What kills a maf?

[RTechUK]

When a carbonio cai,or any after market cai is fitted to a 1.8t,am i right in saying the sound of the dv is louder due to it echoing inside the pipe?

The release of air sound is louder when a solid pipe is fitted to the intake. It echos louder, Plus you also get a louder sound when the turbo is spooling up,   If your DV is not working right you will also hear the stalling of the turbo as the air makes it way back over the turbo vanes, some people call this noise wastegate chatter when its infact the air being chopped up as it slows the turbo down.   The idea of the dv is to  keep a vaccume in the turbo outlet side and a slight positive feed into to the turbo, this allows the turbo to substain highe rpms which reduce the turbo lag. 
 Yes you can hear the echo luder from an induction kit but its not an indecation of all the air comming back out of the air box,  It it was comming out of the air box the top if the nice yellow oem air filter would be black with the oil vapour after 5k miles, would it not? 

Maybe if your DV is not working right you will get oil vapour back in to the air box which could result in a reduced life span for the MAF?

Nick

[Grand Master Patch]

So it's not all down to what filter you use,it's a combination of many factors.

[RTechUK]

So it's not all down to what filter you use,it's a combination of many factors.

Your right on the money there mate

 I have never seen inside a vag maf unit so I might open one up and see what is in there to go wrong.
My Calibra turbo hot wire MAF is always brought back to life with a quick spray of carb cleaner, I use a happy shopper cone filter which quickley sh@ts up the maf.

Did you do the smoothed air box mod in the end?

Nick

[Grand Master Patch]

I've still not fitted the std air box,i've still got the K&N cone filter on(that came on the car when i bought it),nothing wrong with my maf either.

Just had a mad theory about mafs

[RTechUK]

I've still not fitted the std air box,i've still got the K&N cone filter on(that came on the car when i bought it),nothing wrong with my maf either.

Just had a mad theory about mafs

I have an old air box from a 2000 ARZ if you want it?

Nick

[Grand Master Patch]

I've got an airbox to fit,just not fitted it yet :embarassed:

[RnP]

IMO its not 100% going to be down to the engine oil vapor,  I cannot see how oil can get blown back on to the maf element? Look at a 1.8t DBW MAF and you will see what I mean.  Plus when you lift off from under load the air is pulled towards the turbo , because the turbo is still spooling and pulling air in at a lowe volume. If  the DV is fecked the turbo would stall and the air would come come back toward the MAF.

 If the vapour was comming back in to the maf the maf would be wet with oil like the inside of a IC pipe?  It is down to ware and tear, constant heating and cooling of the elements, vibration, water vapour, dust, air flow errosion.
Cheap cone filters kill MAFs at a quicker rate due to added, vibrations, extra heat and larger dust particals being allowed it. Plus Oiled filters do cause issues, look inside a MAF from a car running a oiled filter and it will look like it have a sticky texture and dust all over the internal surface. 

Plus MAF are degined not to last forever if you know what I mean.

On a car with poor crank/cam case breathing the oil vaspour can reduce the the power by a very small amount, fitting a catch tank can over come this. My calibra turbo had to have a catch tank fitted to stop it smoking due to the poor oem breather set up,When I went around a right left hand bend my induction took a nice gulp of oil which caused a flat spot..   The OEM breather set up on the 1.8t aint too bad so you should not see a gain in performance by fitting a catch tank.

Nick

excellent read Nick hit the nail on the head there,

i have had experiences in the past where only a blow through set-up or a maf less ecu was optional, ( on big hp cars ) the standard air box will do me for a while,

what i want to know is do people with the k & n filters and alike use to clean the filter with ?

[tariqb]

the maf's killing me at the moment - £20 for 100 miles  - !!!

[Wazzzer]

I hoover mine out every now and then but I never re-oil it, it seems to have enough on in the element as it is