Breathe easy...
An induction kit is often the first piece of aftermarket hardware on the list when modifying your car - Open designs add more noise, remove some of the restrictions associated with an OEM airbox, and some even claim to add more power and torque. Aesthetics is also another reason why owners choose certain induction kits.
But its also very easy to buy what is most popular, or the cheapest, and find you are compromising performance in a number of ways, and this is even more crucial with a MAF based set up, which we will explain in a bit more detail below.
Take the Fiesta ST180 for example. Its one platform we have accumulated a huge amount of data from over the past 6+ years, and used a MAF based strategy to carry out the required load calculations.
By far the most important detail is scaling.
The OEM Bosch MED17 ECU uses the MAF sensor to calculate and measure airflow, so any changes here may have a positive or adverse effect on the performance and delivery. There is also the ability to measure the temperature of that incoming air within the same sensor (well before air enters the turbo)
A MAF housing that does not mirror the exact internal diameter of the OEM airbox will mean these load calculations (i.e torque) are no longer optimal.
Changing the diameter, changes the flow characteristics through the housing.
Too large or too small may even be enough to throw a correlation error, and although most aftermarket kits wont do this, it can still be right on the upper tolerance level, for us this is one factor that has to be perfect.
Whilst the ECU is able to mask and to some degree, adapt to these minor variances, its not optimal regardless, and can cause issues with response, boost threshold, high or low fuel trims, higher calculated catalyst temperature, less optimal timing and overall a more compromised set up, all from one piece of hardware!
And thats before we even look into the design of the filter and its location!
Why not custom map to suit then?
Sure, lets rescale the MAF tables to suit your inaccurately scaled £150 induction kit, and spend the time making sure the car drives right, not just produce high dyno numbers... You can see this is potentially a job that would take a calibration engineer days, not hours..
Put that way, its seems pretty backwards to even make such a suggestion.
Its far better to buy a properly developed and scaled kit in the first place.
So any induction kit you'll find us selling on our shop or recommending has had the above factors considered, and will suit every level of power you intend to go for at a later date.