Car still runs fine with MAF DISCONNECTED!?

[f6cobra]

Did the MAF conversion on my 88. The other day I was messing around and happend to disconnect the MAF sensor. To my surprise the car runs totally fine with out it. I went back and checked all my wireing and realized I put a pin in the wrong place. Then hooked it all back up and it didnt make any differnece. I work at a parts store so i got a different computer and tried that. Still no difference. What the He!! is going on. There is power-positive and negative- to the maf. There seems to be some readings coming back from the sensor but nothing seems to change. Help me please!!!

 

[ECU5.0]

when i put my intake on i forgot to hook the MAM back up and didnt realize it for 2 weeks. car ran fine. definetly runs better now though. kinda wierd though

 

[Michael Yount]

The car will run without the maf. I accidentally drove mine over 300 miles from Knxoville TN to Augusta GA with it disconnected - averaged about 23 mpg! Turns out the new ProM maf had a rubber seal in the female end, and my male plug had a rubber seal around it too - it would plug in, but not fully connect. Took us a day to figure it out. Absent the maf, the computer looks at temps, rpm, barometric pressure, and tps sensor readings to 'guess' (calculate) what amount of fuel should be injected. So if the engine hasn't been wildly modified it can actually run pretty well without the maf. Of course as weather conditions change, pressure, elevation, etc., the maf will do a much better job than those calculations will. Check your voltages on the maf output to be sure it's working, then go ahead and plug it in and drive. It'll be doing it's job unless you've missed something on the mass air conversion.

 

[fordman54935]

The car should run pretty good with the MAF unplugged, because the computer has switched to limp mode because the computer is not receiving a signal from the MAF, which means the computer is using preset fuel/air tables. I had a problem on my 93 LX 2.3, it was running like crap and it turned out to be a bad MAF sensor. With the sensor unplugged, it ran fine but the check engine stayed on constantly (because the computer wasn't getting a signal from it.)

You probably won't notice any difference now that its plugged in.....so you should be good to go. The reason the Check engine light probably didn't come on is because on the 87-88 stangs (originally speed density) the light doesn't illuminate when a malfunction occurs. If you pull the codes, it should come up as a malfunctioning MAF sensor.

Hope this helps!

 

[f6cobra]

Awesome! Ill check the voltages and make sure everything is ok and hopefully I can just leave it alone. I just remember having a 89 gt and if i disconnect the maf the car barely ran. I figured this would be the same way but i guess you guys are saying its not??? I just hope to God its working cause it runs fine and Im tierd of playing with it!!!!