[Unichip Jack]

Guys, sorry for my absence but I’ve been wrapped up with getting three projects through R&D and out into the world. If you ever find yourself “waiting” for me to answer something please smack me in the head with a PM to get my attention and I’ll be on it.

There’s a lot of confusion about modifications that impact the “calibration” vs. those that impact “power.” Some changes affect both, some affect one but not the other, and some impact neither.

It’s a distinction between actual airflow and sensed airflow. The how and why gets really dry and into the flow of compressible fluids but the bottom line is spacers may well impact power but have no impact on the calibration.

The OE “scales” the MAF output so any specific voltage equates to a discrete, specific airflow and the ECU injects the amount of fuel for that airflow. As long as you don’t change the scaling, the MAF’s voltage still equates to the “correct” specific airflow and life is good. A modification might change how much air is processing at a specific RPM, but the MAF output will still be accurate… again just at that new RPM. If you change out the exhaust, the engine may flow more air at 4500 RPM, but the ECU will correctly perceive that change because the MAF will correctly report it.

However, if you rescale the MAF, everything is now out of whack. Let’s say the scaling says a MAF output of 3.5v means 100 g/s of airflow. That doesn’t mean the MAF senses 100 g/s of air, it means that what's actually touching the MAF is what would touch it inside the stock size intake tube if 100 g/s were flowing through the tube. Let’s increase the tube size by 20% but don’t change the MAF or rescale anything. When the amount of air flowing past the MAF causes it to output 3.5v (because the air flowing over the MAF is the same as it was earlier) there’s actually 120 g/s flowing through the tube because the tube is larger but the MAF only knows what’s “touching” it. In this example, the engine will run lean because there’s 20% more air actually entering the engine than the ECU senses.

Most intakes rescale the MAF… some by design, some by happenstance. Spacers don’t rescale the MAF in any way which means any actual airflow change will be accurately sensed by the MAF so both the OE ECU and the Unichip will correctly sense and adjust to the change.

We haven’t tried these on our car, but we have worked with similar systems on lots of platforms. Some work well, some don’t do much, but none require much of a calibration adjustment.

Not to completely change the subject, but one of the projects I just wrapped up is a new intake for the FT86 platforms… http://www.unichip.us/products/128-FT-Cold-Air-Intake-System-RED-

If you’re in the market, we’re offering a forum special… http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67244


If you already have a Unichip, we're happy to sell the intake separately as well.

As always, thanks for all your support and either PM or call if we can answer any questions.