I was just out under the hood of my '91 RS L03. I was digging around cleaning and what not and noticed that there is just way too much crap under the hood. I would like to remove all of the pollution control junk and toss it but before I do that I wanted to ask a couple of simple questions. 1. What if any benifits, if any, will I see from removing all that stuff? 2. Is there any worries with the computer throwing codes after the removal? 3. Has anyone done this that can give me a brief tutorial so that I can be thorough? Thanks

first of all do you have emissions tesing in your area. i am gonna assume you dont or you know someone who can get you through...or else you wouldnt be asking this.

now i am not the best person to answer this because i dont know much about fuel injected cars.

however one benefit is obviously gonna be a cleaner, less clutted engine bay and it will be easier to work on the car.

i removed every piece of emissions equipment on my car excpet the PCV valve, you need this to properly vent you engine...so leave it on. you can put a breather on the other valve cover intead of the tube and filter than run from the air cleaner to the valve cover

hopefully someone else that knows tbi cars and will respond and help you out.

One possibility occurs to me:

If you remove the air pump, and I assume you have one, I would think that removing the air pump would change the oxygen content of the exhaust passing over the 02 sensor. After all, the pump is pushing air into the exhaust manifolds, burning up some of the leftover combustion products in the exhaust. If you take the added air out of the picture, what happens?

Now perhaps the change is small enough that the computer merely compensates for it slightly when cruising...

I suppose the bottom line is remove pieces one at a time and keep records of what you pulled from there. I would be worried about the driveability or gas mileage suffering from this particular modification.

As far as I know the air pump is only pushing air into the manifolds until the engine is hot. then the air is diverted to the cat instead. and the ECM ignores the O2 sensor readings until the engine is hot anyways.

Hmmmm, if that's the case then pulling the air pump shouldn't affect the driveability at all then, just increase emissions during warmup.

And the air that is pumped into the cat, that's what the half-inch tube running down to the exhaust is about?

I've heard that the air pumps don't really rob that much power off the crank so they're hardly worth removing in that sense but I agree they're ugly mothers, usually built cheaply and getting rid of them sure cleans up (alnd lightens up) the engine bay.

I pulled all the emissions hardware out of a '77 Toyota and it came to about 35 pounds! The air pump, brackets, hoses, the array of vacuum devices made for a huge pile on the floor.

I've removed my A.I.R. and have not gotten any codes or noticed any difference in driveability.

removing emissions items like your air pump will clean up your engine bay and free up a little bit of horse power cause your engine is not always turning the air pump.it will not thow any trouble codes but make sure when you remove those lines from the exhaust manifold that you plug them with pipe plugs or else you will have a major exhaust leak and there could be detonation in the pipes.

good luck

This is a very common topic, and I think there is even a thread in the TBI forum about it for your specific engine.

Just remember its VERY illegal, even if your area doesnt do emissions testing. Its a federal law, and its just a matter of time before the current government makes every state and city do emissions testing in the name of "global warming."

We here in SoCal have several cars that make over 400 horsepower, get 20+ miles per gallon, and pass CA's tough emissions test with flying colors. Its not difficult.

this is almost 7 years old

I would keep all the stuff you pulled off in case you get emissions testing in your area.

I removed all the smog stuff from my car and its not throwing any codes or anything and its running just fine

Are you getting better performance and milage?

When i removed it i also added a new distributor, coil, and open element air filter so im not really sure

Hey man, you wanna race me man? With those 373's you will do good. Do you have that hood ventilated?

Lol man my car isnt even registered yet im still working on it yeah the hood is ventilated soon im getting hooker 2460 headers a magnaflow high flow cat , and either a mac performance cat back or a magnaflow the weird thing is its sounds pretty good with the stock set up

Is that a stock muffler you have on it?

[quote=Stevolwevol;4220291]Is that a stock muffler you have on it?[/quote


yeah its stock with 3 inch tail pipes welded on

I have 3 inchers on my rs also. They are stainless, w/balognie sliced. I have a flowmaster behind em.