I have an 86 z28 305 4bbl. I am failing az emisions. when I bought the car it had a non cc carb. with and cc dist. I replaced the dist but i am still failing emmisions. CO and HC.
my check engine light is on because the carb and dist is non cc.
Its my understanding that when a check engine light is generated that air from the air pump is deverted to the air cleaner or or silencer which would cause my co and hc to be high.
What is the best way to fix this?

 

The best way to fix it would be to put a CC carb and the CC distributor back on the engine.

When the ECM is in open loop, the diverter valve sends the A.I.R. flow to the exhaust manifolds (the idea is to put the air in close to the exhaust port to take advantage of the heat while the engine warms up, then directly to the cat in closed loop so the extra air won't affect the O2 sensor operation). It will still do some good in reducing emissions in the mode it's stuck in. But, the non-CC setup will never do as good of a job as the CC setup will.

 

Say I was to swap the hoses or something to were the air always went to the cat. That would help my emissions. right?

 

No.