mafia doesnt work well with superchips tuning from what i read so i doubt its a mafia. all the mafia does is the same thing a mafextendor does and that is to give u a lil more maf voltage instead of puttin on a bigger maf sensor if possible.

 

So I made a few phone calls, and the general opinion is that the chip was most likely some sort of cheap ebay mod that might get some horsepower, but was probably never intended for use on a supercharged engine. I had to make a decision...
I drew out a quick diagram of which wires went where and it was time to go to work. I cut the wires, and reconnected them in the stock configuration. I clamped 'em and cleaned everything up with some nice shrink-tubing.
...The moment of truth. Keep in mind, at this time my beautiful wife is standing out in the driveway, smoking her little cigarette, tapping her little foot and glaring at me in a way that clearly said 'you idiot, you are gonna break your truck'. BUT.. I ignored her lack of faith in my mechanical know-how, and at this point luck?.. and hopped in and inserted the key. I hesitated for a moment and with a burst of confidence, turned the key.
You should have seen the look on her face. The truck started. It sounded fine. I let it run for a minute and then it was time to give her a little rev...
Sputter sputter pop glug thump.... and then there was silence. I kept my eyes straight forward, as to avoid that 'I told you so' look on her face. I hopped out and walked back up to the engine. I almost wanted to cry, becuase I thought I blew my engine. I thought about what could have gone wrong, and what the heck that stupid, ugly, dumb chip was. I took a quick look to where the chip once was... Oh man, I'm and dumb-***.
Upon review of the steps I took prior to my test drive, I recall skipping one really important final step. I forgot to plug in that stupid six prong plug into that big Lightning MAF. I grabbed the cable, and plugged it back in, and headed back into the truck. A quick and confident twist of the key, and the sound of that nice 5.4 purring through dual exhaust pipes and the whine of that S-trim Vortech supercharger was all I could hear. I backed out of the driveway and took her for a spin around the block. I kept looking at the gauge panel, as to make sure that no little light popped up, but no such check engine light appeared.
And so ends my dramatic day of contemplation and confusion. I love this message board. I love everyone's opinions. I love my truck. I can go to sleep without worries tonight, and hopefully the BOSS truck will survive that 30 minute drive to work in the morning. Have a great day guys, and thanks for the advise and insight. I will let you know if anything changes.

-Rob

 

Well, what LOOKED like was mounted not on the MAF, but on the air intake housing AHEAD of the MAF from that picture, appears to be that stupid EBay device to trick the PCM into thinking it's colder outside than it really is - that is one of the stupidest and most dangerous devices ever invented, and how they have been marketed there in many cases there is just no excuse for.

Glad to see you took it off.

And by the way - just in case you may not be aware, as I can't remember if we have actually had a chance to speak or not - but we can supply all of the fuel components you need to get that FMU off of there, the injectors, etc as well as the custom tuning - just FYI in case we haven't already gone over all of that.

Another point is that I don't' care for the design of that air intake tract, as you have a very sharp bend right after the MAF meter that prevents good laminar airflow, which will alter how the air flows over the sensor inside that MAF and alter the A/F ratio, and it will alter it more and more as more air flows thru it, in most cases, even if you don't get immediate backwash @ idle (and it sounds like you;re OK as far as any idle backwash or you;d probably be complaining about idle quality issues) - now bends AHEAD of the MAF are worse, that is true, but bends that are less than 12 inches behind it also upset that airflow, and throw off the MAF transfer function. I hate to see when someone does an air intake up that way - it looks almost like dryer hose connecting the MAF to the air handling tube on the back of the motor.

We'll just have to see how the datalogs look once we tune it to see if that is something that needs to be changed.

At any rate, congrats on getting that piece off of there, as it really does look like one of those IAT (Inlet Air Temperature sensor) foolers, and that can be disastrous on a supercharged engine especially.

One last point - if it was a 4-wire device that was connected to the 4 center wires of a 6-wire MAF, instead of just a simple 2-wire device connected to a separate IAT sensor, then it usually is not the typical "EBay IAT fooler," but instead, was a device to alter the MAF's electronic capacity, and that too, can throw off the A/F's - the bottom line is, that truck needs to be datalogged & tuned ASAP, and until that is done I would refrain from any heavy throttle use - this is just FYI, and remember, all of this is guesswork just from that one photo.