army_rx8

THe air pump that is located by the upper stur bar (passenger side right below the strut bar), has a line running down and seems to be attached to the exhaust manifold. I have a guy about to fabricate a manifold for me....and we were wondering if we coudl leave this conection out. Th eother aftermarket manifolds i've seen don't seem to have this tie in to the air pump....was just curiouse what this is for? or am i out there in left field? Any help would be appriciated. Thanks guys

army_rx8

ahhhhhhh......so it would make you fail emissions if you left it off of an aftermarket exhaust manifold? or no? and what does it actually do mechanically? or should i go grab a shop manuel?...hmmm dang complexe rotary. hahaha

army_rx8

good deal. thanks a bunch for the fast reply.. ahhh i love the vast knowledge of rotarys on here this forum. thanks again maniac. You info and help are greatly appriciated.

w2aew

It helps to bring the cat up to temperature after starting. I can't comment on whether removing it may cause damage to the cat because it doesn't come up to temp fast enough...

army_rx8

well it could damage the cat...if this line adds air to the exhaust on start up b/c the ecu pumps out too much fuel...then the cat woudl be damaged b/c too much fuel and ruin a cat..or at least diminish it' slife by a lot. so less air on start up woudl equal more fuel on the cat...if you have a mid-pipe(no cat) then this wouldn't really matter i suppose.

zoom44

taking a turn from the main topic to your reason to ask- why are you having a new manifold fabbed? what do you hope to gain? how many manifolds has this person fabbed that replace stock ones that use helmholtz tuning?

army_rx8

well i hope to gain a turbo...weither or not it pans out..who knows

army_rx8

opps as for what they've done in the past...manifolds for 13b rew, 13b turbo II, 12a, B16 series, b18 series, b20 series, h22 series, sr20det, sr20, 2jz, 4g63, they are pretty good at what they do.......but it's always good to do lots of research before you do anything no matter how good you think you are which is why i'm on here finding out some info...it's always better to "measure twice and cut once" after all.

shawnio

"how many manifolds has this person fabbed that replace stock ones that use helmholtz tuning?"

i think he was referring to the exhaust manifold, no? Is the exhaust manifold tuned as well?

zoom44

yeah i didnt read his post corrrectly the first time but i got that after he said he was after a turbo. thanks for clarifying tho

rotarygod

I'm not sure about the Renesis but on all previous rotaries if you did not have the airpump hooked up you would not pass emissions. You need the cat and the airpump to pass a sniffer test. the older airpumps were also belt driven and always running. The old engines also had 10 times the emissions as the Renesis. On the newer cars such as the RX-8, you don't have the sniffer test anymore. At least not here in Texas you don't. They just hook up to the OBDII (or whatever) port. If the engine throws a cel, you fail. If not, you pass. I actually like this since it is easier to avoid the sniffer this way. It isn't hard to fool electronics.

zoom44

well ibet that this ecu knows when just about anything is unhooked especially if it has to do with emissions. the y hook up to the port here too. i bet the ecu would tell on you.

shelleys_man_06

What would be the effect of removing the air pump? Does it have a similar efect to removing the cat? Other than emissions, I don't really see any use for the air pumps, unless I'm wrong.

RobDickinson

Considering a lot of UK cars have already had a cat replacement (aswell as US cars?) then anything that hurts the CAT is bad if your going to keep it.

Mine was replaced at 11k miles. No flooding or other problems, about £1k for the cat and exhaust , but done under warrenty.

Mr M

The objective of the secondary AIR system is to cause rapid activation of the catalytic converter when the engine is cold, thus reducing emissions. It is not there to lean off a rich idle mixture.

The PCM monitors the secondary AIR system in two ways. One, it monitors the AIR pump relay and solenoid for faults, and will display an error code if either of those is returning a value that is out of spec.

Two, it monitors the front O2 sensor, and if the current output is too high while the AIR pump is operating, it will set an 0410 error code, indicating an AIR system fault.

So, if you do not connect your AIR system you will have your CEL come on for the above reasons. I would suggest you have your friendly exhaust fabricator drill holes and insert sleeves for the AIR in his manifold. I think that would be a lot easier than trying to find ways to fool the PCM into thinking the system is acting normally.

Hope this is useful.

dasoviet

It seems that i have a failing air pump (no warranty).
I am running cat less and the airpump is unplugged.
Though i am thinking to plug back the cat because of the bad smell.
Therefore I would need the airpump to operate good.

My question regarding the air pump is if it is possible that it has carbon/dirt built and that is why not work properly.
Or i should not get bother "fixing" it and buy new/used one?

bxb40

The AIR pump is a simple electrical fan getting air from the engine compartment through a filter in the bottom of the unit. There cannot be any carbon in it - but the delicate aluminum fan blade can bend and make noise or get stuck, so get the pump out and dismantle it for inspection. Has few clips around it for the bottom to be dropped, really easy once it is out of the engine bay (fixed by 3 screws).

It also happens to have a Mercedes connector on it ;o) so it must be good !

tdiddy

How do you know the air pump is failing?

dasoviet

During morning/cold starts while the car idles at higher RPMs my car would go
but a very strange noise come from the engine, and didn't allow me to rev it up.
The whole thing is running like an old diesel (non turbo) engine.
I removed the CAT cause I suspected it, due to the fact that during morning/cold starts it smelled badly gasoline like the CAT is not doing its job.
Rougly the air pump is pushing air to the CAT to warm him to the operating temperature. Therefore is working only when the CAT is cold.

Anyway...
I just unplugged the upper switch of the air pump and the problem is gone.
I got a CEL but i suppose there is not a problem.
As someone mentioned somewhere in the forum if you unplug your air pump you should allow more time at idle your CAT to get to its operating temperature.