Author Topic: MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?  (Read 39218 times)

bme30

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #45 on: December 04, 2012, 09:43:03 PM »
How would something like this work with tunerpro/ostrich 2.0
With n/a itb build or a boost build?

Very interested for it!

bmwman91

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #46 on: December 04, 2012, 10:45:27 PM »
It should work A-OK with any ECU. If you are working with a stock ECU and tuning it with tunerpro, you don't need to do anything different. The ECU thinks that the stock AFM is there still, except it is more responsive!

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Visit HERE for a plethora of 318iS stuff and some other randomness.  Would you say I have a, plethora, of pinatas?

bme30

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #47 on: December 05, 2012, 06:39:16 AM »
Awesome.. Be sure to include me with the first batch!

doitover

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #48 on: December 05, 2012, 08:46:07 AM »
I'm now an expert with 20 minutes of google search experience... Feel free to ignore these questions, from what I've read, it is a more complicated and interesting topic than I would have thought it would be.

It sounds like you are attempting to eliminate the effect if resonance in your intake on the MAF that the AFM isn't affected by?
Doing that means that you would need to ability for others to control that algorithm for their own setups?
In a perfect world you would just put an AFM and a MAF in series, suck air through them, and generate a lookup table for the conversion. Do you know how much difference you are getting in the real world is due to your unique input configuration?

How difficult is it to get proper air flow through a MAF? Interesting that it is possible to have uneven flow through a MAF so that it either under or over reports air flow. Also interesting that resonance causes an additive effect as the air is measured flowing in both directions.

bmwman91

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #49 on: December 05, 2012, 11:11:42 AM »
You can put a MAF and AFM in series and make a simple lookup table, but it will only be valid for the one air temperature that it was done at. The MAF reports kg/hr of air flow, and the AFM reports m^3/hr. They are related by density, which is primarily affected by temperature changes in daily life. Altitude also factors in. My converter does the density conversion in real-time so that the MAF's kg/hr output becomes true m^3/hr output for the ECU, since that is what it is expecting to do correct fuel calculations.

Resonance is a bigger issue with MAFs because they are much more sensitive. The AFM has slow response, but that gives the advantage of dampening the intake pulses so that the output looks smoother, albeit delayed. The MAF can easily resolve individual intake pulses and its output looks sort of like a sine sweep of varying amplitude and offset. Being that the sensor has a non-linear transfer function, you do not get good results when applying analog filtering since analog filters are, at least in their normal operating range, approximately linear. In short, putting an analog filter on the MAF output will cause you to run very, very lean at WOT. The filtering must be done in software so that you can account for the non-linearity of the sensor.

The filtering algorithms are set, although selectable by the user (and you can turn it off). A 6 cylinder would likely need less filtering than a 4, and an 8 would need even less thanks to valve overlap. Users do not need to tune much of anything in most cases, unless they are going stand-alone and want to really customize the air flow voltages to make tuning easier. Otherwise, everyone else can treat it like the stock sensor is still in there.

06/05/2011 - 212,354 miles
Visit HERE for a plethora of 318iS stuff and some other randomness.  Would you say I have a, plethora, of pinatas?

doitover

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #50 on: December 05, 2012, 12:29:54 PM »
Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.

Danny318

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #51 on: December 09, 2012, 09:30:52 AM »
I know you kind of addressed this already, but to be clear, will this work with say a stock BMW MAF from a 328 or something?  Will custom programming be necessary to get it to work with different MAFs, or will it say work with a few standard MAFs and anything not on that list will need custom programming?

I ask because I have a nice Bosch 3 inch MAF from a m3/328 and it'd be real convenient to be able to use it some day :)

bmwman91

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #52 on: December 10, 2012, 12:14:06 AM »
So, the thing is designed to be very easy to configure to emulate a variety of stock VAMs. However, it is not really set up to be easily used with lots of different MAFs. If I had set it up so that you could fully adjust the MAF and VAM parameters, it would basically be another Split Second setup where you really need to install a wide-band O2 sensor and spend a bunch of time tuning stuff. The benefit of this is the no-hassle setup, with the restriction of using specific MAF sensors that I have very, VERY accurate data for the output of.

The other tricky part is the wiring. As of now, I have been able to source all of the required stock connector housings and terminals for the MAF that I have selected, which allows me to build a high quality wire harness. I can always sell a version with no MAF connector that users can attach a chopped wiring harness from another car to, as long as I am able to get the right data about the sensor. And of course, it needs to give 0-5V DC output and use +12V/GND/Vref/Vout connections. Some Bosch sensors also have a self-clean mode where they draw a ton of current for a few seconds to burn crud off of the sensing element...not a big deal, but you'd need to put a beefier fuse into the harness I include.

I do plan to add more MAFs to the controller software so that people have a little more choice. For now, I am focused on the one that I am because it is cheap, easily available and can flow plenty of air.

06/05/2011 - 212,354 miles
Visit HERE for a plethora of 318iS stuff and some other randomness.  Would you say I have a, plethora, of pinatas?

bme30

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #53 on: December 10, 2012, 04:18:02 AM »
Awesome :)

nickmpower

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #54 on: January 11, 2013, 07:32:39 PM »
Any updates? I am running an 8.5 pound flywheel, and if i am not careful the engine will occasionally stall when revving down to idle, do you think this will help that at all? I figure the AFM may delay the engine getting air again/delay the air reading
« Last Edit: January 11, 2013, 07:39:24 PM by nickmpower »

Danny318

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #55 on: January 13, 2013, 08:39:34 PM »
Quote from: nickmpower;119158
Any updates? I am running an 8.5 pound flywheel, and if i am not careful the engine will occasionally stall when revving down to idle, do you think this will help that at all? I figure the AFM may delay the engine getting air again/delay the air reading
OT  But with my 11lb flywheel the car likes to idle more around 1000 rpms.  You can adjust the throttle cable to bump up your idle a bit to keep from stalling.

Awgy

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #56 on: February 16, 2013, 06:14:56 PM »
Any updates?

This would be perfect for my turbo seeing how my afm just blew up from being on the boosted side.

Balleristic31

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #57 on: February 16, 2013, 11:55:55 PM »
bump also interested

DesktopDave

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MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #58 on: February 17, 2013, 09:24:37 AM »
BMWMan might have this project on hold, given the car troubles he's been having.  Keep your fingers crossed - hopefully he'll have a few units in the pipeline soon.
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Danny318

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Re: MAF Conversion: It's Happening, Who Is Interested?
« Reply #59 on: May 14, 2013, 10:17:31 AM »
Any news ?