maf's on tp's

I'm working on putting a tpi system on my 350. The tpi came off an 1986 carmaro. I do not have the maf sensor or the bellows to attach it to the throttle body, and am having a hard time finding these at savage yards in that they are now 20 + years old. I googled "vettes with tpi's" under the image listing, and found several pictures of tpi systems that did not have an maf sensor conncected anywhere in the cold air intake. Soooo, does one need to have this sensor connected, to have the system run correctly? I have ordered the painless wiring harnessness and a book on swapping tpi's onto sbc's. I'll see if either mentions running the system without, but thought I would ask here to see if anyone has experience with this. thanks - kip

In 1990, GM changed to a speed density system that replaced the MAF. Note that the ECU is different between the mass air flow models and the speed density models.

Plus MAF has 9 injectors and Speed has only 8, and different wire harness. They went back to MAF in '93. 9th is for cold running (choke), speed adds to all injectors for cold running. Some like MAF, some like Speed Density, I have Speed, I don't like the looks of the MAF sensor, and I run a K/N nose filter on my MPI, I have converted my Hilborn to Speed Density with electronic injectors. MAF will learn things you add to the motor, Speed will need a new chip if you change the motor vacuum with a cam. Chips these days are everwhere, and cheap to have burned.
There is more to them, but thats the easy way to say it.

Pat