Thread: MAF Issues?

Before today, The car had an issue with staying running. Narrowed it down to the maf sensor, because the car would stay running with the maf unplugged. I just replaced the sensor and now the car runs for about 3 seconds and dies. Unplug the MAF and it stays running. If you start the car with the maf unplugged it'll run forever, but if you plug it in it'll stay running about 4 seconds before it stalls out.

Is the new MAf faulty? it looks amazingly clean. Should I clean the throttle body? as it has a white type powder all around it. Or is there more going on, like a broken wire along the harness someplace?

Sounds like it's the plug or wiring to the MAF, not the MAF itself. Try running a new connector to the MAF. Then return the MAF you bought. It's like free money

The old maf has a broken case. So I needed a new MAF anyway.

Where did you get the maf from?

DanGTP from his sale thread on this forum. I'll be tracing wiring down tomorrow.

I'd try a different maf

Without a multimeter I'm kinda stuck. should be arriving monday though. But I have a new symptom I'm kinda lost on. When the maf's plugged in it flat out dies. With it unplugged I used to have a solid 1000 idle, no surge at all, now have a surging idle. It'll idle at 1000 for a couple seconds then drop to around 500, a huge sucking sound comes from the intake, then it's like it catches its breath or something then idles at 1500-1700 for a second or two, then dies to 500 rpm, almost stalls, then back up to 1500. Cycle repeats.

Any ideas? The only thing that changed is that I removed the TB and cleaned it top to bottom.

EDIT: Almost forgot. If I put it in gear, the idle stays at 900, with zero surging. The idle problems only appear in park or neutral.

When it idled steady at 1k, how long did you let it idle? The rough idle with the MAF unplugged sounds like the PCM try to learn the fuel trims after it goes to "closed loop". My car did the same thing when I unplugged my MAF. The first couple of times I did it, the engine idled smooth. After that, I'm thinking that the PCM lost the fuel trim history and had to relearn fuel trims.

It didnt have any issues at all idling at a steady 1k before. Idled solid for 20 minutes, drove it 30 miles. It's idled fine every time I start it. And hasnt had a problem in the past 3 weeks until today. Now it idles at 1k for about 2 seconds then starts the surging

I'm thinking your maf is bad. Or the wires going to it.

Strange. Issue seems to have fixed itself. I plugged in the maf and started it. When it started to stall out i gave it a blip on the throttle, and held the rpm's around 1400 manually for about 5 seconds. Let go of the gas and now I have a 900 idle. I think it was going off some overly wacked out fuel table which made it stall out previously and holding the gas for that 5 seconds gave it the right idea on how to stay running lol.

Issue fixed