looking at my maf its aftermarket zo6 it has a diferent looking plug with 6 wires? thinking of putting a stock one on with a new tune?

 

What year vehicle is it for? it's probably a hot-wire maf, the LT1 uses a cold-wire maf sensor that has 3 wires: 12v, ground, and frequency output.

 

The difference is that the later LSx MAF's have the IAT sensor incorporated into them. That accounts for the extra wires.

They are both "hot-wire" anemometer devices.

 

That's what I thought at first too, but all my research says otherwise. I may be wrong though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_flow_sensor

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&s...qi=g2&aql=&oq=

 

The wiki article correctly indicates there are two types of mass air meters - vane type and hot wire. A "vane" meter has, as indicated in the article, a flapper door that moves in proportion to air flow, moving a rheostat. That type was used in some Toyotas, for example. But the 3rd and 4th Gens have used a hot-wire mass air sensor from the beginning. The 3rd Gens use a true hot-wire, made by Bosch. While it was accurate when it worked, it got dirty easily, so they included a "burn-off" cycle. The wire is heated to over 1,000degF when the engine shuts down, to burn off any dirt. The relay and the burn off circuit were prone to failure.

As a result, GM designed their own MAF sensor - the one used in the 4th Gens. It is a hot-wire type, but it doesn't use a wire, it uses a thin-film resistor that is vacuum plated onto the flat metal bars. The wires that span the flat metal bars incorporate the temperature thermistor and the balance of the Wheatstone bridge circuit that measures the power consumption required to maintain the thin-film surface a given number of degrees above the incoming air temp.

Simply by looking at the MAF sensor in an LT1, you can see that it is not a "vane" type - there are no moving parts. If still questioning the validity of this info, I would refer you to the excellent reference "Corvette Fuel Injection" by Charles Probst (GM part # 12497977; ISBN 0-8376-0861-9). As pointed out on page 73, covering the tech description of the MAF sensors used with the current (3rd and 4th Gen) engines:

The "coldwire" description seems plausible - first time I have seen it described that way. In any case, the LT1 and LS1 sensors are identical - and both originally had only three wires. The extra wires only appeared when what was essentially a redundant sensor - the IAT sensor - was combined with the temp sensor in the MAF unit.