handyandy

Will someone educate me about them, because I really don't understand them at all. If its just a sensor, why does a biggers sensor offer more performance if its just "sensing" air, wh at does size have to do with anything? Also, what is pegging? Thanks all.

xxkazp3rxx

pegging is when more air is coming in the its able to measure, and the car pulls timing to avoid detonation.

bigger the MAF = more air that can come through.

HaV

Suprised no one else on here tackled this in full...

A MAF, or Mass Air Flow sensor is used to determine the mass of the air charge coming into the vehicle.. In our cars, its an electrical wire strung across the housing of the MAF called a hot wire. Its just a wire with an electrical current across it. It measures air flow based on the voltage across the wire.. the more air flowing across the wire, the more resistance on the wire, and the lower the voltage drops. What that does is tell your computer exactly how much air is coming into the intake.

The MAF works with your IAT (Intake Air Temp) sensor and your O2 sensors to let the computer make a determination on how much fuel is needed. Based on the MAF (which tells how much air is coming in), the IAT (which tells the temperature of the air charge), and the O2's (which determines how rich/lean the exhaust is) the computer will either up the flow rate of the fuel or decrease it.

Pegging is when the MAF has reached its maximum level of resistance. It can only read so much air coming into the intake, and the computer can only compensate for that measure. When that happens your car will be lean.. more air than fuel, which is not good. To fix it, they put in a bigger MAF.. which will have more resistance across the hot wire. The car has to be retuned for the larger MAF. Because the larger MAF will handle more resistance, it can sense a higher amount of airflow and give that info to the computer so it can correctly judge the fuel to compensate with.



That help any? someone add something if i left anything out...

Nitti00GT

Nice explanation. So will you see more power from a bigger MAF sensor?

oxfordgt

No you will get no gain on a lightly modded engine. FI is where you will benefit from a bigger MAF.

HaV

If you dont do a tune for it (and normaly something like that needs to be on a dyno.. so it wouldnt be cheap..), you would probably loose power and possibly damage your motor... if you got a full dyno tune with it, you would gain a little... but not worth the amount of money. 1 hp ever 300 or so bucks isnt quite my idea of a good bolt on..

xxkazp3rxx

If you get a bigger MAF on your car FI or not you will damage something...

HaV

Thats only if its not tuned for it. If its tuned for it, then any size MAF will work as long as your not exceeding what it can handle.