My experience with the C&L MAF via Bamachips

[celly]

C&L MAF via Bamachips

Many people know that I've gone back and forth through the months re: aftermarket MAFs. I was very close to buying a Pro-M unit a while back before hooking up with Doug904 aka Bamachips for some tuning of my Explorer. It was his view that the OEM Ford MAF is pretty much the best MAF for my Explorer. He'd gladly program for the Pro-M, but he thought I'd be better served spending my money elsewhere.

Not too long ago, word of the C&L offering hit the pages. I pretty much remained skeptical, until I touched base with Doug to ask about them in greater detail. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse. If I was not 100% satisfied, he'd refund all my money, no questions asked. He felt it was that good. He had one in stock, so I took it off his hands having a bit of $$$ coming my way due to a nice raise at work.

The MAF arrived today, and it's NOT a thing of beauty like some of the chome finished Pro-M offerings. It looks downright industrial. In addition, as mentioned by Aldive recently, it does not fit the standard 4 bolt flange we're used to seeing on our Explorers, both OEM and aftermarket. Doug felt the Volant intake would be an ideal application, because the closed box design could be used to support the weight of the MAF. He wasn't wrong.

I needed to mod the Volant box a bit. The hole where the OEM unit attached via adapter to the Volant filter wasn't big enough for the C&L to pass through. I expanded it a bit with a Dremel (a bit too much!) and the MAF fit through and then some. I hose clamped my filter onto the MAF and gave it a go. The setup was a bit loose and would need some tweaking. I played around with the hose clamp a bit, and now the setup is as snug as it was with the OEM MAF body.

One thing to remember is that the C&L "MAF" is not a full MAF. You have to use the guts from your OEM unit. Doug felt that the Ford electronics were still the best out there, and better than any aftermarket offerings, so this wasn't a bad thing.

Time for a test drive. The first thing I noticed was the tone of my exhaust changed a bit. It became a bit deeper and it was very noticeable since I had just put a resonator on. I took it for a quick drive in the neighbourhood. It seemed that "something" was different, and it was subtle. My Ex felt a bit smoother too. After taking my wife and son out for dinner, I decided to do some more road-testing later. This time I went out and opened it up on a little circuit I like to do my road tests on. Some local neighbourhood driving, some highway and also some acceleration opportunities in a local industrial area (the ricers often race in that neck of the woods).

All I can say is, my Ex definitely feels more lively. Acceleration is more punchy and much smoother. I opened it up on a small stretch of merge lane I take very day from work. I get up to 100 km/h (60 mph) just before I hit the point where I need to merge onto the flyover. Today I got up to around 110 km/h (65 mph). A very unscientific study in any event. And Spindle, before you start harping about dynos and proof and stuff, I have no intention of quantifying any of the apparent gains I've noticed. Let's just say, I'm not returning this puppy to Doug.

The one thing I am going to do it paint it black to coordinate with the rest of my components. Otherwise, this I'm a satisfied customer. The unit prices out where you'd expect it to price out. It is cheaper than offerings from Granatelli and (now-defunct) Pro-Flow, but it doesn't have the aftermarket electronics either. It is too bad that it doesn't have the same mounting flange as OEM, but with the Volant intake, it doesn't make much of difference after a little modding.

So far, I'm very satisified with the purchase. Doug is a man of wisdom!

 

[celly]

Painted MAF

I scored some engine paint and painted the MAF. Not that the MAF gets that hot, but it does get warm under the hood so engine paint can't hurt. I think they called the colour "iron" or something like that. Dark grey. Works well with the rest of the setup.

Some pics:

 

[Brian_B]

A very nice write up. I have not contacted Doug as of yet about them (he programed my flasher), but from the website you linked to they seem to run about $200 or a little more. Doug's site did not have them listed a few days ago.

I am betting he gets swamped with orders before long.

 

[celly]

A very nice write up. I have not contacted Doug as of yet about them (he programed my flasher), but from the website you linked to they seem to run about $200 or a little more. Doug's site did not have them listed a few days ago.

I am betting he gets swamped with orders before long.

You're close on the price of these things. I think Pro-M ran around $230 and Granatelli is more than that for the full setup. Doug happened to have one in stock when I emailed him, so I jumped on it based on his "money back guarantee". I'm not sure he'll be swamped or not. It's not the cheapest upgrade and gains are subtle. I did a short road trip out of town today and was impressed with the way my Ex ran today. Whether it was entirely attributable to the C&L is anyone's guess, but my Ex is definitely "different" since I put it on.

Thanks for the compliment.

 

[IAmTodd]

Excellent write up. That will go on my list of mods as well! My only concern is mounting it to my bracket for my MAC intake. There is no doubt in my mind that it wouldn't be able to hold the weight of this in place, just mounting it to the bracket and attaching it to the filter. Do you have any pics of this off the truck by itself?

Can you tell us the price you paid for it, or is it on the down low?

 

[spindlecone]

You're close on the price of these things. I think Pro-M ran around $230 and Granatelli is more than that for the full setup. Doug happened to have one in stock when I emailed him, so I jumped on it based on his "money back guarantee". I'm not sure he'll be swamped or not. It's not the cheapest upgrade and gains are subtle. I did a short road trip out of town today and was impressed with the way my Ex ran today. Whether it was entirely attributable to the C&L is anyone's guess, but my Ex is definitely "different" since I put it on.

Thanks for the compliment.

The pro-ms were $300.00,and well worth every dime IMO, what you have done is added a larger MAF body only, thus you will move a larger volumn of air (this is good) you should feel a (seat of the pants response)
Aldive was going to Dyno the item, but I dougbt this will happen.
One upside of a larger MAF moveing more air is that you will find your IAT to be at least 10 degrees less than with the OEM MAF (this is good) you should look into a scangauge as it will give you realtime numbers as to IAT

 

[celly]

The pro-ms were $300.00,and well worth every dime IMO.

Aldive was going to Dyno the item, but I dougbt this will happen.

One upside of a larger MAF moveing more air is that you will find your IAT to be at least 10 degrees less than with the OEM MAF (this is good) you should look into a scangauge as it will give you realtime numbers as to IAT

The last price I saw for my application was $229.95 at EE. As in the group buy thread, I'm no longer interested in a SG at this time. All that technical mumbo-jumbo bores me.

I also plan on dyno testing the C & L MAF with the 93 Performance tune ( that Doug dyno tuned for my truck ) at a Ft Myers dyno facility ( http://proautotech.com/ ) . I shall report the data when available.

Spindle, I don't think he set forth a time frame, only to say "when available". That can mean a lot of things, and if it's not entirely obvious, he's ignoring you. Let it rest, man.

 

[celly]

Excellent write up. That will go on my list of mods as well! My only concern is mounting it to my bracket for my MAC intake. There is no doubt in my mind that it wouldn't be able to hold the weight of this in place, just mounting it to the bracket and attaching it to the filter. Do you have any pics of this off the truck by itself?

Can you tell us the price you paid for it, or is it on the down low?

Todd, Aldive managed to fab his original MAC bracket to make it work. The MAF body isn't as heavy as you'd think. I'm sure there are other ways to do it as well with some creativity which is never in short supply on this site. I asked Doug about 3rd party mounting brackets and he hasn't found a supplier to do it. That doesn't mean something's not in the works. Doug would have to tell you more on that one. I was on the fence on buying one until he put the idea of using the Volant box to hold the weight. The end of the MAF protrudes into the box, and the Volant filter is snuggly hose clamped to the MAF to keep everything in place.

Aldive had several photos of the MAF by itself in his thread. Doug has several photos of the unit as well. Ask him to email you some. It is a tad longer than the OEM MAF body which worked great for me because the added length actually made it protrude into the Volant box just right. Sorry, no photos off the truck. No plans to remove it any time soon. I spent a lot of time tweaking the fit today, and it's perfect.

Here is a photo that Doug emailed me. I'm posting it without his explicit permission to do so (I hope that's OK, Doug). It compares the OEM and C&L units. As you can see, the C&L unit is much different than stock:

(Photo property of Doug Studdard, Bamachips.com)

As far as price goes, the price I paid is fair and approximates what you'd see on C&L's website. I'm sure Doug will gladly let you know how much they're going for via email. Let's just say, Brian B is "close". I can assure you it's less than the $230 EE wanted for Pro-M and much less than Granatelli.

 

[Doug904]

Hey guys,

I'm sorry but my webmaster hasn't gotten my pricing up for it yet. The reason mainly being that I want to sell these as a complete kit instead of just the housings but the problem with that is there are about 7 different mounting kits I will need to have made for it and the cost is just dang crazy unless I order 100 of each, I hate to be sitting on 700 mounting kits and sell 50 kits a year. The housings are exactly like that of the old 5.0 Mustangs and have three mounting holes on the bottom that would make creating anytype of bracketry very simple.

What I want to offer is not just a meter and mounting but an entire meter and CAI kit and I wanna do it for less then $250-275. Also It MUST keep up with my quality standards so I won't just go down to the local hardware store and buy PVC pipe, hahaaa.

Anyway, for now I'm just selling the housings for $179. I have had these installed on both two MAC and now a Volant air intake with no problems. They outflow the stock meter by nearly 150 cfm and will support more HP then a n/a SOHC 4.0's will ever make. They are 73mm in diameter and the absolute best thing about them is they retain the factory electonics which is by far the best out. The meters come with a tamper-proof T-20 to remove your factory sensor and reinstall it on the new housing.

These will work on the 99-05 Explorer's and Explorer Sports with the SOHC, 02-up four door explorer's are EXCLUDED from this. Also with all model Sport Trac's. I've actually had one in testing with a guy for 2 months now with a Sport trac and he loves it.

If anyone would like more mounting pictures with the MAC CAI system just let me know as I have them both ways.

On a Dyno here in B'ham Al Franklin made 7 more RWHP an 2 RWTQ total but if you'll look at the graph I've highlighted an area to show 7rwtq at other RPM's. The total numbers are good but the overall improved curve is the true performance gain.

Al Franklin's 99 with C&L kit an 89 tune VS normal 89 tuning.

So if anyone is interested just let me know and if I figure something out soon then I'll be sure and let everyone know.

Thanks, Doug.

 

[Brian_B]

Doug: Thank you for the information. I have not bothered you as of yet, becuse of funds. I will be receiving a mac intake from another member here fairly soon. I will probably contact you after the first of August (payday again)

Even if you get the kit assembled at some point, will you still sell just the meter?

A bracket is not a problem, since I have access to a steel fab shop.

 

[MONMIX]

can I buy just the meter and drop it in my pretty chrome Pro-M housing ?

 

[celly]

can I buy just the meter and drop it in my pretty chrome Pro-M housing ?

You already know the answer (Al's thread).

For anyone that didn't catch it, the C&L unit is housing only. You use your stock OEM electronics in the housing. Per Doug, the Ford electronics is as good or better than anything out there.

 

[BeauJ]

I like that Volant cold air box. I was going to custom make one out of sheetmetal but that one looks nice. Is it completely sealed up? Can you purchase it separately and how much?

 

[celly]

It's not completely sealed. It's got sizeable holes on two sides (not including the hole for the MAF) to let fresh air in. Supposedly cool air from the fender is funneled in that way. The box tends to keep dirt and water away from the filter fairly well and cosmetically, it looks pretty cool.

Volant might sell you one. Check with them.

 

[BeauJ]

How much was the whole kit you bought with the box? I'm doing this for to help performance wise. Once that s/c heats up, the parasitic loss is horrible.

 

[celly]

I didn't pay retail for it. I bought it through a someone on the site who had two brand new units for sale for quite some time. I think he was asking around $200/shipped and I paid a bit less. He put the second one on eBay and got around $175+ shipping. I've seen them around for about $250 with several online retailers.

I did notice a difference when I got it, but it was more auditory. My Ex ended up sounding a bit different than when I had MAC. Performance wise, the differences weren't noticeable to me. My general feeling is that most of the intakes out there work the same. I would imagine having the filter in the box can't hurt, and all things equal you'd think it wouldn't absorb heat as fast. Volant will tell you for certain that their design is superior. I read a lot of accounts in the newsgroups and there are lots of fans of the Volant setup. I am one of them now.

 

[n3m3s1s]

hey beau, it's a nice kit, but it's also the most expensive. ~$300
i found a link to some, but i didnt see any for the 5.0.
the main reason i want one over the mac, k&n, etc. is so that i have the option to fab a snorkel someday. ya know, just in case.

 

[spindlecone]

I would imagine having the filter in the box can't hurt, and all things equal you'd think it wouldn't absorb heat as fast.

Celly
You need to measure your IATs in real time, think www.scangauge.com

 

[celly]

As in the group buy thread, I'm no longer interested in a SG at this time. All that technical mumbo-jumbo bores me.

About the only way I'd consider it at this point in time is if Ben only had 9 people signed up, and his July 11 deadine passed. He's got 7 confirmed, Robb yet to confirm and 9 days until the deadline. In other words, I'm not getting a Scan Gauge any time soon. They'll meet their 10 buyer minimum.

EDIT: 10 unit minimum was met. I was out anyhow because my SCT flasher on order will do all that Scangauge will do, and then some.

 

[Brian_B]

Not trying to push anything, but robb is one of the 7 that is confirmed. Ben messaged everyone who posted in the thread. I think the 10 will happen.