Hacking the MAS

soundman707 · 07-05-2002, 11:13 AM

Yesterday I hacked my MAS... right above the air tube there are those two nozle like things... I cut them out too increase air flow... They had no wires going to them or anything... Could that cause any problems?

BatmanGSX · 07-08-2002, 11:47 PM

What you are actually doing, rather than "adding airflow", is keeping air volume the same (or close to it) but reducing metered air. This can be good. It gives better timing, delays fuel cut and delays MAS overrun. But you need to somehow add fuel some other way because when you reduce metered air you decrease IPW as well. I don't know about N/A MAF sensors but 1G turbo MAS sensors have a line, this line already has a resistor on it. If you add a potentiometer to that line you can add resistance and increase fuel volume globally.

In my opinion hacking the MAS is DSM Guru territory. Proceed with caution or your car will run like (buck, stall, hesitate, die, etc.).

soundman707 · 07-13-2002, 08:37 PM

Yeah hacking my MAS wasn't such a bright idea. I now have to cover it over with duct tape and poke little holes in it to try and even it out back to stock.
I seem to have a rather complicated problem with my number 4 cylinder. The spark plug doesn't seem to ignite the fuel in the cylinder. Here are the Details:
*When I make a gap between the wire and the plug, the plug fires giving me all 4 cylinders.
*I don't have a timing belt cover to time the engine to exactly the correct time, but it is very close.
*I changed spark plugs and there was no change in the performance.
*My car has white smoke coming from the exhaust. The smoke smells of fuel, not of oil.
*When I pull the spark plug in number 4 it is saturated with gas.
*My car idles roughly and inconsistent.
*Acceleration is extremely slow and sometimes the car will surge under constant accelerator pressure.
*The entire fuel system seems to be running rich.

Do you have any suggestions I could try? I think the injector could be worn allowing too much fuel into the cylinder and the plug can't ignite all that fuel. What do you think? All four cylinders were working for about 30 miles after I put the new NKG plugs in, but then it stopped and hasn't worked since.

BatmanGSX · 07-14-2002, 05:57 PM

Get a new MAS. Don't ever mess with a MAS again.

jbillakdsm · 07-18-2002, 09:54 AM

I hacked the MAS on my old 1.8 and I had no problems whatsoever. But I did leave those two snorkel tubes intact out of fear and reverence. I also took out the resonator at the back of the MAS. I left behind enough to hold the air filter in place and that was it and I got great performance. I also played with the milk jug sized filler for the intercooler. I took it out and drilled some 1 inch holes in the front of it so that it would push some air up towards my filter. I picked up a lot of sound from my exhaust and my acceleration was a lot smoother. My gas mileage also picked up on long trips.

Enigma_Man · 07-23-2002, 11:38 AM

Wouldn't the guys in the Non-Turbo forum be able to help you out a little more? Jus tryin' to help

-Jes

L2RTSiAWD · 07-23-2002, 11:44 AM

Hacking the mas is hacking the MAS it does the same thing in a turbo car and a NT car. I read everything about it but I felt no need to hack it.

Later,

BatmanGSX · 07-23-2002, 05:33 PM

The reasons to hack the MAS are simple 1) because you are flowing too much air and are hitting fuel cut, 2) to avoid MAS overrun, 3) because you want more timing. But you have to compensate for it by adding fuel. The reason for hacking the MAS is NOT to increase aiflow into the engine.

SOURCE1064 · 07-23-2002, 10:04 PM

Hacking the MAS sucks. I did it and it was more difficult to tune and my car would sometimes die while stoping. Get a used one. I got one from a salvage car off this website http://car-part.com/ they list salvage yards from all over the country.

Charlie

GoFastTSI · 07-24-2002, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Hacking the MAS sucks. I did it and it was more difficult to tune and my car would sometimes die while stoping.

Ummm, gee, could the reason be because you have a 2G. Hacking the MAS is a 1G trick. Removing the side, and sometimes the lower honeycombs is the only real "hack" you can do with the 2G MAS. For a good laugh, what exactly did you do to your MAS.

Joe

SOURCE1064 · 07-24-2002, 09:18 AM

2 side honeycombs and the lower one, I also unscreded the screw that had caulking on it until it was flush with the rest of the inside of the MAS. I read it on some site as a novice and I did it and paid for doing it. Thank God we have a side like this so people who are just geting into dsm tuning don't shaft themselves.

Charlie

GoFastTSI · 07-24-2002, 09:29 AM

Did you have an AFC and an Air Fuel meter when you did this?

Joe

SOURCE1064 · 07-24-2002, 10:59 AM

Yeah I had the A'pexi Super AFC, it helped stabilize it a bit but it wasn't as good as it was before being hacked. I have a new mas now it is should be cool because my car is still in the shop after being robed and butchered this past December, the closer they come to finishing it the more stuff I buy to put in it. So I now have the HKS Super AFR and PRofec B, I had the A’Pexi Super AFC and AVC-R.

Charlie

http://www93.homepage.villanova.edu/...lipse_page.htm

GreenGSX · 07-24-2002, 11:58 AM

Hacking the MAF on a 1G NT car is a waste of time and an invitation to disaster. BatmanGSX is right on the money. You will never be able to outflow a 1G MAF until the car is deep into the 13's which I don't think you are unless your on the bottle or turbocharged. I don't know if the 1G NT cars run rich from the factory but if they did, you would get more benifit using a dimestore fuelcut defensor instead of hacking. But I would only do that if you had datalogging abilities. Get with a NT guy who's fast and learn from them.

Tim

"13.1@112.6mph with no second gear"

SOURCE1064 · 07-29-2002, 08:42 AM

I found the site which gave me the bright idea of hacking my 2G MAS. I was a novice.

http://www.roadraceengineering.com/e...adjustment.htm

At least I have a unhacked one now.