Miller MAF conversion

[cliffybabe]

well dave, any real difference??

[DaveD]

not on the road for another month and lots to do before that but i will let you know...i think ant is well on the way of testing them properly...ask him

[Speedtouch]

I can confirm in the brief time I owned mine (end of December thru to end of Feb) that it was reliable in operation, significantly improved the mpg and gave smoother/faster throttle response, and practically eliminated the kangarooing (except for once or twice, briefly, immediately following a cold start.) Never managed to get it on a rolling road though, so I can't verify the claimed power gains.

[DaveD]

and mine just started ..ticked over for 10 mins...let you know how it goes in april....its like torture

[Speedtouch]

Well done Dave. The suspense is killing us too Have you tried revving the engine to make sure the MAF is responding OK?

[DaveD]

sorry... .............just dabbed the throttle a bit ..seemed ok but i had to go out so...tomorrow

[Speedtouch]

DaveD is the king of suspense!

[DaveD]

I have lots to do...refurbing the wheels is taking forever and then I am going to dye the carpets then the seats ..and the car ain't moving 'til its done,,,,

[reggid]

Any guinnea pigs got results? For whoever has installed one how does the bottom end torque feel?

[toby]

Well reggid, lucky me, I've done some guinea pigging.

I'm sure those of you know more technically minded then me know all about this but I wanted to add my experience of this toy.

I played with the miller maf on Ant's demonstrator and can confirm that the throttle response is much better than stock. Normally when you blip the throttle of an m20 the engine pauses as it sort of chugs and lulls a bit as the air flow into the engine is restricted and slowed down by the spring on the air flow meter's entry flap. The miller maf completely removes this. The air can be sucked straight in. This is very helpful in real world driving. When slowing down to a junction and then taking off again there isn't that pause before the power feeds in. The torque in lower revs are accessed more easily and more quickly for a crisper, cleaner take off. It's subtle but pleasing. (It's like plugging a DVD player into an old TV - everything is suddenly crisper, cleaner and sharper.) I was impressed enough to think about buying one for my car and will try it set up on my car when there's time to give me a real comparison.

For smooth power delivery and a sharp throttle response the miller maf is ideal. Once it's fitted though it isn't adjustable to accomodate a performance camshaft. There is a tuning kit addition to the miller maf but that's an additional $499. I don't know how tried and tested this is appart from the few threads that have appeared so far.

Adding a less restrictive air intake plus performance camshaft make sense since they are well reported weak points in the stock M20 engine set up.

Many of you already know about mega squirt but for those who don't it's worth weighing up the differences. Firstly it is important to say that Mega squirt very much alters the characteristics of the car to make it really responsive to throttle position. For torque and power potentials mega squirt gains are higher and it has flexible tuning built in, but the miller maf does not. With mega squirt although it is about the same price as miller maf and tuning kit, you can completely upgrade all the engine electrics - remove the distributor and run off a coil pack, also run a map sensor or maf sensor - and so have no moving parts in the engine electrical system. It is a simple system in principe. The throttle position sensor is utilised more fully by mega squirt which means amazing throttle response. Mega squirt can be individually mapped and remapped to suit the car itself and the delivery and modifications required on a laptop. (This is like plugging a PlayStation into an old TV. It's suddenly all in your control.) The car becomes more sprightly and to me it drives like no other E30. It's very sensitive and sharp but great fun. I think on a normally aspirated engine the 325i could again do with a racier cam to really take advantage of the tuning potential of megasquirt. Mega squirt feels so reactive it seems like that the standard camshaft isn't feeding the engine enough of the more freely flowing intake air. This is go faster stuff. How much faster really depends on the conditon of the engine and the extent of the adventure had with tuning or money on further mods...