I am having an issue with my 96 SSEI where the car will not start and run for more than a couple seconds with the MAF sensor plugged in. If you Unplug it, I can drive the car anywhere. I was thinking it was the MAF sensor itself, so I took it out and cleaned it with MAF spray, let it dry and put it back in. Same thing. So I did one more experiment where I took the MAF sensor out of the housing in the throttle body, and just plugged it in laying outside the hole, and the car runs pretty good. As Soon as you drop the sensor back in the hole, the car stalls out and will not run. So now I am not so sure that the MAF sensor is bad. What else if any could be causing the MAF to do this???? Anybody ever had this problem? Thanks, Gary

In Tech Info under Troubleshooting and test procedures there is a write up about MAF sensors. There are tests that you can perform. My first thought is yours is bad but that does not mean that it is.