redSS2.4L

Ok, I've been looking around for Mass Airflow Sensors and I cannot find ANYTHING. I was just wondering if anyone has found one or if anyone has one on their 2.4L. And I know they're "supposed" to help your fuel mileage and give you more hp, but do they actually help much? Thanks, and yes I searched

Red06LS

So your looking for a new sensor? How can that help? Unless it makes the car seem like its getting more air than it is so it will feed more fuel as well. But then that wont help fuel milage. Cant help ya much.

redSS2.4L

Well from what I understand, this "mass airflow sensor" will help your engine breathe better, if I understood correctly. And it complements CAI's. (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Red06LS

Look at your mafs its a litle piece of plastic sticking into your intake to read the amout of air flow. I dont know how anaftermarket one could be better.

AlbertanCobalt

an aftermarket MAF will usually come with a bigger ID tube as well, thus allowing more flow through the sensor. that is where the **mm MAF comes in. for instance, ours are around 75mm. the ones off the lightning are 90mm. so thats your diameter of the pipe. more air can flow through a bigger pipe, but if its still the same size (3 inch or 2.75 inch) pipe in the rest of your intake, you really wont gain anything from a bigger MAF. I would say that a MAF would come in to the list of mods right around lightened pulleys, performance wise.

Witt

Get rid of it and run speed density tune imo.

rally

Ok, the author truly dosent know what a MASS AIRFLOW SENSOR does. It takes the air coming in through your intake and reads how much air is truly flowing into the engine and calculates how much fuel to send into your engine to create a proper ignition.

Theres not been any aftermarket MAF's made for the cobalt and there never will be. The last time, come to think of it, that I saw an aftermarket MAF was available was a "performance" MAF for a Ford Ranger I used to have, even then it would net you 1 or 2 hp.

silentgarth

I was under the asumption that the MAF took readings of the incoming air temp and made adjustments to the air/fuel mike in the engine.

denniss

Are you looking for a bigger throttle body? That sounds like what you are talking about, not a MAF. I don't think one is available yet.
Dennis

trashline

You have to look at the big picture. by the time you will need more room to breathe you will probably have to be netting around 300 - 325 hp. You will just be wasting your money on something that isnt needed. Spend it on something else more worth while. Of course if your HP rating is in this range then I take back what I say.

bigworm

not an easy task with the 2.4L: https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/2-4l-le5-performance-tech-46/new-features-hp-tuners-35693/

Witt

Nah, you can still get rid of the MAF, and run in speed density, its tuning in speed density thats a pain in the ass. Oh, forget about emissions.

IonNinja

I had a question about the maf...

how are these things going to react to boost? i've never really seen anyone mention it but what would need to be done about the maf if boosting?

tcolli17

the mass air sensor is right after the filter element, so boosting a car will have no affect, you will just get a higher reading from the turbo or sc sucking in more air.

IonNinja

but is the maf able to see that large amount of air and adjust accordingly?

NJHK

Nope.

If I'm incorrect, someone please correct me...

I'm under the assumption that an MAF sensor works almost the same way as an MAP sensor, in regards that it can read pressure as well. If this is the case, it can only read vacuum pressure and adjust fuel properly per load for vacuum pressure. Anything higher (above atmospheric pressure = boost), it wouldn't know what to do.

WopOnTour

No a MAF sensor doesnt measure pressure, it doesnt have to.
Speed Density calibratons require MAP pressure in order to "calculate" the air-mass present in the cylinder so it can determine the required IPW required to inject the correct amount of fuel to achieve a desired AF ratio.

Remember AF ratio is BY WEIGHT (technically MASS) So at a 12:1 ratio it means the mass of the delivered fuel will need to be 12 times less than the mass of the air. "Speed Density" is a series of complex calculations that primarily takes into account the pressure differential and temperature of the incoming air charge (as well as many other factors such as displacement, RPM,Volumetric Efficiency and EGR%) to determine the air-mass half of the equation.

Where as a Mass Airflow Sensor directly measures the air-mass entering the engine, therefore requires much fewer calculations, with less error. This is especially important at higher RPMs where there is of course much less time to perform the intricate steps of speed density calculations. In general MAF sensing is superior to speed density in just about every aspect and the primary reason most modern vehicle calibrations have moved towards it. About the only time a modern engine reverts to the less sophisticated speed density fueling is when the MAF has failed and a DTC is set, when speed density becomes the "fail-safe" operation.

There's really no advantage to switching over to speed density in a street driven car given the tuner capabilities provided by HPT, especially on the Cobalt. Everything required to properly fuel the Ecotec is available and adjustable in HPT.
HTH
Regards
Wop

cavingman

Pro-m in lansing made me a CAI for my redline, and flow-benched the stock maf. The new CAI they created for me included a new maf sensor that was calibrated for the new CAI.

Now, I made 231whp with intake, this maf sensor, and 3" exhaust. If its because of the maf or because of something else I cant say, but it definetly didnt hurt.

WopOnTour

Yea I remember that CM.
But that was before HPT. The big thing with the Pro-M was that it had been correctly calibrated for YOUR car and intake modifications. (I dont remember maybe it was a bit larger too?) Anyways the MAF calibration is nor totally available for edit/correction in HPT making that type of mod (and things like MAF translators) sort of redundant.
Wop

cavingman

Yep sure was, back in 04 I had it done I believe. I completley agree with it being redundant, but it was free
The real plus I saw with it was I no longer had any maf sensor codes no mater what filter combo I used.

NJHK

Thanks WOP

Witt

There are a few more advantages of switching to a speed density system. First, the stock MAF imo, isn't as accurate. On the LSJ, MAF tuning can only be calibrated for every 200hz starting at 1500 until 11100, compared to an LE5 setup, which allows changes every 150hz from 1000 to 12200.

Also eliminating the MAF (provided you wire another AIT sensor), will remove an intake restriction. On NA cars, I'm told this yields a few more kpa at WOT, although no idea if it would help our setup. I've seen a local LSJ here dyno both a MAF tune and similar speed density tune, and the speed density one came out slightly higher. A/F monitor was broke on the dyno that day, but I'm sure it would have been smooth compared to the MAF dyno.

An advantage of MAF based system is the ability of the car to calculate air as the engine ages, which I'm under the impression, is why most vehicle manufactures have comverted to MAF setups.

cavingman

^forgot about that. my tuned maf doesnt have the IAT built in like the stock one, so i had to use a new IAT also.

WopOnTour

The "restriction" you describe associated to MAF sensors is likely attributed to older systems that sampled the entire air-charge like the 3.8 Turbos (Grand National) , L67 3800 SC and even the older TPI 5.7 with the analog MAF. All these were especially restrictive due to the honeycombed plate at their inlet, designed to create a more laminar flow, reducing turbulance as the inlet air sample passes over the very large sensing element. At high airflows a measurable and significant pressure drop is easily observed on these older designs. However the newer "probe" design such as used in the LSJ/LE5 are much less restrictive and do not contribute any measurable pressure drop across them when sized correctly in a properly designed intake.

Actually typical pressure tranducer/strain gage MAP sensors are far less accurate and have less precise than modern MAF sensors. The newer MAF systems are more accurate due to increased range/resolution (eg 100-10KHz+/-1Hz) as opposed to the range/resolution of a typical MAP sensor (0.5-4.5VDC +/-0.01V) which is further degraded by quantization error during the ADC conversion to an effective range of only 256 possible pressure states.

But in the end your engine doesnt really care. Given identical airflows and AFRs your engine will make the exact same power using either technique. But I spent a long time working within the limitations of the speed density world and OBDI calibrations with annoying UV PROM burning and I can tell you I for one wont be going backwards to basic 12x12 or even 16x16 maps. But converting to speed density is more than adequate for a race car , especially if it's somethign you are already familiar and more comfortable with.

Wop

IonNinja

so in short, the stock maf can be kept for boost applications it just needs to be tuned for.

so then what about in the case of the 2.2 where HP Tuners is not available? would we have to go the route of the 2.0 before HP Tuners and use MAF-T's and S-AFC's?