All right, I took off the ACV valve and the 2 hoses attatched to it. Now before I start the car, I just want to ask if there is any more I should do, like to the spots where the hoses attatched to the alternator (?!?why?!?) and the air filter housing? Thanks, and I appreciate all the pics and advice, etc.

 

use some sealer on the blockoff plate before you put it on.

 

HUH? you must be talking about the air pump man. there are no "hoses" running the alternator.

TH airpump is on the left side of the engine and had a hose going from it to the ACV. The alternator is on the top

 

Whatever you do, do not start your car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You need to block that off, and the best way to do it is to buy the ACV block off plate from Mazda Trix.

If not your car will run like ***, becasue now there is a huge vacuum leak.

 

Oops, I'm sorry. I meant to say the air pump. I have the block off plate that came with the header OVER the spot where the ACV valve used to be. Do I leave the hose attatchment points that are ON the air pump and the filter housing open, now that I took the hoses off with the ACV valve?

 

OK, it's bolcked off with the ACV block off plate, tightly tightened, and started up fine...but boy, does it sound different! Not extremely, but more of a turbine sound than anything else...I'll take it down the road, and we'll see what happens.

 

Why even leave the air pump on? Take that sucker off.
If you have a carbon canister in the air cleaner lid, I'm assuming you have an SA model. What I did was tee the tank purge line in to the line going to the carbon canister, and connected the other end to the bottom nipple on the air/oil seperator tube . Then I put a small air filter on the top nipple. A used fuel filter (cleaned out, of course) will work too. Works great, no more vacuum lines at all. Zero. I'm not even running vacuum advance.

edit: I just saw your other post. Do not take the air pump off if you are using catalytic converters. The other part is still applicable, though.

 

Nope, I took the cats off. I actually have a GSL model, but I agree with you in that I don't think the air pump is doing anything right no, besides blowing a gust of wind out of the back of it, where the hose use to connect it to the ACV. Boy, I can certainly hear and feel a difference in it now, I can actually hear it when the secondaries open up! It's like "aaaaaaaaaaaavvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv(then around 4000RPM's-TRAIN!!!!"

Anyways, that sounds like a good idea. Do you still think I should take the air pump off?

 

Yes, you don't need it now if you have no cats.
The difference in exhaust tone is from the exhaust pulses being kept seperated for longer than they are in a thermal reactor or cast iron manifold. That's where a lot of the power increase comes from. So those "Exhaust pros" screwed the job up that bad and you didn't even have a thermal reactor to contend with? That's just pathetic. Once you take the air pump off, you will only have one belt. My advice is to use a Gates belt or factory Mazda belt and keep it tight.