I did a quick search but couldn't find the answer. About three weeks ago when I was driving up to school my SES light came on and it was some code about the MAF. Anyhow, when I had it scanned I had it deleted and it came back on a few miles down the road. When I got home I took off my MAF to find it pretty gritty and dirty. I got some electronics cleaner and cleaned it real good and made sure not to bend any of the wires. I also disconected my battery for 20 minutes to delete the code and let the PCM reset for the freshly cleaned MAF. I ran better, idled a hell of a lot better but my crappy gas mileage didn't seem to be effected, which I was hoping by cleaning it, maybe it would go up.

Fast forward to today. My SES light came on again and I was assuming that it was because of the MAF. My idle had gotten progressively worse (not bad but definitely rougher) since three weeks ago. My gas mileage has also been still crappy at like 12 mpg city. Anyhow, I decided to unplug my MAF to see if it would help. I must say the idle is silky smooth and driveability seems to be good. The wierd thing is that my SES light suddenly turned off after driving for about 2 miles with the MAF disconnected. Does that seem normal? I always thought if you disconnected it, the SES light would come on. I also didn't hear my fans come on like normally would with the MAF disconnected. Would it be possible that my MAF has been the culprit for my crappy gas mileage? I guess I will just have to drive around and see. Any long term "damage" from having it unplugged?

 

you probably have a bad maf. i wouldn't advise u run without it. buy a new maf on ebay for 35-50 bucks

 

Witht he MAF unplugged your car is simply running in speed density mode - which means the manifold pressure reading is used to determine how much air is entering the engine rather than the mass air flow senser which measures actual air entering the enging (in grams). It shouldn't really HURT the car to run this way. All '93 Z-28s were speed density. The MAF was not introduced until '94. I'm not sure if there was any tuning differences between 93/94 thought hat would affect how the car runs in speed density mode. I wouldn't be too worried about it though - if you can't get around to changing the MAF for a few days i wouldn't be concerned.

 

As long as it won't hurt the car I may have to run it this way maybe for a couple of weeks. I may just try to clean the MAF again to see if it helps. I still can't get over though how much better my car idles without it though, I guess that is just because I was used to a bad MAF.

 

would it be alright if i take my maf out all together, like a freemod or something?

 

One thing that I still didn't understand is how come when I unplugged my MAF the SES light went off?

 

Removing the MAF isn't going to give you any power - there's no reason to remove a funcitoning maf. It's far more accurate to use the MAF reading and MAP readings then to use just MAP. There is a reason Ford went to MAF on the 5.0s and GM added them to the LT-1s.

 

Thats not always true. SD cars are harder to tune, but typically give you more power if tuned right. SD tuning is a long process. Ford went to MAF for simplicity purpose and the aftermarket wanting it. Modified MAF cars will run better on a stock tune than a SD car will. Mods, especially heads/cam/stroker will affect the VE of the motor and make it run much different moreso than what a MAF reads.

I still wouldnt recomend deleting the MAF completely (although its fine for a short time) unless you want to spend countless hours tuning your car.

 

My car won't start with the maf unplugged. IS it due to obd2?