Experimenting with Intake Air Temp. Request for comments.

juld0zer

your air boxes are looking like mine. i used 1.5 x 10m rolls of the foil insulation tape to do both completely. All wrapped up til the rubber post-MAF hoses. At the time i was too lazy to take the bumper off so i didnt wrap the pre-airbox duct but i might do that next time i have the bumper off.

The stock IAT sensor on the bank 1 MAF module suffers from heat soak, no doubt about that. Once you're stuck at one light and IAT rises, it will never go back to what it was prior to the red light. Could be due to a slow reacting sensor but from memory it's an exposed thermistor & that's as good as they get.

Before wrapping my airboxes and MAF housing tubes, the surfaces would be very hot to touch, almost dangerous to touch. After wrapping, the interior surfaces are warm to touch but not scalding like before so they make a difference, even if the effect on power is slight.

I've wrapped my MAF tubes in heat resistant mitt neoprene style material (buy an oven mitt made of this material & cut it up). This insulates against radiant heat, esp on the alternator side of the engine where that very hot coolant pipe is. With the finger parts of the mitt, i cut an opening in each and slipped it over the MAF connectors. Lots of zip ties ensured a snug fit around the cables and sensors. This helped delay heat soak but idling on a very hot day (35*c+) but it still suffered. Problem with this sort of insulation is that it also keeps the heat from escaping but i'd say its protection from radiant heat is worth this downside.

Biggest (and cheapest) improvement was relocating the IAT sensor by way of a separate thermister mounted in the pre-airbox duct. I can get IAT within 1*c while cruising at 60kmh on a 22*c night. While there might be some discrepancy between the actual air temp and the output of this sensor, i havent measured it & i'm not too fussed. It cant be that far off. Both the sensors have the same resistance at 20*c