I can't believe how much smoother my engine is running now, and I thought it was running good before! I should have done this sooner! It feels like a different car. I did some HARD acceleration and was amazed at how quickly and smoothly the engine ramped up. The car runs better than I ever remember it running, and I bought it new.

Anyways, this is what I did. Do this at your own risk. I took the MAF out of the car. I bought some electrical parts cleaner from Autozone, it says right on the can that it's fast drying and leaves no residue. Perfect. It helps to have a nice bright light overhead or over your shoulder when you do this. I placed a few pieces of white paper towel under the MAF so that I could see better and to absorb the electrical parts cleaner that I sprayed on the sensors. Be very careful. Don't spray them too hard, just enough to coat them. Then I took a Q-tip and GENTLY rubbed the sensors. Make sure you don't catch the Q-tip on the little wire ends. One of my sensors was darker than the other two. I thought it was supposed to be that way until I rubbed it with the Q-tip. It became light colored like the other two. There was definately a lot of build up on the sensors. Just little deposits over time. I went over the sensors a few times. Make sure you have plenty of Q-tips and keep the end clean. Use a lot of them. I then rubbed the bars clean with the same procedure. Then I took rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball and rubbed the inside aluminum carefully until it was clean.

I thought, what the heck, may as well try cleaning the MAF, I have 55,000 miles on the car and I know it's never been cleaned because I've been the only owner. I already descreened the MAF at about 40,000 miles when I installed my K&N CAI. I think the K&N instructions said to descreen the MAF, if I'm not mistaken. I haven't had any problems with the descreen, but I'm stock except for the CAI.

Let me know your experiences. Mine is extremely positive, as you can tell.

Dan

 

Yeah...Ive cleaned mine a few times with electrical parts cleaner....never used a q-tip though....but the cleaner seemed to always get the job done.

 

Yeah, the cleaner didn't take it off. I had to use the Q-tip.

Dan

 

If you get that excited over cleaning your MAF, then you'll be even more delighted when you clean your TB. Chances are your TB is gunked up and you'd benefit from cleaning it good.

 

Sounds good. I'll give that a shot. I have seen deposits around the blades, but the car idles well and the blades don't stick. I'll clean it though. Thanks for the suggestion.

Dan

 

Is there a special cleaner for the TB blades? I thought I heard not to use some of the normal carb cleaner

By the way, the car is still running amazingly well after the MAF cleaning. Super smooth. It lost all hints of the gravelly sound at idle and during acceleration. Why didn't I do this sooner? I'm going to the track tomorrow for the first timeto see what I can get an almost stock(except CAI) car to run.

Dan

 

Sea Foam's DeepCreep works well for the TB. Heck, you can use it on lots of stuff: as carb-type cleaner to clean parts, to clean/oil guns, as a lubricant for hinges, as a penetrant for bolts, etc. It's great stuff.