Episode 6 - 3.5" MAF Upgrade Video

[yeaseth]

Hey guys, Here is Episode 6 from my instructional video series. I mainly focus on how I performed the 3.5" Mass Airflow Sensor upgrade on my E36. Go to the video on youtube for the links described in the video, otherwise watch it below:




Again, there are different ways to perform this upgrade, this video just shows I went about it. Please share this with anyone interested in this upgrade!

[Smoky540i]

Awesome!

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[LockDots]

What's the difference between using that MAF and the Porsche and Euro M3 version?

[yeaseth]

What's the difference between using that MAF and the Porsche and Euro M3 version?

From what I hear there isn't really much of a difference to the 540i, but I haven't researched those exact MAFs so maybe someone can put their two cents in


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[yeaseth]

Bump

[MParallel]

So what does this do? Allow more air in than the head can handle?

[M3blitkrieg]

I don't really understand the purpose of the mod. You put a larger MAF on and then get a tune to read it correctly. Maybe I could see on fi cars to read the larger air volume, but on a na car the stock MAF seemed to work. It's not like a larger pipe makes more air come through. Maybe I'm just confused here.

[yeaseth]

MParallel M3blitkrieg Thanks for the questions guys, although I haven't done the scientific testing myself, I have read about the restrictions of airflow in these engines. The first would be the intake manifold on the s52, you can solve this by putting the s50 intake manifold on(I have an s50, so my mani was up to date) The next restriction would be the MAF and the intake tubing going to and from it. The throttle body, could be replaced with a larger one after these are done but I don't know how much of a gain it gives you.

The heads flow decent, this is why porting them isn't worth the time and money, without supporting mods, like cams, springs, etc. (All this is assuming you have all the exhaust side done)

The tuning is needed with this MAF from what I'm told and I did the supporting mods to make sure the system worked properly together. But again you can choose what you want to modify, this is just how I went about it.


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[LockDots]

I don't really understand the purpose of the mod. You put a larger MAF on and then get a tune to read it correctly. Maybe I could see on fi cars to read the larger air volume, but on a na car the stock MAF seemed to work. It's not like a larger pipe makes more air come through. Maybe I'm just confused here.

Like many NA mods, on it's own it doesn't really do much as there are still other bottlenecks in the system. One gets more out of it when coupled with others like a larger throttle body and matched inner diameter intake piping. This is assuming the exhaust side f things are done as well. This then leads to supporting internal mods like cams and such as OP mentioned.

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[MParallel]

Yeah that I undestand. But I often see this as a standalone mod, which is just moving the bottleneck.

You might as well but a huge airscoop on the hood.

[LockDots]

Yeah that I undestand. But I often see this as a standalone mod, which is just moving the bottleneck.

You might as well but a huge airscoop on the hood.

Agreed. I plan on doing similar mods eventually but I wouldn't do it one step at a time. Otherwise you need to tune each time and obviously that gets expensive.

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[M3blitkrieg]

Ya, it brings me to raving for the megasquirt. I'm about to just get a warchip setup

[yeaseth]

Yeah that I undestand. But I often see this as a standalone mod, which is just moving the bottleneck.

You might as well but a huge airscoop on the hood.

I agree, I don't know why people do the MAF upgrade as a stand alone mod either

[yeaseth]

Bump

[MisterM52]

I like your videos, GOOD JOB!

We'll be in touch in the near future.

[yeaseth]

I appreciate the positive feedback, I will be making more videos soon. Are there any videos you guys would like to see made?


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[zactastic]

great video!!

[yeaseth]

Thanks man hope it can be useful to some people


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[Fuzzydunlop90]

Hello,
I understand this mod may require a tune to function properly.
Without this tune, will the vehicle still run okay?
Thank you

[yeaseth]

Hello,
I understand this mod may require a tune to function properly.
Without this tune, will the vehicle still run okay?
Thank you

I'm not sure if you would need a tune if you just changed the MAF alone but since I had upgraded cams and I upgraded the injectors I needed a tune.


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[LockDots]

Decided to do a little digging on this and what I found was that while the Euro and 540i MAF is 3.5" compared to the non-Euro 3.0" it's not done so much for alleviating a bottle neck. In fact, as MParallel pointed out you're simply moving the bottleneck.

Apparently the Euro & 540i MAF read/sample the data more often than the standard MAF. The Porsche MAF samples it even more than the BMW MAF, about 17 times more.

Sampling the data more often won't necessarily net an increase in power or torque but should allow the ECU to process the information and adjust accordingly a lot better. This is the case of the OBD2 system, which apparently, process data much faster than the OBD1 system ECU.

I could be wrong though. Just what I've found so far in a short time researching this. Anyone please feel free to correct me if I wrong or misleading.

Also, the Euro and 540i MAF should be used for OBD1 (M50/S50) whereas the Porsche MAF should be used for OBD2 (M52/S52).

[M3blitkrieg]

Just to satisfy my curiosity, lockdots. Your post leads me wondering. How does the sensor send more data? Or faster and more timed readings maybe? I would think the dme only gets a signal every the it asks for one or considered it's signal. Maybe my assumption is off, but I would think the only way to compute more volume of sensor signal would be to upgrade the computer itself to match running or computational speed. For instance as a horrible but quickly thought of example, putting tires that have 2 g's of grip on my lawn mower doesn't make my lawn mower do 2g corners. If the upgraded MAF reads 10 times a second but the dme can only read 5, then what possible gain can the computer induce on the engine if it can't make full use of the upgraded MAF? Or am I assuming wrongly that the stock MAF is just a pos compared to capabilities of the dme.?

[LockDots]

My understanding is that the hardware of the ECU's is capable of sampling/polling/reading data quicker than it does in its original form. By tuning the ECU you are essentially "unlocking" or requesting the data to be sampled more often resulting in more refined air to fuel processing.

The sensor itself (in the Euro/540i/Porsche MAF) sends more/faster data naturally, hence why a tune is required - to allow the ECU to adapt to the new sensor or data speeds.

[M3blitkrieg]

Now it makes sense! Thanks for the answer. Sorry for off topic!

[jakermac]

That's not the only reason for needing a tune. The sensor wire reads the air moving past and calculates a voltage based on the airflow at the sensor wire and the DIAMETER of the tube that the sensors resides in. Therefore, the wire sees x flow and based on a 3" tube tells the DME a voltage which represents how much air is coming in. If you change the diameter of the tube to 3.5" without telling the DME, suddenly the signal going to the DME is no longer correct. One of the changes in the tune when accounting for the larger MAF is telling the DME that the voltages coming from the MAF represent a different amount of air entering the engine.