hello there.

I got this 1997 Audi A4 Quattro with the 2.6 V6 (Engine code ABC)
And I have a question about what I think is an MAF sensor, or something that does a similar job.

On top of the airfilter box(Under a plastic cover) there's a sensor with two cables going into it. What is it and what does it do? And if I'm building a cone filter system for my engine, will I need to keep this sensor?

The last cone filter system I had on it had a shoddy PVC pipe modded to fit the sensor, but I've seen 2.6 engines without that sensor and I've read the ABC doesn't have a MAF on it.

 

Here's a picture of how my cone filter mod looked, and the sensor I'm talking about is that orange or brown thing you see with two cables going into it.

 

The black sensor behind the intake pipe is the EVAP purge valve. It should do this "ticking sound".

The MAF is important, that is why I would not delete it on a stock motor.

But yes, that orange thing, I believe it is the Mass airflow sensor.

 

That brown "sensor" looks like an ICM, which is really odd because I've never seen one on a v6 apart form the S4. Does your motor use coil packs and spark plug wires or coil-on-plug? The wiring to it also doesn't look factory, but possibly done at a dealership sometime after the car was manufactured. If it is an ICM you definitely need to keep it, and you also have to make sure it still has that metal heatsink on the bottom and it's placed in the path of air flow to keep it from overheating.

 

It does have something that looks like a heatsink. And it looks original when it's mounted on the stock airfilter box. So its at least done with factory(or OEM) parts.

What is this thing doing exactly? Keeping the intake air cold? I've seen a couple A6'es and 80's with the 2.6 engine and they doesn't have this thing.
I don't have the car at this moment as I'm driving my dad's Scirocco R, but I'll try and remember to look where the other cable is coming from if that helps identifying it.


Edit: After a quick google search for a 2.6 ICM it seems like that is what it is. But I didn't think an ICM needs to be placed on the intake pipe, I thought it would be more like this:

 

Well I've never dealt with a 2.6 (we don't have them on on this side of the Atlantic), but the B5's that have an ICM have it placed on the airbox to have air flowing over it and keeping it cool. It's basically an amplifier for the ignition signal and heats up a ton, if you don't keep it cool by mounting it to something large and metal or in the path of airflow it'll overheat and burn up.

 

Ah, I see, so it's the heatsink itself that needs to be cooled down.

But then I can basically mount it somewhere with airflow around the grille or on a large piece of metal like the wall between the water box(Where the battery is) and the engine?

 

I've never really dealt with an ICM so I can't tell you what will work and what won't, all I know is how it is from the factory and that it would be best to keep it that way.

 

Another thing I read while doing a google search is that you could replace the coil wiring with a newer system to get the ignition control to work without this ICU setup.

 

My 2.8 had an ICM at relatively the same location. I'd say +1 for icm there. Type in the part number in google and see what comes up.