MAF ..at what point do u upgrade?

xkuntrycowboyx said:

i started on on AFPR's, its a great discussion..and would like info here to...n' about TB's, too... ne ways, here..

Q's:
1.at what point should you upgrade frm stock MAF
2.How big is toooooo big... or is there?
3.Benifits of upgrading?
4.ProM is big, what others have you guys gone with.
5.Are there drawbacks?

If there's already a good thread out there, send me a link to it... or if it's been a while, lets just rediscuss.

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4. I am pro ProM
2. In the ProM line (may not be the same with the new guys ... I'd call em & see) the most accurate electronics is in the 77 & 80mm meters. The plastic 80mm meter is less expensive to make thus less expensive to buy so those facts made it my choice of meters

Either meter will work fine for NA combos and are not too big.

The ProM 75mm bullet meter is not too small but some have had trouble with its curve not being stable and I chose to go with a meter that had given proven results for so many other self tuning peeps.

Remember this .......

One can learn from others success as well as others failures

That should cover items 2 & 4

For items 1, 3, & 5

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=597535

Grady

xkuntrycowboyx said:

Thanks Grady, been a lot of help soo far.

I know im askin a lot of fuel directed questions, but still have that lean spike, and wonderin if i should just upgrade this stuff anyhow, and see if that by chance takes care of it.

@d@m

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Not trying to be a wise guy or anything here

but

Why do you think

or

what data do you have that gives indication of the lean spike you speak of?

Grady

xkuntrycowboyx said:

i do know ONE thing for FACT thoooo...

IT'S NOT RUNNING RIGHT!!!!

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is your MAF calibrate for the right size injectors? what MAf do you have and what injectors do you have?

xkuntrycowboyx said:

i have no DATA, ...but from all of my thinking so far that is what i can come up with

because when i pull the AIT, i know the car runs rich, and i can smell it a ton... and it runs a thousand times better rich, than normal.

If i get on it... it just like dies out... it doesnt bog out but (like it's lean) dies out... till around 4k-4500 it picks back up....

I've been trying to diagnose this since i bought the car... so i have no DATA that says it...but... it's a thought that won't leave me... any HELP????

ur not a wise guy! haha, it's cool, i need to learn, im open to everything

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Where is JT ????????

He is pretty good at figuring out stuff like you got happening

Seems like I remember you asking about this before so I take it you got no solution to the problem

What all have you tried to fix the prob?

Grady

The fact that the pcm is throwing some kind of lean code may be something that some of the other members will be able to help with.

Did Ford have anything to say about those lean codes?

Grady

xkuntrycowboyx said:

said they didn't get any codes... but i have a scanner at home, and i checked it, rechecked and made sure i wasn't pickin up the wrong one. then took it to autozone for they're check... then cleared all the codes drove it for a couple days and rechecked them.... still getting the code?
i think ford just didn't have time and didn't think i'd know the diff...

pm that JT character and get em' in here! haha

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TTT for you!

btw ... just in case you don't know .........................

that JT character is HISSIN50

Grady

As far as you orginal question, here's my take on it:
1) Upgrade MAFs when you peg the stock MAF and that's around 300 RWHP or so. IMHO there is nothing to be gained by going to an aftermarket MAF and there is always the risk of worse driveability.

2) You need to size a MAF on ELECTRONIC capacity, not necessarily airflow size. Rarely is a MAF a restriction in the system. I usually recommend another OEM style MAF when upgrading something like a 90mm LMAF. You should size a MAF so you are using 80% of it's electronic range so you end up with good low end resolution.

3) See above

4) Grady and I usually agree 99% of the time on everything - but on Pro-M we part company. That's because I see tons of them when I tune cars and doing that has made me hate them. I understand the new company, Professional Mass Air Systems (they took over Pro-M's equipment when Pro-M went belly-up) really does a good job, so I look forward to seeing a bunch of their MAFs on cars. If you get a 90mm LMAF, you need a tune or a TwEECer or other tuning device. One would think that you would be OK with a 'calibrated' MAF, but you STILL need a tune or the load calculations will be off - I have some info on this on my website - see sig. Look in the tech articles on running a late model MAF in an earlier model car.

5) See above

As far as the lean condition, how do you know it's lean? How do you know it's running rich part of the time? And if you have a wideband, what numbers are you considering lean - 14.64 is normal at idle and part throttle. A lean motor will surprisingly smell rich to some people - a wideband is the only for sure way to know. If you are getting a lean code, look for several things - the obvious are vacuum leaks ? (hoses, upper/lower, etc.) the not so obvious are exhaust leaks ahead of the 02 sensors and air leaks in the TB to MAF tube, although this will usually also trip a MAF voltage below min code.

Good Luck!

Don

Don 95Vert said:

As far as you orginal question, here's my take on it:
1) Upgrade MAFs when you peg the stock MAF and that's around 300 RWHP or so. IMHO there is nothing to be gained by going to an aftermarket MAF and there is always the risk of worse driveability.

2) You need to size a MAF on ELECTRONIC capacity, not necessarily airflow size. Rarely is a MAF a restriction in the system. I usually recommend another OEM style MAF when upgrading something like a 90mm LMAF. You should size a MAF so you are using 80% of it's electronic range so you end up with good low end resolution.

3) See above

4) Grady and I usually agree 99% of the time on everything - but on Pro-M we part company. That's because I see tons of them when I tune cars and doing that has made me hate them. I understand the new company, Professional Mass Air Systems (they took over Pro-M's equipment when Pro-M went belly-up) really does a good job, so I look forward to seeing a bunch of their MAFs on cars. If you get a 90mm LMAF, you need a tune or a TwEECer or other tuning device. One would think that you would be OK with a 'calibrated' MAF, but you STILL need a tune or the load calculations will be off - I have some info on this on my website - see sig. Look in the tech articles on running a late model MAF in an earlier model car.

5) See above

As far as the lean condition, how do you know it's lean? How do you know it's running rich part of the time? And if you have a wideband, what numbers are you considering lean - 14.64 is normal at idle and part throttle. A lean motor will surprisingly smell rich to some people - a wideband is the only for sure way to know. If you are getting a lean code, look for several things - the obvious are vacuum leaks ? (hoses, upper/lower, etc.) the not so obvious are exhaust leaks ahead of the 02 sensors and air leaks in the TB to MAF tube, although this will usually also trip a MAF voltage below min code.

Good Luck!

Don

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Hey Don

While we have your attention here with the maf discussion ...............

A few answered Q's or thoughts from you would be great!

It is no surprise to me you like oem mafs as they are accurate and I have seen your comments about them more than once on these boards.

Even though you point out the most accurate maf is oem .....................

From my limited tuning experience and what you see on these boards .........

I some how think the average guy is gonna go for a ProM or C&L to try and avoid the cost of tuning which, as you pointed out above, the oem maf requires.

Would you care to share your thoughts or findings from dealing with customers combos who use C&L mafs.

From a Pro Tuner's perspective, would you say the C&L gives you more or less trouble to tune than the ProM?

Grady

Grady, it depends.... I've seen some C&Ls that were horrid, but some are really good. The new C&L intake tube system for Gen 2 Lightnings is as good as the OEM MAF - really easy to tune. If you ask me to compare MAFs I'd have to say C&L are better than the later Pro-Ms but not as good as the earlier ones. How's that for a confusing opinion.

The worst Pro-Ms were made after Pro-Ms original founder died a couple of years back - the absolute worst ones were the ones they did right before they went out of business, they tried doing 'split curves' and it just plain didn't work. You'd end up trying to tune a car and you didn't have enough room on the MAF curve at the transition spot without getting the flow numbers out of ascending order and when that happens - flame out... So it was a big compromise to getting them right. That said we have seen a few that were fine. The earlier Pro-Ms were really OK for the most part - I had one from 5-6 years ago and it wasn't as good as an OEM MAF, but it was OK and failry easy to tune.

The company that took over Pro-Ms equipment seems to have a mission to go back to doing MAF calibrations correctly - or so I have heard. They went from sandblasting resistors to laser trimming them - the same thing Hitachi does with Ford MAFs. So time will tell how they stack up - I wish them success and hope they are quality.

Granatelli MAFs are another option, they get them calibrated directly from Hitachi.

We've also come across a couple of LMAFs that were total crap for some reason - my guess is either there was an underlying mechanical issue or the MAF themselves were bad.

While on the surface it looks like it's cheaper to go to a calibrated MAF, it really isn't. You can get an LMAF for $99 from buyfordracing.com and a chip from a good dealer, like... hmmmm... and be further ahead - and I'm talking 94 up - on Fox bodies you don't need a chip with a calibrated meter because WOT timing is strictly RPM based vs. load based for SN95 and up. If load is off, timing will be off and with a calibrated meter, it will be higher than it should be without a chip.