I finally have begun to tackle my once dirty, ooglie engine bay. I began by hand polishing (yes, 3 hours of hand polishing) the valve cover and timing chain cover. Then, I took out some paint thinner and started cleaning off some oily/really dirty parts. Then i decided to go out, buy some engine paint, and paint everything from the 1st intake resonator--> back. BTW, it came out completely nuts...it looks insanely nice. I painted the resonator and airbox Ford blue, and then used some silver and sprayed the air over them to give it a metallic effect. Then, i spent 30 mins taping up my MAF (i treated this thing like gold, most people are way more abusive with their MAFs when installing intakes). Anyway, when i was taping, i noticed a crack and slight hole in the MAF assembly. Needless to say, i wasn't pleased, since it was hidden away. However, i obviously had been driving with it like that for a little while. However, when i painted the MAF, the first order of business was sealing that little hole, which i did with some silicone caulk (laugh it up all you want). After all was said and done, i turn the engine on, it sounded a bit weak, so i disconnected the neg battery terminal, let sit for 30 seconds, restarted it, and it sounded better. Then i put it into drive to go to school this morning, and i see the SES light come on...needless to say i wasn't happy. I noticed it didn't feel as strong as it used to. Anyway, I've never had a CEL come on, so i have to assume that the SES is different, since on most cars the SES and CEL are seperate. What's up with this? Am i in need of a new MAF, or do you think i forgot to connect something? Again, when i get home, i'll disconnect the neg terminal for longer and double check to make sure that i didn't forget to reconnect anything. In any event, given the extreme care i took when doing this (i treated it as if i had a block of shoddily wired C4 in my hand) I don't see how i could've messed anything up. Any suggestions? If it persists, i'll do a CEL diagnostic, however, i don't think this is the issue. Any suggestions?

 

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