air pump removal
 

I'm wondering what all I need to remove the air pump. It doesn't work any way plus I live in Alabama so emissions are no problem. Any advice would be appreciated.
The car: 1989 RX7 convertible
Mods: completely stock 1.3L non turbo ( for now ) 186,000 miles. Original engine never rebuilt. Thanks in advance

I have an 88 convertible and mine froze up. There are two(maybe three) bolts that hold it on. I just cut my belt to the pump undid the two bolts, pulled the hose off of the air box and left the hose going to the bac valve but I plugged it with a plastic plug from lowes for like 60 cents. The only thing about S5's is I think the air pump actuates the 5th and 6th ports, but yours doesn't work anyway so I'd just pull it out and plug that hose. Be aware though, if you don't have a good alt belt, it could slip on the water pump at higher rpm's and cause over heating but I haven't had a problem yet. This whole job took me 15 minutes tops.

Thanks a lot man I appreciate it. My belt is already disconnected and the hose is disconnected as well so I need to plug it. And then I'll just pop the pump off. I didn't know if I needed anything for the ports. Will there be a loss of power? I'm unsure what the 5th and 6th ports do anyway haha

Ok make that four bolts. Three up top and one underneath that's the tension adjuster.

From what I read it opens the 5th and 6th ports for more air flow. In that case I'm going to rebuild it and get it working again! I need more power haha

The 5th and 6th ports open up above like 4k rpms iirc and in S5's the airpump creates the back pressure needed to actuate these ports. But you said your air pump is already not working and disconnected so your 5th and 6th aren't working anyway. It shouldn't drive any different, mine doesn't. Now my bac doesn't even work (wires were green with corrosion and broken off) so the plug really isn't necessary for me but I just didn't want to maybe get water/debris in there before I order the block off plate.

But if I reconnect it will there be more power up top? I do autocross some so up top power is needed.

To each his own. I'm just completely removing my emissions crap since mines an S4. And also because used air pumps are so pricey :( Plus I lost about 7 pounds removing the air pump alone:icon_tup:

Thanks for all the information brotha! I'll probably wind up hooking it up just to see the difference and if there is no power gains I'll ditch it all together and block off the ports. Thanks again!

As for power up top probably, the 5th and 6th are like vvt or vtec kinda. But I hear some people wire the ports open when they delete the emissions stuff but it can effect the normal driving of the car. Check arroncake.net or message him on here, he should know how to either rebuild your pump or wire them open. He's THE rotary guy.

And no problem, I like to help haha

if you wire your port open, you would lose some low end torque.

You should seriously consider NOT running without an airpump.

First of all, your car will be slower, your ecu will hate you, and you will start to hate your car.

The more and more I've searched I see that now haha ( I think the car already hates me ) but I cant wait to see the power differences

If it is disconnected now you won't have any power difference by removing it as your 5th and 6th ports currently don't work. Depending on how long it hasn't been functioning they could be gunked up with carbon and unable to turn. this can be fixed but you may need to take the lower intake manifold off to do it. Maybe water injection treatment could clean it out but that is a whole other can of worms. Also on the S5 the VDI valve uses pressure from the air pump to open as well. If you get it functioning again and get these systems( 5th and 6th ports & VDI) functioning properly there should be a noticable power increase in the top end.

How can I test to see if the ports are opening? And what is a VDI valve and what does it do? Thanks for the information

For the 5th and 6th ports you can remove the actuators and rotate the shafts by hand to see if they spin freely.On S5 they wont open without the airpump.

The VDI stands for Variable Dynamic Intake. Basically the intake has one length runners(long) at low rpm and then when the valve opens it changes the length to shorter runners for high rpm. It also creates a path from one rotors intake ports to the others rotors ports to create a path for the presure wave created in the intake from the rotor closing the port to travel to the other rotors intake port. This in theory creates a supercharging effect producing a power increase along with the shorter runners. Can't remember when it opens. 5400rpm I think. It is located in the upper intake manifold.You can see it from the drivers side if you look under the phelnum the throttle body connects to.

There are some dyno charts somwhere where someone made some run with it both active and inactive and it did make a difference up top. Also I think there are some excerpts from SAE papers on it and different runner legnths as well. I think I saw them in the N/A performance section. I think Peejay posted the sae papers.

Thanks for all the information. And to get to the actuators I have to remove the LIM correct?

an S4 requires a functioning cat and the smog pump to open the auxiliary ports, the s5 just needs the smog pump, FWIW.

people have done workarounds based off of exhaust back pressure but you will need to verify that they still work. there is no easy way to verify functionality on the S5, the grease trick on the actuators works for the S4.

Mines an s5 and it doesn't have a cat. Thanks man.



100th post!!

So basically you're saying there is no easy way to test an S5?
Is there a way at all?

maybe someone has come up with a way but i personally haven't. i just physically check the ports to open and close and that the hoses are correct.

Ok thanks man. Looks like the LIM is coming off then. And you've probably answered this and I missed it so sorry if so but after I remove the LIM I can manually move the 5th and 6th ports? Thanks for all the info man

IIRC an S4 only needs 2-3psi of backpressure. That's why I'm cool with emissions and only the pre cats

Not the actuators, but the sleeves themselves. Sometimes it's the rods that go through the LIM that move the sleeves that get stuck. The actuators bolt to the LIM and have hoses that connect to the piping to the rats nest. Once you get the actuators off you can check to see if the rods move freely and thus the sleeves as well. Look for the links in the sticky at the top of the forum for the FSM and look it up in there. Then it will all make sense, or heres an image search from google.

https://www.google.com/search?q=s5+r...w=1534&bih=923