Thread: How well is your MAF performing?

Our old MAFs are not all created or performing equally. They do wear out & some are already almost or completely shot.

I have found that many MAF have seen their better days and are losing their luster & signal strength..
Recently, I have been testing a few MAFs: OEM DE, N60, & E60/61. Its amazing the differences found among these 10-15+ year old MAFs.

Tested several and found the signal strength to vary as much as 1.5v @ idle. Thats approx 1/3 of the max MAF voltage of 5 volts.. I found some MAFs reading @ .22 & .072v!! The normal MAF idle voltage is between 1.5 v & 2.0v at operating temp.

Old weak MAFs can cause weird idle problems & strange hesitation issues. If your car is having these problems, you can test your MAFs to identify its signal condition. Its easy, just test the MAF signal @ idle with the positive connector your grounded DVM set on the voltage setting. The weak ones will be very obvious with their low readings (usually under 1v) & compared to a good MAF will have a noticeable stumbling idle difference.

I have discussed this with Calum on several occasions. Lots of performance issues, poor fuel mpg, and hestitation issues are probably being caused by worn-out MAFs.

The idle MAF voltage must be greater than the Low MAF Voltage Enrichment Trigger constant in your ecu bin file.
Otherwise wierd idle/performance issues can occur..
Normal Calums bins has this constant set at 1.0v and Jim Wolfe bins has the constant set at 0.0v or 0.01v.
So Im thinking that the MAF should read at least 1v just to be safe..

Calum provided this info to manually add this constant to the xdf,
Create the following:

-constant/scalar
-address 0A22 or EA22
-size 16 bits
-units of Volts
-conversion formula of 'X * .005'
-title: EA22 - Low MAF Voltage Enrichment Trigger

Then save your XDF..

Thought I would post this information & to see if other members have experimented with this.
Also posted this to inform members of our old & tired MAFs..
Also be aware that many Junkyard MAFs are also old & weak...

Update:
Found this link on the old forum with similar info..
It is looking at the MAF causing idle/stall dive issues b/c the MAF/Filter is placed in a
turbulent location (fender well). Who knew??

How about MAF cleaner, does that do a very good job?

The MAF cleaners will help when lots of buildup is found on the MAF sensor wires.
But normally this is not the case, as those wires are usually pretty clean.
I only use the MAF cleaner as a last resort as they can cause more harm than good, & if the instructions are not followed EXACTLY..
And I only use the CRC brand made specifically for MAF cleaning!! Nothing else!!

But Nope.. Some of our MAFs are simply just old & worn out from use..

This may be a silly question, but how does one test their maf?

^^ Its described above ^^
Joel will show you today on your car..

so would it be advantageous to set the maf high and low voltage points to what we read with a dmm?

This might just explain my cars stalling when driving and pressing the clutch.

yea explains why mine only runs decent with the maf unplugged...
so the solution is to change the constants on our xdf?
...and is this for the b13 or b14 xdf and is there a difference?

Very interesting information. I seem to recall my n60 maf was reading around .6 volts last time I had the laptop hooked up. Time to check it out.

Thanks for the good information Scotty.

Dudeman

most mafs should read .4-6v with the car off and from what i have seen on cobra and z32 they should read 1.2-1.4v at idle if your pulling 16+ vac.