Don't know why Gearbanger hates on the calibrated MAF's so much. I understand that a calibrated MAF (WITHOUT A TUNE) is a trick on the ECU, and it leaves power on the table, but the hardware itself is perfectly fine. It's an easy and effective way to get the car running with the hardware you want, at least to get to the tuner. You really don't have anything to lose by giving it a try, if it runs good then you can confidently drive it to have it tuned. If it doesn't, those are parts you'd want to upgrade anyways and then have the tune.
I hate on calibrated MAF meters because they're a half asses solution. They've always been advertised to give the buyer the false impression that regardless of the engine modifications, all that is needed to do for the car to run ideal after an injector swap is just match it to a "magically calibrated" MAF meter and you can call it a day.
On a very basic bolt on car, with minimal changes this might be the case, but when you start adding decent cylinder heads, displacement, a healthy camshaft profile along with a free flowing inlet and outlet, that calibrated meter becomes a paper weight. While the car might technically be drviable with one, all out performance and drivabilty suffers greatly. Inputting the correct transfer functions, injector slopes, injector break point, dashpot settings, ISC, spark, dialing in your idle, etc all need to be addressed at the ECU end. And even this can only be done with a meter that's electronically calibrated like a Pro-M or the like. You'll be in even worse shape with something that uses sample tubes to calibrate the meter.
I just see them as kind of a waste on an OBD 1 car. I don't know how many guys have modded their cars over the years, then added calibrated meters to try to tie everything together, only to end up with sub bar drivabilty and performance. Quite honestly, it can down right turn a person off to even wanting to drive the car (I know it did for me). I would never consider a build, if I hadn't budgeted for a proper ECU tune to go along with it.
Heck, if it were a cheaper option and knowing what I know now, I'd do away with MAF altogether if I could. With today's tuning hardware/software, you can tune a speed density every bit as well, or better than a MAF car. For the life of me, I don't know why '86-'88 guys ever bother with the conversion. The money would be better spend on a Moates or Anderson PMS or for those with more exotic combinations, a PiMP, Megasquirt or AEM set up IMO.