I know you said the MAF is on right, but humor me and get a picture.

It's happened before.

 

The arrow points away from the engine., ive done it before and had the car run like crap and feel like it was going to stall when idle... Easy to miss when doing a bunch of things under the hood.

 

The arrow points away from the engine? how come? I figured the arrow was to tell you which way the air need to pass the MAF, which would point towards the TB it it was that case. If the arrow points away from the TB, what is the point of the arrow?

 

arrow should point towards the IM obviously

i think(hope) bull meant "your problem is that the arrow points away from the engine"

not that you have an arrow anyway since you're not using the stock housing lol
so yeah i don't know how you can be sure it's in the right way, maybe try turning it the other way just cause it's easy and free

 

Well Radu, there is an arrow on the actual sensor itself. Thats how i know its on the right way. lol.

 

o, didn't know that

 

UPDATE: I wanted to check the IAC to see if it was working fine, so i disconnected its plug while the car was idling and it died. I then disconnected the MAF, started the car, then disconnected the IAC and it died again. So im sure its not the IAC and that its most likely the MAF being dirty or bad. but we will see.

 

You would NOT be the first person to think, no, be POSITIVE that their MAF was on correctly, to post a picture and find out it isn't.

LOL

 

I posted in a hurry yesterday. Thank you for the correction Radu.

 

UPDATE: Ok here we go. I borrowed a new MAF sensor today to troubleshoot my problem. I installed the new MAF the same way my old one was on with the arrow pointing towads the IM and nothing changed. The car ran just as shitty. So, I figured I would try flipping it around with the arrow pointing away from the IM and it idled great, except the CEL went on immediately. I thought this was odd since the MAF is backwards. I then reinstalled my old MAF on backwards and it idled a tiny bit lower than the new one, but still idled better than before.

Anybody have any suggestions on what I should do here? Thanks.