OK so heres the deal, today I decided I would remove the smog pump from my 89 RS with the help of my 2 friends. Things were going ok with taking out the AIR pipes from the headers. I managed to unpluge a plug at the back of the distributor, but we put it right back right away. So all the tubing is out and were bout to take out the smog pump but the torque bit we need is all messed up and stripped so we can't take off the pump. So we decided to end for the day put the old belt back on, cap off the AIR ends on my headers and just shut the hood. Keep in mine the smog pump is still in the car and on the pully system. We started the car up and it ran fine, no problems, we reved it a few times and still no problems. So as I was gettin ready to leave and put the car in reverse I noticed that it seemed a little " off", and then when I put it in drive and tried to go I knew it was WAY OFF!. The car had NOOO power none, it kinda of chugged along, when I put it reverse to back up to the garage, it nearly stalled out on me and ran like complete crap. Me and Z my buddy popped the hood and found a loose wire on the Distributor. We put it back on and check all the other wires. Started the car up, sounded fine (some reason it was a bit lounder then before all of this crap) the car idleded nicely again and when we took it for a spin I could have my foot to the floor and the car would barely move. So we looked again and couldnt see anything that else was wrong. Couldnt find anything.

The engine seems to be running "fine" the idle isn't going crazy, its sounds healthly but when I put it in gear and go...theres no go. So I drove it home in thinking tomorrow we will look at the wires make sure nothing is screwy with them. But as I was backing in to my drive way to get it ready for tomorrow the stupid thing stalled out on me, well it didn't really stall, it felt like it was about to but the car caught itself. The idle seems to be fine still but it just has no power.


Any one got any ideas???


Pork

 

Quick Question, why do you still have the AIR pulley on the belt even though it's not working.......

It probally isn't the answer to your problems, but it wouldn;t hurt to get that thing off the belt and check it out.....

 

well he still has the belt on because its a serpentine belt system.

The only thing i can think of is there's something you took loose but forgot to put back on. I'd give it a good looking over.

Now as for removing the smog pump, I've always been under the impression that it's a bad idea, as the cpu expects to see that extra oxygen at the o2 sensor. If you remove the smog pump, the cpu dosnt see that and compensates, which causes a lean condition and possible pinging.

So it's happend to me and a few other people i know that removing the smog pump will actually hurt performance, i dont think it would hurt it as bad as you're describing though.

The only way to effectivly do it is to get a custom chip burnt.

 

Any chance you might have unhooked the connector that kills the computer timing advance? It's right there next to the firewall where you were taking all that junk loose from. I think it's a brown wire with a connection that comes out of the wiring harness on the passenger side of the firewall. If you have no computer advance your car will run pretty crappy and might overheat.

 

Never heard of that before....., but it kinda makes sense.....

 

welli cant say i've studied it much. all i know is that i have a 307 olds that was running lean and i couldnt figure out why.

Then i found one of the air lines was rusted out, when i fixed that the lean condition went away and i got a little more power out of it.

But i've also known people who removed the smog pump on their computer controlled cars (non of them were thirdgens though) who noticed a loss in power and running lean. but when they put the smog pump back on it went away.

So...i say it's genrally true. I admit i have no idea how the thirdgen's computer interprets all this, and i havnt done any experimenting....but i keep it in mind. Maybe try hooking your pump back up and see what happens?

 

The AIR system diverts air to the manifolds only in open loop. Once the car goes into closed loop, the ECM starts to use the reading from the o2 for fuel correction and AIR will have no effect on reading because it is being diverted to the cat.

 

Sounds to me like you pulled somethin out and didn't put it back right.. There should be no reason why your car was doing that while driving with the throttle wide open. You had to have messed something up, wrong wire in the wrong spot, or pulled a hose that you shouldn't have.. That whole part about unplugging something from the distributor kinda raises an eyebrow.. Check that connection once more, make sure it's correct, because it sounds like your problem is coming from the distributor. Yes, some power is generally lost on any car with an A.I.R. system and an ECM but, never so much that you'd have problems like you're having now.. Double, triple, and quadruple check your connections. Even if you don't remember messing with it. Check it.

 

This is true. The computer doesnt see that extra air because the air is diverted to the cat when the oxygen sensor is in use(closed loop) so I don't think that anyone should have lost power by remoing a smog pump unless they messed something up.

As far as the problem at hand, I would just finnish getting rid of the pump(probably not the problem, but you have done no good at all if there even if removing the pump would at all), and check to make sure everything is connected right. There is a tech article that tells how to route the belt and what length belt to use to get rid of the pump. Also, you will want to get rid of the cat sometime if you didnt because it will get clogged with out the air system.

Ben

 

The cat will not necessarily plug up because the AIR pump is gone. My 84 with a cc carb didn't after about 3 years of driving it with no AIR! If anything, I would thing you would be getting a false lean (computer see it as lean) and actual rich condition from removing the AIR pump because of the possibility of an exhaust leak before the O2 sensor. A leak before the O2 will make the ECM think it is lean.

 

I just took the AIR system off my car on Tuesday and I noticed no change in motor performance; however, the motor seems to run 'better' now. No more power but it's just smoother/better. If that makes any sense.

As far as your problems with your motor I'll repaet what everyone else is saying, double check everything and make sure that everything is plugged in/plugged up and back the way it should be.

 

Thanks guys. I'm gonna go out today and look over everything with a fine tooth come and see what I can see. Hopefully just a wire is loose, or a vaccum line isn't pluged in...something ease.

The reason why the smog pump is in there still is the thing is held up with 2 torque bits ( I dont know why GM did that, the entire car is put to gether with 10mm or 9/32 bolts... Not there best design feature.) The torque bit we had for it, was chewed up and wouldnt bit, so we had to get a new bit, but it was late. SOOO we had to put the pulley back on so I can run the belt, if I took off the pull or left it on and put on the shorter belt, it would rub and i prolly would have burnt through the new belt in ohhh 5min.

 

If you don't have the proper torx bit sometimes a metric or standard allen wrench will fit well enough to loosen it.

 

Is there a way to convert a AIR pump to crankcase evacuation pump?
OR Is there a pump that would fit the stock location?

 

I dont know what it would take, but I have heard of it being done before. You would want to see what kind of vacuume it would produce though because if you apply to much vacuume to it it can cause problems with the rings or sucking in gaskets. The cool thing other than added performance is that if you get it set up right it can actually keep you from getting oil leaks because it is under vacuum and the oil is held in instead of having pressure pushing it outward. I think you can get electric pumps that will work and I would imagine would be easier to control then the smog pump.

Ben

 

Is there anychance someone can get a photo of the smog pump, because if I'm not mistaken my has broken off. Granted the car hasn't been run much in the last 3 years it seems to have lost a lot of power, windering if this busted piece is the culprit.

Thanx