Ok, so I built a nice 383 LT1 almost a year ago and the general opinion seemed to be to use a stock, unmodified MAF sensor for the most accurate metering of air. I put my cousin's stock MAF on and everything seemed fine for months, except that my 383 tried to eat it the other day It happened right after I made a u-turn and had to floor it to get out of the way of traffic.

http://www.phastnet.com/users/shawn/...-screwed-1.jpg
http://www.phastnet.com/users/shawn/...-screwed-2.jpg

Unbelievable $!#@ is what that is! Has anyone else seen this happen on high horsepower applications or was I just lucky enough to get a defective MAF screen? Or is this common for a 10 year old MAF? Alls I know is that I couldn't believe that pieces of the screen could have gone through the engine, but it seems like most of it is there and the material is extremely light weight anyways, so hopefully it didn't do any damage if some did go through. The car sure runs a whole lot better now that it can breathe again

 

I have to admit, I've never seen that before. Was the metal retaining ring that holds the screen in still in place?

 

- Wow! Nasty. Never seen that before, or even heard of it happening.

What is the discoloration in the central area of the screen? Did something occur to weaken that area? Looks as thought the failure began there rather than at the edges.

-Jay

 

Yea, I can still see the Retaining ring in the picture. But I also see the discoloration on the screen too.... did you have a bad backfiring problem before or something? cuz that thing looks burned.

 

I would check to see if anything got sucked up past your filter to cause that damage to the MAF

 

Well, I have had popping out the intake problems in the past, but nothing recently and never noticed any discolorations when I've had the MAF off before. So, that is definitely a possible cause of the problem, but I actually think the discoloration was caused after it broke, because man o man, the smoke and smell that was coming out of the exhaust when i was trying to diagnose the problem was very nasty and didn't smell quite like gas, although there was a strong gas smell too.. But the cloud of smoke coming out the back was like more of a greyish-white instead of black like gas should be.. I was so confused at what the hell was going on, and thought it might be bad gas, but luckily decided to take off the intake runner and see if it ran, which it did.. Anyhow, even with the MAF off the car, it has a really bad smell if you stick your nose in it, so it seems like it was recently cooking or something, but no clue how that could happen up in the intake like that, unless there really was a recent intake pop that I didn't realize happened.

Thanks a ton for the input!

 

Ya, everything seemed perfect when looking at the filter, which is why I had no idea that something could be clogging it up like that.. craziness

 

- Okay then, what does the remaining screen feel like? Does it pull apart easily, as if it's decomposing or corroding? If so, is it weakest in the discolored area?

Did you spray anything onto the screen before this happened?

If nothing got by the filter, and nothing broke from the ducting, then nothing from the outside caused this. Larger engines than yours have pulled a LOT more air through these screens that you did and not caused this destruction.

It seems that something had to compromise the structural integrity of the screen, and only after that did intake airflow do the rest of the work. I suppose a healthy backfire would fill the bill. Is the discoloration the same intensity on the inlet and outlet sides of the screen?

-Jay

 

Ya, you're probably right, the screen does look more discolored on the engine side of it, so it's probably the intake pop that weakened it. It was also a used MAF when I got it 6 months ago, so it's possible that someone had sprayed crap on it or something similar.

What about eating an oil dipstick? Is that normal for a stroker? A month or so ago I pulled out the dipstick to check the oil and about 4 or 5 inches had been broken off by something. The end was sort of curled when it came out, so it seemed like something had grabbed ahold of it. I'm assuming that would be my crank, and that I just happened to have the dipstick in at a bad angle, but it freaked me out too. This engine needs to stop eating things! lol

Thanks again for the replies!

 

here is an option for a new sensor,

the newer gm maf that is used on cadillac, gm trucks 4.8,5.3.6.0,and corvette, is about 1/2" larger in diameter and looks to flow better than the stock f-body sensor, and they are cheap $99 brand new from gm, just get a harness and splice it in, this sensor also has the iat sensor build into it if you wana use it to relocate your factory iat sensor

you then have to modify your maf tables for the calibtation of this sensor, if anyone wants these tables let me know,

ive been using on of these sensors for 2 yrs now with no problems

 

That's a good idea, but doesn't it look funny to have a MAF that is 1/2" bigger diameter than the rest of your intake? And how do the rubber boots go around it? Maybe it's such a small amount that they just fit right over it, but it seems like it would complicate things. Hopefully you'll tell me I'm wrong though, because the low price and less restriction makes it a good sounding choice

 

i got my connections to stretch over the new maf sensor, then bought a harness from gm and it looks good, and works great with the moddified maf tables