Quote:
Originally Posted by hampsterzone
I have heard many arguments on CAI. Gotts mod, CAI, ect. Well, a very good friend who is a mechanic of 25 yrs, gave me the low down. CAI's are the best for adding horsepower. The Gotts mod is cheap and effective but not as much as CAI. Moving the MAF sensor doesn't cause lean codes. It reads air flow no matter where it is.
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If your wanting to add power, a blower is the best. A CAI can't compete with boost.
The CAI's are slightly more effective at increasing power because of the slight lean condition they cause. I've seen 30 horsepower on a dynoed mustang just by going from slightly rich to a leaner A/F ratio. The ratio was then tuned back to stoic out of conscern for the motor.
Those horsepower numbers that the companies advertise also is not across the entire power band. That is the peak horsepower marks. Below about 2200 rpm you could have an intake the size of a trash can but the engine will not be bringing in any more air than it was before.
The commercial "cold" air intakes use a larger diameter pipe than the stock sensor housing.
This is a picture that demonstrates what a cross section would look like. The blue area is what the truck calculates for and the red area is what is not calculated because of an aftermarket intake that is larger than the stock housing.
The MAF sensor in these newer trucks is a heated wire. As the engine pulls in air the wire is cooled by the "breeze". The resulting temperature of the wire increases or decreses its resistance to electrical current which is read by the computer. With the larger diameter, the air will flow at a different speed. If you were to bring in 60 grams/sec of air it will flow faster in the narrower tube. Higher air speed, lower wire temperature.
On a stock truck the sensor is calibrated for the stock fluid area (blue). Any result you get from the MAF sensor can be calculated into an accurate physical volume. If you increase the diameter, you change the air speed, you change the reading and in doing so, you change how much air an electrical value represents. This is where custom tunes come in and we've got plenty of threads about that. :thumbup:
So the sparknote version:
Yes, the MAF sensor will read airflow no matter where on the intake track it is located,
but that does not mean the reading will be accurate.
When you increase the diameter of the pipe the air does not need to move as fast to move the same volume. The slower air velocity will read on the sensor as the wire being slightly warmer, making the resistance slightly different. When the value is different the truck fuels different.
The gotts mod does not have this issue because it does not impact the MAF sensor in any way. All the gotts mod does is allow more of the shielded fender air than the stock system.