What exactly is this AIR pump? I've heard of some people taking it off, what does that do? And there is a AIR relay in the relay box under the hood, if I pull this relay what would it do?

 

The AIR pump is a little electric pump that draws air from the intake ducting and routes it into the exhaust via valves on the exhaust manifolds. It's purpose is to help the catalytic converters to warm up on a cold start. The only reason you'd need to get rid of it is if you're not running cats on your exhuast setup.

 

... or if your check valves start leaking and making your system run rich as all getout and get poor gas mileage.....

Jonota

 

Pulling the relay will set an SES light, and your fans will come on. Until you get it programmed out of your pcm.

Considering your AIR pump only runs for 3 minutes on start up. This has nothing to do with fixing an a/f ratio.

 

If the check valves were leaking, it could've been letting outside air into the manifolds even after the air pump was off, which would fool the O2 sensors into thinking your engine was running really lean, and cause the PCM to compensate and richen up the A/F ratio.

 

So pulling this relay will make my fans kick on? So could i use that when i go to the strip to make my fans come on and keep the car cooler?

 

Oh, he is SO good!!!!

Yup, 21mpg - 14 mpg, popping noise out the exhaust.....
checked the AIR suction after 10 minutes running..... still drawing in a LOT of air...
disconnected system, plugged manifold AIR holes... ALL BETTER!

Jonota

 

I don't see how the AIR pump "warms" up the cats. What I think it actually does is dilute the exhaust so the cats work more efficiently during the first few minutes when they are cold and the motor is running a bit rich.

 

Well now we're just splitting hairs. I think you're probably right though.

 

Dilute the exhaust.. well... yes, it does... but that's fairly obvious. Can't say how it would increase the efficiency of the converter. The original answer was a bit misleading in it's wording... it protects the converter WHILE it warms up.... My not-so-educated guess would be that it "dilutes" (as stated) to prevent a buildup of excess residue from running rich collecting into the catalytic converter until you are into open loop mode and the cats are nice and warm and ready for the occasional trip to WOT.

Jonota

 

lol, I read that wrong. Sorry.

 

no prollem bruddah!

Jonota

 

The Idea is to reburn the unburnt fuel in the exhaust manifolds. Which, will help heat up the cat or cats quicker.

 

In an already operating engine that is at operating temperature, I would agree with you. However, on a cold engine, the exhaust mixture lacks one of the necessary ingredients for combustion (read:fire), which is an ignition source. At operating temperature, a manifold IS hot enough to ignite a good air/fuel mixture (incidentally, THAT is the popping noises I was hearing). A COLD manifold however, would not produce the combustion... it is just as cold as the converter. So again, from my point of view (read:this is what I think, it is not law), the AIR pump dilutes the highly rich cold engine exhaust enough to prevent "condensation" if you will of fuel in the converter, which could damage it as it heats up.

Jonota

 

It's like a caveman would blow into the tinder when trying to start a fire, more oxygen.