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Okay, looking at cheap mods, and on my LT1 engine all the rage was taking the screens out of the MAF to get more air flow. I have never heard of anyone doing this on the LS1 to a corvette. Any reason? I don't think you are going to see great big gains, but it does make since that the less crap that is in the way of the air flow the better? Just curious if anyone has done this, and if it helped at all.
Silly mod. Heated MAF has a reason, to determine the MASS of the incoming AIR to determine the amount of FUEL required. Just whack your mileage with little or no upside, especially for a street machine.
I removed mine on the '99 several years ago. No gain to speak of, but no harm either.
Do it if you feel good about it, but it certainly won't damage the engine or make a difference mileage-wise or performance-wise.
I yanked the screen off mine....then just replaced the housing entirely with a plastic one. For $20 on ebay, if it doesn't give me any more power, i'm not too worried about it.
The MAF sensor is a calibrated instrament to measure the mass of the air entering the engine. The stock PCM is expecting to get a reading from the stock sensor with its stock calibration.
Removing the screen changes the calibration of the instrament and results in the PCM getting data back that is not quite 100% correct.
I see no point in it. I'd rather keep the screen and have the piece of mind that everything is 100%.
The screen is there to straighten out the air flow thru the MAF sensor. According to John Juriga , Asst Chief Engineer for Gen 3 engines , removing the MAF screen and adding the revised '02 LS6 fresh air filter housing assy. would add approx 5 hp to an '01 LS6.
The MAF screen was dropped in '02 with the Z06 , (they could have done it in '01 also) because the air flow was good.
Last edited by dieseldave56; Feb 5, 2009 at 05:32 AM.
The screen is there to straighten out the air flow thru the MAF sensor. According to John Juriga , Asst Chief Engineer for Gen 3 engines , removing the MAF screen and adding the revised '02 LS6 fresh air filter housing assy. would add approx 5 hp to an '01 LS6.
The MAF screen was dropped in '02 with the Z06 , (they could have done it in '01 also) because the air flow was good.
The screen is there to straighten out the air flow thru the MAF sensor. According to John Juriga , Asst Chief Engineer for Gen 3 engines , removing the MAF screen and adding the revised '02 LS6 fresh air filter housing assy. would add approx 5 hp to an '01 LS6.
The MAF screen was dropped in '02 with the Z06 , (they could have done it in '01 also) because the air flow was good.
so CAI to get better than stock flow, and then pull the screen? Or go with a new air box and pull screen?
For your '99 LS1 the MAF screen is in place to improve driveability by straightening the air flow as I mentioned in #7. If you remove the MAF screen then Yes , you will have to add the '02-'04 Z06 air box assy to the MAF as the GM engineers did to achieve any possible hp gain and retain driveability . Many on the forum have done this mod.
Last edited by dieseldave56; Feb 6, 2009 at 04:34 AM.
What year LS1 do you have? Early C5s were running a little rich from the factory. Leaning them out by adding more air will probably make more power on those early C5s (compared to later years). That screen looks a bit restrictive. I'm sure it will add a bit of flow when removing it. In combination with an intake, you will probably get around 20hp.
year is a 99, and am running a twin tube intake. Maf looks about the same as on my LT1 engine and screen was easy to remove. Do have to be careful and not mess with the wires. I dont' know if the twin tube would be as good as the 02+ air box and if I would see any help from removing.