Ok, before everyone flames me, I have searched and found good information.

I want to disconnect my air pump for a short period of time, but I don't want to risk damaging my brand new Bonez cat.
The reason I want to disconnect it, is because it has a bad clutch and it is blowing the A/C fuse. No A/C in OK right now is a non starter. It is supposed to be 98 degrees here today.

Anyway, I want to make a trip in the car to KC, about a ten hour round trip. I know that I can damage the cat by not flowing air to it, but I would think that would be more of a matter of a long period of time and not something that would occur quickly. Thoughts?

 

You might be OK by ruinning your car w/o the air pump. Nick at N-tech, who sold me my old highflow cat said that it could be run w/o the air pump.

 

I just finished running my car without the Air Pump because I had no money to replace it, well I ran 5 months without it and it destroyed my Cat. The cat was 2 years old with around 25,000 Km on it. It also took out the NGK O2 sensor (about 6 months old). So when I had the money to do all the repairs I put an oscilliscope on the new O2 and wanted to see what happens when you have no air pump (with stock computer), reading 0.45 normally when everything hooked up, then pulled the connector off the air pump, O2 reading peaked at 0.9V and stayed there. Crazy rich!! Ok, I did run mine for an extended period of time but, I don't recommend doing it for too long. Kinda wish I had the money back when it originally failed. Oh well, at least I learned something. Oh, just wanted to add one more thing, its the coil that is screwing with your fuse. I took my old pump apart, internals were mint, the coil was burnt. So I put my replacement in and I am having the coil re-wound at a shop where they do this type of work. Now I'll have a spare. So this may be an option for you cause Mazda wants a lot of money for this simple Denso pump. Good luck.

 

Yea, like $1200 for new.

 

That makes sense too. Mine is running rich right now.

 

Here's my 2 cents:


1. I ran my Bonez without an airpump for well over a year without a problem.
2. Once you are at cruising speed (over 3250 rpms with load on the engine), the airpump isn't active anyway
3. There is no hard data that supports running a cat without an airpump will destroy the cat. The air just allows the cat to be more effiecient.

 

Mahjik, thanks for the reply. I have a mid pipe that I could temporarily replace it with, but what a pain.
I am heading up to your neck of the woods on Sunday and just didn't want to do any damage to my new Bonez. I didn't really think it would hurt, but with my luck on this car lately, I didn't want to take a chance without some input.

 

i can see how the airpump can mess up the cat,,, theres plenty of cars in the world without airpumps that run cats and have no problems (the cat design is exactly the same) some one please explain?

 

7 months before I passed emissions testing with flying colours. Then for 5 months the air pump was not working. I go for the yearly emissions testing again and I failed horribly. Replaced the cat and passed easily with no other problems with the car except a 6 month old O2 was acting funny but didn't touch it. The cat was probably weak, who knows. I don't really have a chance to drive mine past 3250rpm with load as a daily driver to and from work (no highway) so I'd advise against this situation for an extended period of time - as in my case (5 months). But do agree, the air pump shuts off under load and over 3250rpms. If you can keep it that high I'd say do it and your ok.

Other cars that have a cat don't inject oil into the combustion chamber like the rotary does, so the air pump also helps the cat 'light up' to help clear that out as well. Add on the amazing amount of fuel our cars consume and it makes sense. Our cat is similar to other vehicles in design but, put one on from any other vehicle and it won't last quite as long due to our high heat. Check this out http://www.mazdatrix.com/e1.htm

So, this is just what I have experienced just the past week with the car. Troubleshooting was annoying given my weird O2 readings. Replaced it after my emissions testing so I could see what happens to the readings with a good one, well read above. Rich as heck, stunk really bad out the tail pipe, runs crappy. OK, sorry for writing so much, I just want to share, thats all. Good luck guys!