I was recently told that if u put a resistor on the hot wire of the air temperature sensor, it will add a decent amount of power to a 3.4l v6. i saw it done on an lt1 engine, but i wanted to know if there are any bad side affects or consequenses of doing this???

 

It does not add any power it puts the car into open loop which will make the engine run rich to make up for it being "cold" This will ruin your cat and eventually shorten the life of your plugs and carbon up your pistons. If you have emissions you will fail, and eventually your CEL will come on saying engine could not reach operating temp. I would not do this.

Massey

 

As Massey said. Also, after running a while the PCM will reset the air/fuel mixture based what the O2 sensors are seeing regardless of what tricks you have done to the IAT sensor. All you will eventually wind up is having to deal with driveability problems. For same insane reason many people belive that giving an engine more fuel will produce more power; this only works for diesel engines, lol. For best performance the fuel mixture has to be correct, too rich a mixture will result in power loss.

 

Pardon me for asking a dumb question, but does the IAT sensor affect when the computer goes into closed loop mode? I know the engine temp sensor, and the heat of the oxy sensors controls open to closed loop, but I wasn't aware that the IAT played a part in that too. Or are the OBDII cars different that way?

 

For MAP-only cars, IAT's help the computer figure out air mass entering the engine (P*V/T). It still gives the car a baseline to adjust against with changes in engine speed.

MAF cars measure the airflow directly, but use the IAT as a baseline sensor (hot wire mass air flow sensor)