new computers are expensive - your best bet is to locate oe in a junkyard.
The black box is actually the air cleaner housing and the MAF is connected to it - it's the aluminum piece that has a small plastic sending unit bolted to it. It has a 3 wire connection. the tube that runs to the engine is bolted to it. The duct tape may just be sealing the air box so that the air that enters the MAF is filtered. That plastic can be fixed better with the PVC cement you can get at the Home Depot plumbing area. Double check the box and the tube to see if there are obvious cracks in it.
if your MAF is cracked on the top - that might be your problem. They will want to sell you the whole body for the MAF but you really only need the plastic part that is held in by 2 security screws. If you have a local u-pull it junkyard, you can get security bits at any autozone tool section and you can go to the junkyard and locate a decent looking 2.3 mustang or ford ranger from the 90's and "acquire" the plastic piece, they fit handy in your pocket. New MAF's is not cheap....
check on their prices for the computer and the DIS and coil packs. Mid 90's Ford rangers ar good sources for the DIS and coil packs - the local yard here charges 20 bucks for a coil pack an has a 30 day guarantee, and 15 for the DIS and 20 for a computer. New, I believe the all are near 100 or more.
Since you mentioned no cats - we can rule out the exhaust being blocked.
another thing to do (and should be done time to time) is to kill the computer's memory by unplugging the battery for atleast 5-10 minutes. It'll reset the computer and the computer will re-learn all it's settings. It'll idle crappy for about a day (or in most cases less) while it re-learns - but clears up and helps. Usually the engine will feel like it's about to stall and then idle will rev up and down the 1st 10 minutes, but that is normal. If it continually stalls I would look at the IAC. This device is what the computer controls the idle - they do gum up and eventually crap out. it's located on the throttle body near where the hose from the MAF hooks up. It's on the back side of the throttle body and is held on by two 8 mm bolts. it has a two wire connector that plugs in on the passenger side of the engine. Many times you can unbolt this thing, clean out the two ports with carb cleaner and it's good to go for a while.
