Today I dediced to clean my $30 procarparts intake, anyways I take it off start cleaning it...I look into tha adapter plate, and I see that the mesh on the MAF (thats supposed to keep big pieces out of the throtle body?) is BLACK AS NIGHT.
I rub my finger on the meshing and DAMN! its Dirty as hell! what is that stuff, carbon buildup?

I've never seen that when I had my regular air-box. I cleaned MOST of it off, but now I'm wondering, what is that stuff, and how did it get there? Is the filter that came with the intake ****ty? is that whats making my auto slow ( other than the fact thats its AUTO)?

oh yeah, I have a 98 SE if that matters.

 

Could be from too much oil on the filter...

 

the filter isnt that oily...

any other ideas?

 

how dirty was the filter itself? maybe the filter isnt that great and for watever reason the stuff is black and got through.
i dont know how efficient the JWT filter is , im going to check to see if i have your problem or not

 

This is normal with a pre-oiled filter element. As long as you're using a quality filter element & it produced that residue the way it came from the manufacturer (& you have no unfiltered/external air-leaks), you have nothing to worry about.

The amount of oil on the filter may not seem like much, but WOT at high RPM's, some of the oil in the filter element vaporizes into very tiny droplets and enters your intake. This is normal.

It is possible to apply too much oil to a filter element, though. That's a different story if that's what happened. . .

Just follow the directions on a can of spray-oil for filter elements after cleaning & re-oiling & you'll be fine. (Btw, unless you're operating in extremely dusty conditions, most oiled filters have very long maintenance intervals)

Over-oiling can do more harm than good: coating your intake, which can rob performance and foul sensors.

The only thing you might do differently if you're running an "oiled" filter is maybe clean your throttle-body (using the aerosol spray TB cleaner) a little more frequently than you might if you were running a standard paper (non-oiled) filter. Maybe every 5-6k mi, (ymmv).

 

It could also be that your PCV system is occasionally clogging. This is fairly normal. Crankcase fumes get passed through the tubing for the air intake, right after the MAF. IF your PCV is clogged it will cause a "back up" of pressure that is sooted with crankcase fumes (oil). It's not anything to worry about. You may want to replace or clean your current PCV. Otherwise everything sounds all right.