Hello... I am here again to help out yet another one of my mustang buddies....

He has a 1996 Mustang GT with (careful full list of mods ahead for fun!) MagnaFlow cat-back, off-road x-pipe, k&n air filter, mass air flow mod (PM for details, it works well on the mustangs i have done it on) Back seat delete, steeda tri-ax, and corbeau racing seats. It's a slick car, i'll post pics for ya...

My Question though is how big of a shot of nitrous could he handle on the motor, without having to worry about the motor going KABANG on him?? We were thinking a 75-100 shot, but nothing more. Also looking into some 3.55's (would go higher, but doesn't want speedo off :-() Thanks for your input!

 

I would say that on any V8 mustang you can get away with a 100 dry shot or 125 wet shot with the proper accessories and precautions.


Adj. FPR (since a return style fuel system on 96 model)
Fuel Pump
Fuel Injectors (if dry kit)
1-2 step colder plugs gapped @.035"
Full Throttle Activation switch
RPM window switch
Fuel Pressure safety switch

And most importantly GET IT TUNED on a DYNO!

Follow this and you shouldn't have any problems gassing the car.

Although swapping out for some P.I. Heads and intake, and cams wouldn't be a bad thing to do either on a non-P.I. GT.

If he gets gears tell him to get 4.10's and a ~$15 speedometer gear (white in color for the 4.10 ratio) and install it. Takes 5 minutes and the speedo is corrected. Some people say that they wear out after a while but mine is 20k miles and speedo is dead nuts on.

Good Luck to your friend.
Philip K.

 

2v's can handle a 100-125 shot safely! Anything bigger than that and you are pushing it! Also, your friend should consider doing a PI swap! And what is this mass air mod that you speak of? ........

 

Prolly removing the screen or turning it...basically, does nothing substantial but screw up your A/F ratio...

 

He's right. Tampering with a properly functioning MAF would be like kicking your Quarterback in the nuts before the superbowl.

 

125wet here.

 

AH HA! you are both wrong on the MAF MOD!!! Muah HAHA! The mass-air flow mod is quite possibly the best free mod on the market.... if you take a look at ur mass air flow sensor, you will see this little bastard of a rod right down the middle. You will also see a little tube at the top of the MAF..... what you do, if you REMOVE THE ROD!! and the back plate, but leave the sampling tube.... u disconnect the battery for 2-3 hours, then reconnect, and then drive around for 25-30 minutes.... best free mod out there... gives a NOTICEABLE power increase!!! done it to 3 mustangs, and all of the owners are happy! :-D

 

please stop messing with your freinds mafs. you are royaling screwing there a/f ratio up.

 

Ed Clark is is most likely the best tuner in the world when it comes to Mustangs. Ed would strangle you if he read your comments about altering MAF's. MAFs are not rocket science, but not to be messed with.

Regardless, you are certainly entitled to your own opinion and who knows, may still be right. I don't know you, but I know Ed.

In regards to nitrous and how much a 2V can handle...one thing that is often over-looked when answering this question is what type of other mods have been done to the car. If there are a lot of bolt-ons or cam work, the amount of shot may actually be less. The engine can only handle soo much hp regardless of how you get it.

With that said, 100 shot is generaly considered the top-end of safe, but 125 can be used with fuel pump and injector upgrades (dry). Properly managed, 150 shot can also be safe with a good tune. As your shot increases, your room for error decreases too.

A completely stock Mustang might be able to run a 100 shot on stock fuel system, but a bolt-on car might only be able to run a 75 w/o upgrading the fuel system.

 

Haha well the MAF mod has been working well on those 3 mustangs.... I did it to one car, and all he had was a K&N filter, and the MAF Mod, and he beat a 99 GT with Flowmasters (The car with the mod was an 01)

On the subject of nitrous.... would just buying a kit and bolting that on work?? With nothing else really needed? Or should it REALLY be tuned by someone?? What else would you need to get with the kit??

 

like that is a way to compair if its better or not.

 

agreed, and that is why ed clark is tuning my car.

 

also so others know, ed clark's fee is 150.00 to go to the shop to tune, and then a shop will charge 100 for each hour. He goes to Steen racing(the best shop ever), virginia speed, and sometimes MAS

 

well how else to you expect to compare if it's better or not?? What would be better than showing that the car is faster with different mods?

 

my roommate did this and his car was all jakced up check engine light came on and it had a real bad idle. good thing there is ebay because he lucked out and got a new one for 20 bucks. oh yeah his car is a 01 bullitt maybe you get different results with the 96-98 gt's.

 

Rofl................

 

Yep, I got him to tune mine at Steen, the guy knows his stuff. He got me 19 at the wheels with his tuning, and it was only $350 with the 4 position SCT.

 

I would say that bears no significance whatsoever, nothing remotely close to emperical evidence that this MAF mod works or creates horsepower. The 1 and only way to do so would be back to Back Dyno's on the same day before and after the modification. Everything else there are too many variables to determine if the MAF is the cause for the different outcome of a Track run or a Race. No two cars are the same from the factory, and no two drivers are the same either. The two mustangs that raced are stock Mustang GT's. Whatever the outcome it was a driver's race, nothing more.

We're not trying to bust your chops...just informing you that you could be playing a dangerous/potentially expensive game fiddling with peoples MAF's for little to no benefit.

On the subject of the nitrous I would say that you can purchase any of the kits available for his year/make/model mustang and it should work well...can bolt on and go. However to safely utilize and make the most HP from the nitrous a Dynotune is absolutely required.

Philip K.

 

Yep, while racing at the track is always the best indicator. There are too many other factors to consider such as driver, tires, weather etc... Also, even if your are correct in your assumption about the MAF mod, we are not talking about a lot of hp improvement. I think you would agree with that. Even if this were a good thing to do, I would not expect more than 7 - 8 hp out of a mod like this. In fact, removing the MAF screens has resulted in a few hp improvement resulting from leaning the a/f out a tad.

ANY mod you do to the MAF, will ONLY net an increase in hp from leaning out your a/f! Ask yourself this, is this what you want to accomplish? Have you ever heard of a company called C&L? They sell a $250 80 mm MAF that utilizes the stock electronics from the MAF. It basically accomplishes what you are doing to them. These devices get hp improvement by leaning out the a/f. C&L originally claimed 25 hp from them, but they don't work. Too many problems with leaned-out a/f. Everyone that I know that had one (including me) has taken them off.

Also keep in mind, messing with a MAF is one thing on an n/a car, but an even worse idea on one with a blower.

Regarding nitrous and tunes and if one is needed, I thhink it depends ont he car, the type of kit you want and how much shot you plan to use.

If you go with the Zex kit, your car is near stock and you stick with a 75 shot, a tune is not really needed. If you go with the Venom kit, you can go with a 125 perhaps or evn a bit more (with the right fuel system upgrades) w/o a tune, because the kit is somewhate self-tuning. But, other kits require a tune no matter what. And like I said, bigger shots and other mod work done to the car (such as cams) will definately require a good tune.

I run a Venom-1000 and a dyno tune is pretty much pointless with this kit as the venom computer pulses the fuel injectors based off an O2 sensor reading. It seems to work fine with a 80 - 100 shot.

 

Thank you #1Customer....

Now for my Mass Air Mod debate....

Alright..... what do you think of aftermarket mass air meters?? If you look at all of those aftermarket mass-air meters, you will see that they have a rod missing out of the center of it. So if the aftermarket companies do it to their mass air meters, why not just do it to your stock one and save yourself a couple of dollars??

Also, some people say that it can really mess with the computer and such, which it can, if you don't reset the computer. The second car that I did it on, the owner forgot to reset his computer, and it wouldn't idle happy, and the powerband was shot. After only disconnecting the negative terminal on his battery overnight, the next day he went back and said he saw a NOTICEABLE increase in power....

Another time it went bad was the first one we did, which was on the 96 GT (other 2 are 2001 and 1999). We didn't remove the back plate off of the rod on the back, and that causes a check engine light to come on, and a big loss in power. BUT! After removing the back plate, and resetting the computer again, driving around for 25 minutes to get the computer to recognize everything, it was noticeably faster, and noticeably DEEPER as well.

What I am going to try and do though is I got someone who wants to try the mod on his car, and he is willing to take his car to a dyno and see the power increases from this mod ALONE!! We are going to leave everything the way it was, except for removing the rod in the mass air flow sensor. I will try and post dyno sheets on it as well. They even measure the A/F ratio, so I can find out numbers about that too.

Here is the website that I originally got the modification from:
http://corral.net/tech/powerplant/mafgut.htm

 

People do not get aftermarket MAF's because the rod is missing and it generates HP.(which my MAF never had btw.) They purchase aftermarket meters for the increased horsepower capability they can support. Stock MAF's run out of voltage (~5volts) when they reach a particular HP limit. Aftermarket MAF's in and of themselves do not make horsepower. They simply increase ease of tuning...or enable a tuner to begin tuning. That is unless of course the MAF (Such as a Pro-M or C&L as state above) lean out the A/F through the electronics, which is Stupid. The HP is in the tune, and MAF's are just like injectors they are there for support.

 

they also allow more air thru, hinse sizes 80mm 85mm 90mm

 

Ask yourself this question, what is the purpose of a MAF?

Simply put, it measures the volume of air. That is what it is there for...nothing else at all. It does this by heating a sensor to about 400 degrees (I am guessing somewhat on the temp) and a second sensor measures the amount of heat transfer. The MAF generates a voltage. This voltage is communicated to the CPU which then determines how much fuel to add.

As air flow increases, the voltage increases. The higher voltage translates to more air.

If you simply add a larger MAF that is capable of bringing in more air, it will produce a lower voltage output for the same volume of air that the previous MAF had. This will result in running too lean. The CPU can correct for this to some extent as the o2 sensors should see the lean condition and adjust. So when changing a MAF, this needs to be communicated to the ECU.

The stock MAF is capable of supporting about 400 fwhp. Each application is a bit different, because it depends on if you are n/a or have a power adder. If you have a power adder and it is tuned correctly, you will run more rich so the ability for the MAF to bring in enough air will vary. Following me?

The max voltage is 5.0 generally. As a result, there is no need to replace the MAF unless your voltage is maxed-out. This means that you are bringing in more air than the MAF can support, so a larger one is needed.

When you alter a MAF, you are not bringing in more air and thus can add more fuel to make more hp, you are in fact lying to the CPU. What you are doing is simply having an impact on the voltage reading because you are changing the way in which the MAF sees the airflow. This can also been done with something as simple as a resistor. You could simply add a resistor to the MAF voltage wire to slightly lower the voltage. This would also result in leaning the a/f a bit which results in more hp.

Thing is, any good tuner would not support the notion of altering a MAF becuase you are lying to the CPU. This creates difficulties for the tune and the fuel curves. The CPU is simply looking for something that does not exist.

I am curoius as to the results of the dyno. You will need to drive the car after the change long enough for the car to learn as you have previously stated. So, be sure to perform the pull on the same day if you can, otherwise you may not get repeatable results.

 

Well.... I am gonna try and do the mod as in as short of a time span as possible, between dyno pulls there will probably be about 3 hours (because of letting the computer reset, then driving around to tune itself), hopefully no freak storms happen (which is a possibility in Albuquerque, NM, with a saying here being "If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes")

You say that as air flow increases, the voltage increases, if voltage increases, the computer says "HEY I NEED MORE FUEL". I'm going to try and explain something, which makes sense in my mind, but may not come out right on paper, so bare with me....

On the stock mass airflow sensor, you have the sampling tube at the top, and you have a rod going down the middle (you can go to the link on my previous post and see picture.) There is also a plate that goes along the back of it, that had an outlet at the bottom, for the air that went into the sampling tube.... From my trials from the mass air flow mod... the first one we did, we could not come across any security torx bits, so the plate was left on the back of the sampling tube, but the rod was gone. The sampling tube then did not have as good of airflow through it as the rest of the mass-air meter. I could see how this results in a leaning of the computer, which is did make the car run like a legless ethiopian. We then removed the back plate, thus causing better airflow through the sampling tube.

Now, according to that... there would be a better airflow, which would result in higher voltage through the MAF, thus telling the computer "HEY GIVE MORE FUEL!"..... this is just my thought!

 

Your thinking is correct. BUT, more fuel does not mean more power unless there is also actually more air.

As your a/f increases to about 14.7:1, you continue to make more and more power. At 14.7:1, this is the ideal a/f, but not safe for the car. As you increase your a/f even more, you experience a loss of power and you have even a more unsafe situation.

The converse is also true. As you richen up and the a/f decreases, you make less power. You can get about as rich as you want and you will never damage the motor. It will eventually run like crap and you will have deposits, but the motor will live.

This is why cars are built on the slightly rich side. There is more room for error. Most intake and exhaust mods, cause cars to go lean. For the most part on Mustangs, if you do this the car won't go too lean. It only becomes a problem when you add a power adder.

Modifications to MAF's that increase power, only do this by resulting in a leaner condition....nothing else.

 

Well lemme just see if I can clarify a couple of things...

Cars are built to be rich, because if they did run at the perfect stoichiometric reaction of 14.7:1 (at sea-level), the engines wouldn't last as long. Engines can't handle running in a lean condition, because it would cause detonation and a ka-bang and just go downhill from there...

Most modifications to a vehicle is that there is better airflow, either coming in, or going out. We are trying to raise the air side of the reaction, so that we bring it to the 14.7:1 ratio. With the addition of an intake and/or exhaust, we are getting better airflow. This causes the reaction to go to a stronger 14.7:1 reaction. This isn't as good for the engine, but it gives us more power in the seat.

That was just for clarification, now, I debate a little (I am taking this as a friendly debate too, just trying to learn something from other people.)

In Albuquerque, NM, we are about a mile high. This would then cause our cars to run richer (more rich?) at this altitude, because we have LESS air going in. So wouldn't doing something like the mass-air mod, where the engine could be getting more air then calculating (which I am still unsure of, but we can hopefully find out with dyno results), just bring the ratio up to a more sea-level type of combustion.

I don't know about the effects of the mod on a car down at sea-level; it could be a bad idea. All I know is that so far, on modified and non-modified cars with the MAF mod, there have been no problems with it. Only a couple of problems initially, but then once the kinks were taking out, it was a fully functional, seat of the pants modification. Plus, it is a FREE modification, which nothing gets better than FREE!

 

Comments are above.

 

Okay...

The mod that I described creates better airflow through the sampling tube. Creating better airflow through the sampling tube would create a higher voltage, then telling the computer more fuel. If we are compensating for the extra air that is going into the engine, then why would we have to worry about a HUGE change in the a/f (so much that it would cause the engine to overheat and melt (which there have been no problems with so far.))

I am confused as to where the "lying" to the ECU comes from?? If it is saying more as is going into it, and more air IS going into it, then what is there to worry about?? It may cause it to run a little lean, but if there is room between the stock a/f ratio and the perfect 14.7:1, then could it really push the motor to a huge 15.0:1 or a 16.0:1 ratio??

I'm just wondering though... from the sound of it, it seems that with the modification to the MAF that have been done, that the engines would have exploded right now. One engine has had it for 2 years, another for about 1 year and a half, and another for about a month. I will try and do it to another car and get it to the dyno A.S.A.P., because it would be good to see if there really is a drastic change to the A/F ratio that would be a cause for concern.

Only time I have heard of a motor melting is when a friend of mine tried putting 14 PSI of boost into his stock GT block without the aid of an intercooler. He did manage to fry his pistons, and one was actually WELDED to the cylinder wall. That is 14 PSI of boost going into the motor we are talking about.

 

The ideal a/f on an n/a stang is about 13.5:1. Anything higher than that is too lean. The more lean you go, the hotter the temp is. I have seen some stock stangs run as rich as 11:1. When you see that, there is clearly a few hp to be gained by leaning it up.

I can only say this one more time...I can't be anymore clear:

1 - The purpose of a MAF is to do nothing more than measure air flow.

2 - This volume rate is translated to a voltage which is sent to the ECU.

3 - Fuel is added in part based on this reading.

4 - Placing a larger MAF on a car that has not maxed-out the voltage will do nothing to add more power.

5 - Any hp gains that come from modding a MAF can only be the result of tricking the ECU which results in a more lean a/f. As the a/f gets more lean, you make more power up to 14.7:1

One more thing to keep in mind, is that measuring a/f in a tail pipe is not very accurate. The only way to get a good reading is to install a wide-band. I have seen cars on dynos that have shown 17+ a/f as a result of small exhaust leaks.

If you want to mod your MAF, knock yourself out. You just won't be touching mine. Who knows, maybe I am just a big dope and you have discovered something amazing.

 

Here is a good read for you:

http://www.modulardepot.com/?show=articlesdet&aid=37