Did my searching and did my homework and I'm pretty confident I have a direction but it's always good to hear from someone that has actually done it. That's what I'm hoping for anyway.

I have an 2002 LS6 in a Miata. A while back it started to run crappy intermittently. Took it to my (reputable) tuner. He said he was getting some really weird output from the (stock 2002) LS6 MAF. So we just switched over to a speed density set up and left the maf in place because the intake air temp sensor is integrated into the maf. No problems, car runs great.

I'm changing over to an LS7 style air intake because right now I'm pulling air from the engine compartment and want to fix that. I know the card style maf will require a cut and paste into my current LS6 maf table if I decide to go back to the maf sensor.

Here is my questions; 1) If I leave it in speed density will it just ignore the maf signal like it does now? Thus I can drive it fine until I choose to convert to maf? 2) Are the intake air temp tables the same between the LS6 and LS7 or will that have to be reconfigured as well?

Thanks for any real world input.

 

Your tune will go whacky cause of the diffeence in iat values but should be able to drive around.

 

Just get a separate IAT like a 98-02 F-body uses and wire it in. It is calibrated the same as the one in the LS6 MAF. That way you can locate it where it gets a truer reading of the air temp.

 

Bringing this post back from the dead as I was OP. I put my LS7 intake in and just wired it up. Speed density worked great and the IAT reading was fine. I thought I might find some gains going back to maf so I got with my tuner and he switched the maf table over to LS7 and enabled it. We picked up some power and for the most part it runs fine. The STF and LTF trims look great. I have one drivability issue though. It has a light surging at steady state throttle in the higher gears especially at lower rpms. Say 5th and 6th at 1200 rpm and up to high way speeds (2000 rpm). The thoughts in the Miata swap community is that the maf is seeing turbulent air and a shield needs to be placed a few inches off the LS7 air filter to prevent this. Tried that. Maybe a little better, maybe not. It really is configured to pick up air no different than a Corvette so not sure I'm buying into that. Any thoughts? I ended up at 392/386 at the tires with a 2002 LS6 with headers and a small cam.