I'm having trouble with my MAF sensor at the moment, and after doing research, I found there's a circuit for 'MAF burnoff".

Can someone explain what this is? Googling didn't do much help.

 

well basically it goes through a self cleaning process..after the car is shut off there is a relay that kicks power to the Maf for a few seconds during that time it "burns" clean ..i have heard that during them few seconds that wire inside the sendor can hit over 1000 degrees..

basically it needs to keep clean of any contamination so it can operate and relay back to the computer while it is running..

do you understand the concept of how and what this sensor does?

 

I understand that there is a very thin wire. It changes impedence as it bends, or gets hotter or colder, I'm not really sure. The MAF measures the changes in the impedence of the wire and gets its value from there, am I correct?

 

yup that would basically be it..it just reads how much power is needed to hold that wire at a certain degree as the air flows past..then sends that back to the ecm...there are two types of maf's also foil screen and wire..they both work the same way...

now that you mention it..i wonder how hot these screens and wores actually get..i think im goin to try and set up my thermometer to hit on that wire and see if i can get it to read it...

 

The screens don't get hot, only the wire elements do. The screen is only there to keep debrii out.

 

Cool, thanks for the info.

 

yes on our f-bodies and most gm cars it is there just for to keep debris or contamination out of the maf/engine..

but there are soem imports that use a style of maf that use a screen that looks somewhat similiar to the screen in ours as the actualy "heated" element

 

Actually the screen has another more important purpose. It's there to laminarize the air flow past the wires. Without it the maf is subjected to rather turbulant air flow resulting in an inaccurate MAF.
Fords don't have this problem since they use a venturi style maf that collects air through a smaller orfice rather than the whole tube.