MAF 4/6 wire question

does the sensor element it uses output both the airflow voltage and the temerature voltage? if so, then you have a hope. but you will have to either (1) verify that the voltage is the same as a stock IAT, or (2) have a tuning device (like a TwEECer or something comparable) that you can use to modify the table that maps the voltage to the temperature

i spliced mine myself with stuff from radio shack and did not use the outer 2 pins. and i left the iat the way it was.

do you have a tuning device where you can log the air temp? if so, you could do a before and after to find out if the readings are the same.

Like Chris said

It is important to know if the built in act is the same as the OEM act :Word:

Fuel, spark, and other stuff are effected by these temps which are
controled by the pcm which is based upon the range of the OEM act

If the built in act outputs a diffferent range
then
All kinds of things are gonna be off due to the difference

Grady

95Vert383AOD said:

But you do know 6 wire meters have the iat biult in. i was just curious if i could use the built in one to reduce clutter.

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no, i did not know that, and it is an interesting idea. but what i have been talking about is the same as what grady is saying ... does the built in one on the 6-pin MAF behave the same as a 94/95 OEM one?

you might try posting that question over here:

EECTuning.org • View forum - Tuning the EEC....

i started a thread for you about it ...

http://eectuning.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17336

or you can figure it out experimentally if you have something like a TwEECer where you can datalog the IAT value.

Intake air temp sensors are just a simple temperature sensitive resistor. The sensor/resistor is put into a voltage divider circuit, with the top half of the voltage divider (5V supply and pull-up resistor) located in the ECU itself. There are only two ways this hardware change can work:

1) you get lucky, and the IAT sensor in the 6-wire MAF has the same resistance vs. air temp response as the original sensor used in our cars.
2) you change the transfer function in the ECU if you have a Tweecer or other means of calibration editing.

You can also run into a bigger problem with mixing and matching parts like this, where the pull-up resistor value in the ECU doesn't match the resistance range of the sensor (from cold to hot). The result will be an imbalanced voltage divider where the output voltage will always be too high or too low, and the temperature vs. voltage characteristic won't have enough resolution or variation for the ECU to read properly. (The only way around this is to change the pull-up resistor on the ECU board.)

The best method to see if this swap is even plausible would be to measure the resistance of the two pins on the stock IAT sensor, and then measure the resistance between the two pins for the IAT on the 6-wire MAF (should be ground and signal wire). If they aren't nearly identical, then it probably not do-able.

I would guess that these sensors are not interchangeable. This is probably why Ford racing sells the LMAF instead of the Cobra MAF: 1) it's cheaper without the IAT on board and 2) It won't interface properly so it's just easier to leave it out altogether.

Let us know what you find out. I'm curious but I don’t have a Terminator Cobra MAF to measure this on.

good info. i say try it and let us know what you find.

95Vert383AOD said:

Update Update....

94/95 guys who update their MAF should definitely do this. Nearly 2 years later and it runs great. Much cleaner look. Any questions on how i did it feel free to ask. There is no polarity on the end wires.

Click to expand...

What's going on Chris and sorry to bring back up this super old thread lol but it's relevant especially since you did it. I'm going to be doing this and I bought a 6 pin to 4 pin adapter off ebay for $37 but I'm thinking about maybe sending it back when it comes in and just going to a junkyard and getting a plug and splicing it in myself. That would eliminate me having to relocate the IAT sensor in the tubing of the SC inlet right before the throttle body.