report V E R Y different amounts
of air flow and each one only has a voltage range of 0 to 5.0 volts that
is used to represent that airflow.

btw ... both use an electronic method of sampling airflow

Now ... the Stang uses 19# inj's because they are the size needed to
support the amount of air flow that motor can produce

The same can be said about the Lightning's greater air flow and
much larger 42# size inj's

Each meter in these example cars here has its own unique transfer
curve contained in its respective pcm.

That is how Ford does it :Word:

these meters are not caled for a certain size inj.
these meters are designed for a certain amount of air flow

The after market meter companies like ProM and C&L base things
upon the fact the info in the pcm is unchanged. That is what is
referred to as ... a calibrated meter.

Those companies came up with that concept ... which some
call ... the cheat method ... in an attempt to allow their
customers to use their meters with larger inj's without
the need for a custom tune.

Worked kinda sorta good for the fox rpm based pcm's
but
Not all that great with the 94-95 load based pcm's

Now ... if you have pcm access
All that cheat method goes out the window
and
You now can do it no differently than Ford did it
because
You now have the ability to tell the pcm you are running 30's
and
You now have the ability to tell the pcm actual air flow

Grady