tjbreen

I purchased a Stage II Vitesse MAF that was supposed to include "the chips that came with it". After consulting with Vitesse, these chips turned out to be useless.

John gave me two options, sell the unit and start again or buy a new $800 chip. I also spoke to Russell Berry at MAX HP and without a dyno to tune it on, he can not make a chip either.

I was hoping the listers would have some ideas of what I could do with it or maybe someone would be interested in buying it. I have no experience with MAF units and was looking for a plug and play installation for my stock '87.

cruise98

If you still have the factory waste gate and boost control, I would sell the VR MAF and buy a used APE MFS for plug and play. If you have another type of boost control and wastegate setup, buy the chip board from VR and call it a lesson learned.

fast951

To clarify! The used parts (represented as Vitesse MAF kit) were purchased used and not purchased from Vitesse!

Jfrahm

I have a late-DME 928 pin) MAF chip from RacerX that is supposed to work well with stock injectors but not with oversized ones, it has FQS settings for 55lb injectors but I was told those settings did not work. Long story. I bought it from the person who was trying to get it working with 55lb injectors and eventually gave up, lacking support. This was back when I was looking to build a 3.0T for my S2 cab and I was going to use a MAF, and a MAFterburner. I never got the MAF plumbing and have never tried it. I have a MAFterburner though.

I dunno about a plug and play MAF setup, at least out here it seems like MAF users need to tweak for hot/humid and other weather conditions so I think you should have a wideband and some sort of tuning options with a MAF. Or live in San Diego :-) But you do need the MAF curve in your DME chip to get into the MAF game, a signal massager like a Mafterburner will not work well on it's own. You end up in weird load areas and the spark would be all wrong.

Anyway if someone is interested in this chip I'd sell it pretty cheap. The MAFterburner is available too.

-Joel.

johntorg

I have a complete new Autopower (APE) Maf setup with chips and would take your Vitesse setup without chips in trade plus $100. I already have a complete Vitesse setup, purchased from John and would use this to swap it into another car. How complete is the kit? Mine has everthing you need.

fast951

Before everyone gets excited. Not all MAF sensors are calibrated the same! Two identical looking MAF sensors could generate a totally different signal for the same air flow. For a TRUE Air Mass software, the MAF calibration must be known. The Vitesse software is TRUE Air Mass, mixing and matching sensors will not work!
If you want plug-and-play, you must use true Air Mass software, which we provide.

Johntorg, the Vitesse MAF you have has a totally different calibration than what is supposed to be with the "used kit". The software is different!

ibkevin

Why yes Joel, John's MAF works very well out here.

..I can't wait to put it back in.

tjbreen

This unit was not bought from Vitesse. I bought it from someone who got it from the original purchaser. John has been very helpful in looking at the chips to determine what the were and were not.

Before going down this road, I had no idea how custom everything is with a MAF. As John mentioned, every one is different and chips can not be swapped. Even with the proper chips, a piggy back controller is required to get you the last mile towards a proper tune. And if you change something (injectors, turbo, exhaust) you will need a new tuned chip or chip image each time. This certainly discourages the incremental approach to performance upgrades I usually take.

I thought a solution might come from someone with an old 28-pin Vitesse MAF chip for a stock car who upgraded to new injectors but now it seems that even that might not work.

I track the car and enjoy the reliability of my stock engine. If I can't find a plug and play solution, I will sell this unit and start again next year, per John's suggestion. I live in Massachusetts and our 5 month DE season starts in 3 weeks. I can not afford the down time to be messing with stuff.

philcav7

My question is what chips do you have? Why are they useless, are the written for a different setup?

User 41221

My two cents... Vitesse products work extremely well and do not require extensive tweaking when you purchase matched components from John. His stuff works, and you won't be making adjustments for weather, altitude, etc... If I were in your situation, I'd get the $800 chip from John and go from there.

I was much less impressed with other manufacturers offerings that I have played with and agree that, aside from Vitesse, plan on a bunch of tuning if you want it to run (disclosure: I have not done anything with Russells products, so I won't speak for them and am not including them in that statement). From my experience, Vitesse is the best of all possible solutions and is certainly worth the money.

Regards,

johntorg

To John at Vitesse. Couldn't the SMT6 sort out the MAF differences or is it a different model MAF, not just a different example of the one I bought from you. BTW the Vitesse MAF setup is running great after I lowered the fuel pressure. On my old chips, the engine went lean as soon as I let off the gas on your's it seems to go a little rich first then lean. I am talking about a non-boost situation. Running fine, just a difference I noted.

tjbreen

The chips that came with it, as best we could tell, were for an '89Turbo with an AFM. They weren't even MAF chips.

I don't doubt the quality or support of Vitesse. I am a believer.
If it were not a Vitesse unit, I would not have purchased it in the first place.

I may end up with the $800 chip solution and lesson learned but i won't pull the trigger on that until I figure out what turbo and injectors I want to upgrade to next year so I only have to do that once.

philcav7

Have you contacted the original purchaser? Maybe there was a mix up on the chips that he packaged with the MAF.

If nothing else, I would contact the person you bought it from. Since the item was not as described he should make things right for you.

toddk911

If you don't buy the chip you only have two other options:

Get it to a dyno and send the sheet to Russell $75-250 OR

Get a piggy back and with data logger/dyno and tune yourself $100-300

fast951

Johntorg, There are 2 ways for installing a MAF on the 951. Some use the AFM chips and modify the MAF signal to look like a AFM, I'm not a fan of this method as it has many issues, a band aid approach in my book. The second approach, is to change the Motronic code to work on Air Mass. We do the conversion to Air Mass in the software, we actually rewrote the software to eliminate many of the stumbling blocks inherited from the original AFM code, we also added new features as well. Many features are in the work as well

So to answer your question, using the SMT6 to alter the MAF signal to look like AFM signal is not, what I consider, a good approach. It's like using the old ARC2 for the MAF to AFM conversion, you are always making modifications based on external variables.

A TRUE air mass (or MAF) software, allows you to alter boost, elevation, outside temps even turbos and will maintain the correct AFR. Having a chip that works with a unique MAF based on constant boost, turbo, temps is not what I call true Air Mass. This is what you will be creating by converting the MAF signal to AFM signal via a PiggyBack. Another item which many ignore is the flow capabilities of a MAF sensor. I have seen some people use a MAF sensor that flows low kg/hr, meaning it will not support much more HP than the std AFM. When picking a MAF sensor, make sure it will be capable of handling (without maxing out) whatever HP you think your engine can make. As a example, the MAF you have MAF will support 600+ HP, yet you can still drive it at low boost/low hp without any ill issues.


The PiggyBack is fine to be used for minor fine tuning to match the engine characteristics. As a example, if the chip is programmed to provide 12:1 AFR under load at 3000rpm, but your turbo does not come to life till 3800-4000RPM, with a minor modification you can alter the AFR at 3000RPM to suit your engine a bit better.

Hope this helps.