DIY: Cleaning your Mass Air Flow Sensor

[DEFKON99]

ok thats 100% lol good job

[ali]

ohnoes i hope u didnt use 50% alcohol ,

50% rubbing alcohol, 50% Grey Goose

lol sounds like a friday night.

-Ali

[searay77]

hha yea could be a pain if you don't got another car to drive while the other is getting upgraded.

Update tho after 5 days of driving starting out @ 18.9 today ii checked the obc and it read out 21.2 so far so im positive that cleanign the MAF is def a must if you haven't yet.

New here and first post. Sorry for the old thread. My question is how many miles on your engine?
I have a 1995 325i vert with only 73,000 miles on it.
should I worry about this with low miles?

[ForeignCarParts]

I just did this :-)

[DEFKON99]

cool I did notice MPG go up did you ?

[mzender]

Here is the "barn door"(hot wire) style MAF sensor. Which mine is, so I took it apart and sprayed the wires and such with CRC Throttle Body and Intake cleaner, because it's basically carb cleaner but less harsh so it won't remove any special finishes like may be in some throttle body's. But yeah, holy dirty in their, had a good chunky black coat covering everything. No wonder it had a rough idle sometimes and had dead power spots when hard throttle through the rpm. I just pulled the big C-clips out then the mesh screens off the ends then sprayed the dangly with the wire in short bursts till the black crap was all gone. Blew in it to remove larger drips then let it dry. Wow night and day difference in how it runs, much smoother and released alot of power it was holding back from it.

[Japan323]

Do I have a film or barn door MAF?
98 euro 323i sedan, m52,auto.....(I know...it's supposed to be a 328,,,just neutered here in Japan..right hand drive)
thanks-<Mark

[tontizzle]

Very nice writeup mate, good pics! Just one question, how'd i tell if i got barn door maf?

[DEFKON99]

this is the "Barn Door" Style

[Molon_Labe]

Badass man! I got it up on the site. Good write up and really nice pics. what kind of camera?

-Ali

haha funny you say what camera its my phone Sony Ericsson K750i 2mp. cheap huh. im still dreaming about a nice SLR.


thanks all

lol.

[mzender]

So in other words when you say "barn door" style, you mean the "hot wire" style MAF sensor... Since our cars only came with the styles of MAF sensor, NON-VANOS motor has "Hot Wire"("barn door") MAF Sensor. The VANOS motor from 93 and up have the "Hot Film" MAF Sensor.

[DEFKON99]

So in other words when you say "barn door" style, you mean the "hot wire" style MAF sensor... Since our cars only came with the styles of MAF sensor, NON-VANOS motor has "Hot Wire"("barn door") MAF Sensor. The VANOS motor from 93 and up have the "Hot Film" MAF Sensor.

i thought it was the huge block on the outside of the MAf that looked like a barn door.. but yes

[mzender]

Lol Oh. I was wondering where that term was coming from.

[luketheduke]

I just did this today and i hope i see a change in my mpg!

cool let us know

[coderighter]

Related, but a little off topic. I recenlty purchased a '97 328 with 181k on it. The previous owner used a indy to service it. The indy insisted on using Mahle filters only. I decided to clean the MAF just because I was servicing everything. After giggling the bag for awhile, I could see no dirt, nothing. I decided to pour the alcohol back into the bottle. To make sure it was clean, used a paper towel lined funnel. The paper towel was spotless.

The moral of the story, well, you might lose a couple of horsepower over the "performance" filters but you can't really beat the 'stock' filter for protecting you engine.

Think of it this way, you could use 0W-20 oil to free up a couple horsepower, but who'd do that?

My 2 cents.