I recently got my first camaro and I found something under the hood that I can't figure out what it is. I'm not the smartest when it comes to under the hood of a car so forgive me. The top of it says MACI Racing and the previous owner zip tied it down. Can anyone tell me what it is?

 

It's what some vendors on ebay call a performance "chip". Inside that fancy box is nothing more than a cheap Radio Shack resistor, which fools the intake air temperature (IAT) sensor (that thing stuck into the intake tube with a pink and white wire) into thinking the incoming air is colder than it really is. The bright idea is to richen up the air/fuel mix to supposedly give you better performance. Some even claim better gas mileage, which is a laugh considering what it does. In the long run, your 02 sensors in the exhaust are going to compensate for the richer condition anyway, so that "performance enhancer" you have there is really nothing more than junk. I'd remove it and reconnect the factory wires back together, just to get rid of useless clutter.

 

Another one of those E Bay performance parts. lol

 

Thanks. I have heard about chips before, mostly for trucks, but I had never actually seen one, that's why I didn't know. I definitely haven't noticed any miracle difference than what is already supposed to be normal so I would have to agree with you there. I probably will end up taking it out. Does it do anything to harm my car?

 

I am having trouble with my car running rich without anything tricking my car. It really probably doesn't do anything except lower your gas mileage. The additional performance would be so minimal that it could only do harm if anything. Also it is one more thing to worry about when you are trying to diagnose a problem. As a rule of thumb the cars sensors and computers know what is best for it.

 

When you say lower your gas mileage, do you mean that in a good or bad way?

 

In a bad way. You want your A/F ratio to be as close to 14.6:1 as you can and that's what your IAT, MAF, O2 and numerous other sensors attempt to do, get you close to that figure.

As said before, toss it and hook up the original sensor and then put money towards real performance parts and tuning.

 

^^ agreed, people here know what they are talking about, you can learn a lot by just reading what has already been posted and sticky'd here. If you have many questions about upgrading your car after reading these forums you should read the sticky'd posts again.

 

Thanks a lot for the help guys!