# What do good MAF wires look like?



## stuffman (Apr 1, 2010)

So long story short, my '94 SE has decided to have pretty much every wire in the wire harness start to go bad and I've been spending the last couple weeks re-wiring everything (2 of the 4 injectors, EGR solenoid, all of the MAF wires, rear-left indicator light... I'm sure I forgot a few). Anyways, when I was getting MAF error code on my ECU, I picked up a bottle of electrical contact cleaner to clean the MAF out, but soon realized it was the MAF wiring and not necessarily the MAF itself.

Today (not wanting the cleaner to go to waste), I decided to take out the MAF and give it a good cleaning anyways since it's like a 5 minute job. The thing is, I need to know what the front (of the 2) MAF wires should look like. Mine looks like a thicker wire segment connected to the two posts by smaller wires. Either it's a crapload of residue on the wire, or the wire was designed like that (possibly for more surface area or whatnot). Anyways, I sprayed it down but it still looks the same, leading me to believe either it's supposed to be like this, or I'm going to have to get down-and-dirty (but very gentle!) with a Q-tip. Below is a pic:










What do you think?


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## TheBrownRobert (Aug 28, 2007)

That's normal. It's a tiny heating coil.

Speaking of MAF wiring, which wire is the ground? I've been wanting to try the regrounding trick for a while but neither Chilton nor the FSM have the right wiring diagrams. There are online walk-throughs for the SE-R but nothing for the GA16DE. Yours has four wires coming out of it, right?


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## jordanf1 (Feb 1, 2006)

I agree, I've been wanting to do this but have the same dilema with which wire to cut. Would running a wire from the negative post in the battery to one of the 4 MAF bolts work the same? Kind of like a grounding kit....


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## TheBrownRobert (Aug 28, 2007)

I've never seen a grounding kit, so I'm not sure how they work. I don't think running a wire from a bolt on the MAF chassis will do the same thing as re-routing a wire coming out of the harness.

The negative battery terminal would probably work, but it wouldn't add as much benefit because the battery is grounded through your car's stock wiring. Plus the battery ground is being used by other stuff in the car, which won't work as well as a separate dedicated ground. A separate ground would be "optimal", but I don't know if it would really make that big of a difference.

I've heard that the throttle body has plenty of conveniently-located bolts that you can slip a ground wire beneath.


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