so for months i have been testing and trying to figure out why my mazda protege is so gutless my next guess was that it was the tourque converter was shot until i was reading up on my import tuner magazine and they said some intakes can acually cause you to lose power, They said when the mass flow air sensor is too close to the filter the air coming in is faster than it acutally is causing the sensor to tell the computer to pump more gas causing your air/fuel ratio to be to rich hense the downfall in horse power, but they said as long as there is a screen or something to break the air up before it hits the sensor its okay.
Now on my weapon r intake i think its the secret dragan for the 2000 mazda protege the peice of plastic pipe is kinda the mass flow air sensor set up and the filter screws basicly straight onto it. now my question is does anyone else have this intake and are they seeing a lack in horse power as well? its so bad its to the point its risky to pass on the highway cause the car honestly will not make it up to speed fast enough.
Thanks for any input

 

although I have heard that whole theory of losing HP with various aftermarket parts, I don't believe it sometimes. Most companies R&D and "fine tune" their parts before selling. I honestly don't think you are losing power due to the intake and you are really not going to max out the MAF sensor with the intake no matter how close it is to the filter. Distance from the filter shouldn't matter, hell some of the speed protege guys relocate their MAF sensor to their intercooler pipes so they can run a blow off valve. So, their MAF sensor is constantly seeing boost pressure and turbulence from the valve releasing pressure between shifts and that doesn't cause any issues. But anyway, of all the mazda forums I am a member of, I have never heard any of the NA protege guys talk about losing power with an intake, even the Ebay intakes have worked for them. I have ran my intake as a short ram setup with my MAF sensor hooked directly to the filter with no issues but recently switced back to my cold air setup due to skyrocketing temps outside.

 

yeah well thats what i kinda figured but i thought i would ask around cause the car ran perfectly fine and just before december it started seeing massive loss in hp. so i'm really not to sure at all what would be wrong with it haha

 

Im not too familiar with when the MAF sensor is maxed out due to increased volume of air but the colder the air is, the more dense it is and usually during the colder months, there will be a change on a car's performance. I know that the speed protege acts up during the cold months due to the dense air, we get fuel cut and/or hesitation when trying to go into boost. Usually it is becuase of the tune since most tunes are dependent off of outside temps, weather conditions and other factors. But the stock ECU should be able to account for any changes in weather conditions and outside temps even with aftermarket bolt ons. Especially since most bolt ons are designed to work with all stock sensors without issues. Also, the stock ECU should be able to slightly adjust to most bolt ons without major tuning needed. Although a tune would help out whether you are completely stock or modded.

 

Yeah. It's been hot, sunny and especially humid where we are so far this summer and I know my 3 is running like a dog in this weather compared to how she ran just a month or two ago. And I am running a CAI.
My car has always been very susceptible to weather changes. You would think the manufacturer's would have figured out the programming to properly adjust for that by now?