So I did a boost leak test with smoke. No smoke at all coming from anywhere vacuum and intake side. A tech told me to pull maf and run it to see if the trims come back down to try to diagnose the maf. My car would barely run with maf out. It sounded like a cammed 4cyl. Barely did anything ? Is that normal or is that a really bad tune?

 

A missing MAF will make it run rough , not better. Put the cleaned MAF back into the correct position, Yes I’ve seen them installed backwards, and fire it up. You might have tune issues. It could be your tune has been switched off. I think some tunes are controlled by the TC button. That would confirm there’s a Trifecta tune and HPTuners can’t delete or override that, the Trifecta tune has to be removed with a Trifecta cable connection to your HHR and your laptop. Even GM can’t delete those files.