Air Pump Removal - 2 quick questions
 

Hi

Engine is out of my 2006 Hawkeye STI (EJ257) so I am looking at what I could do now to save struggling in the future.

So, going to remove the secondary air-pump but have 2 quick questions:

1 - Do you need to leave the solenoids connected. Some site say yes, others say no. I have heard that they contain a barometric sensor and needs to be left connected if you are running the MAF but not if you are running MAP. Can anyone confirm either way?

2 - It will bring up a CEL. Can I buy a cable and software to remove this myself? If so, what cable and software is recommended? If not, can I leave the bits connected (both solenoids and air-pump) and run the car until I can have it remapped?

Thanks

The secondary air pump system can be removed and the ports on the rear of the cylinder heads blanked off.

However you will need some software to delete all the fault codes associated with the secondary air pump system & turn it off.

The pressure sensor you mention is basically inside one of the two solenoids, since the system cannot tell if there is a solenoid jammed open or shut it uses the barometric sensor to do this. it takes a reading of atmospheric pressure on initial key on and monitors the air pressure in the pipe ti decpher if the solenoid's are open. Once the cycle is complete the solenoid shuts while the pump still operates and this ramps up the pressure so the sensor see's this and knows that the solenoids have closed correctly

Cheers Rob.

I really want to remove it whilst the engine is out to save a whole lot of hassle further down the road.

I don't have a mapper nearby so I would be driving it to a mapper with the CEL's on which could be hiding a real problem.

From what I gather from your reply is that the sensor only effects the air-pump so if it is removed, it should be ok as it won't effect anything else.

Is there a software out there that can remove the cel's without messing other things up?

I'd ditch it personally. the system only works on cold start up & the car will run perfectly even if it triggers a cel code. if you have a handheld code reader you can temporary erase the code for the day. but it will bounce back the following cold start. the sensor only effects the secondary air pump system so when removed cant cause any other adverse effects. Mines turned off on mine pending the chance to remove it permanently.

Not sure if theres any open source stuff like rom raider or ecu edit which may help you out. I dont delve that far into the ecu I'm affraid

I stripped out the entire air pump system on my 2006 Spec D (aka STi) during a rebuild.

All that needed was blanking plates on the heads plus an ecu tweak via Ecutek.

There was no need to keep a solenoid for pressure referencing, but I seem to remember that a solenoid needs to be kept for certain models - hatchbakcs?

You can turn of the codes using a Tactrix cable and open source software. Where are you based ? If you are local to Coventry or Colchester I could do it for you.

The pressure reading defaults to 1.0 bar, so you can take everything out and turn off all the related codes.

Given the mess the exhaust gas makes of the heads its a good mod imho, problem is corrosion due to the system operating when the engine is cold, lots of nasty condensate.

the codes will persist as some of them relate to components actually being connected as opposed to being removed, but its no problem driving the car like that.

cheers

bob