broke mas

i hacked the air can and put everything back together. the car ran fine for like 5 minutes then it kept stalling. i made sure all the lines were back in place and made sure the hoses are tight but the car would start right up and then shut off.i try to rev and it still dies. so i put the air can back on but it does the same thing. i did not remove any of the honeycombs.and im sure i put everything back the right way. but i do remember carelessly try to wrestle the air can off and i heard a slight crack. but once i finally got it off i inspected mas and it seemed fine.if the mas was damaged wouldnt i get a cel. please help

year make and model in sig please

sorry its a 91 tsi fwd. just got it last week.car is completely stock

Thanks for the info, but its still not in your signature ;)

If you cracked the mas or removed honeycombs (just as an example) you would not get a CEL. The sensor can be reading the wrong amount of airflow because of these things, but only by a malfunction will it cause the ECU to put out a DTC. If it is pulling in enough unmetered air, it could be lean enough to cause these problems. Not sure how likely this is though. You said you rechecked everyhting, so I Assume you definitely plugged the MAS back in properly. Not sure what could cause this without having the car here.