Onsit

You more or less have a placebo effect, on that overpriced piece of carbon fiber. For daily driving, that thing does absolutely nothing. I have yet to see anyone post a daily log of Ambient, IAT, Ignition Timing, and Throttle Position to really see if that hunk of resin even does anything other than looks.

In general you shouldn't touch the OEM MAF housing on any car, unless you are able to get re-tuned to have things rescaled for the new MAF position / depth. Aftermarket MAF housings are usually hand or machine welded, but no where near the accuracy of a plastic mold. You end up with variance in depth from center where the maf sensor sits. This can cause a slight incorrect reading on voltage for the MAF. Which in turn could cause you to run a little too Lean, wihich can lead to knock, which will actually make your car slower as Timing is retarded to avoid knock. e.g. it's possible to make your car slower by installing an aftermarket MAF intake housing.

Go with a drop in filter, and keep the stock air system, you can add a cheap silicone system for less than $80 to replace the intake elbow for additional sound.

1A1

I know all about MAF housings. My Supra actually holds the record for the quickest and fastest Supra in the 1/4 mile using the factory MAF housing at 10.002@137mph. A record set in 2006 that still stands today.

You need to do some research or actually take a look at the GSF intake elbow and inspect it for yourself before making statements that aren't true. The GSF doesn't use a MAF housing. It uses a MAF sensor. There is a difference between the GSF MAF sensor, which is bolted into the factory intake pipe vs. an actual MAF housing which is an entire unit designed around the MAF sensor. You definitely never want to modify a factory MAF housing unless you remap the ECU to it. Since the Takeda intake uses the same diameter tubing in the area where the MAF sensor bolts to, there is no need to worry about an incorrect reading throwing off the engine tuning.

As far as a placebo affect goes? We don't know anthing until someone installs an IAT that can react fast enough in the area of the 2nd butterfly. For one thing, it would only be functional when the 2nd butterfly is open, which is over 3500rpms. For daily driving, how often is one above that zone, however, on WOT pulls the engine is always operating above that RPM. I'd love to see someone install an IAT in that area and perform some before and after tests. If the intake air temperature truly is 10-15 degrees less above 3500rpm using the cover, then there is positive results. RR-Racing states they ran that test, but it would be nice if a 3rd party or an enthusiast would as well to back up their claims.

Steve

Onsit

I was referring to the welded MAF adapter that is used to adapt a Denso maf sensor to any metal tube. Getting that welded, to where the MAF sensor bolts on and sits perfectly center just like the factory sensor is very difficult to do without having the whole assembly being plastic molded (which as you know the factory pipe has). To get optimal and safe results, as you stated modification of that area requires the ecu rom to be adjusted to scale the voltage values differently (new angle/turbulance/position/depth of sensor).



While a IAT dedicated to that area would give you some data, it's all moot as it will be blended with air being rammed from the grille inlet. Right now doing a data log with a Tactrix you can pull all the variables you need to see if the ECU is pulling timing between a heatsoaked cycle, and WOT vs cooled stand still to WOT to see if timing is being pulled in the higher RPM range. From my personal logs that I have done, I do not heatsoak and the machine is operating just fine with 12-13 degrees of ignition timing at WOT, at mid-high RPM, once the car is moving IAT reported by the MAF is more or less identical to ambient. That is 12-13 degrees of timing with the OEM widebands reading around 11.9 AFR (I'm not sure if the OEM widebands read lower than 11.9, it does seem suspect i'd get that same value which might be the floor of what the sensor reports).

Again this is street driving, and if you are on a track running countless laps - yeah sure you could probably shave off and reflect/block/absorb heat that the engine is ultimately producing that forces the IAT to be much much higher than ambient. But at the same time, you are more likely to have a faster car that is WHITE vs BLACK on a hot day, if that fender area of the car heats up from the sun more

The corvette forums had a huge thread on individuals using gold reflective stickers and other heat regulation tricks, you end up with diminishing returns and end of the day the results were very low up to < 1% of total HP being affected. $200 for something that might be 1% at best on a VERY VERY hot day, after countless WOT runs I just don't see that for the majority of people buying these things that never see an HPDE event or AutoX event on the regular.

You can also force the flap to always be closed ... by simply capping off the ASC module. and running a dedicated vacuum line to the vacuum actuator. The ASC system turns off vacuum that causes the flap to open, if you bypass the solenoid, and run a permanent vacuum the flap will stay closed permanently until you shut the car off. You can also cap force the flap to always be open too in the opposite manner.