Can disabling the air pump kill main catalytic converter?
 

Hey guys here is my story. A fellow forum member came up with a brilliant idea to have the fans run full blast to keep the engine cool by just pulling the AC fuse. So when you turn on the AC button from inside the car this keeps the fans running full blast. The only problem i noticed was for some reason by removing the AC fuse, my air pump stopped turning. Now i had a catalytic converter that came with my car when i bought it and i had it inspected and was told that it was almost toast. I put it back on because i was getting boost spikes with my Midpipe and was running my stock Ecu. So I have been running this Cat for quite some time now and have noticed that half of it has gone black, looks like oil caked on it, which tells me that it is toast. Now i have just purchased another Main Cat with only 20,000k on it. Now i want to know is if the airpump isnt turning well that kill the main cat?

Yup, w/o fresh air the new(er) cat will burn up just as the last one did.

Despite popular belief, the purpose of the airpump is to inject air into the cat to make it hotter. Think of using a bellow on a fire. Cats need to be at least a certain temperature in order for them to do their cleaning.

Excessive fuel is bad for cats, and this is more likely your problem. Know what your AFR is?

The air pump shuts off above a certain RPM. The electric clutch disengages.

Just take the cat out, get a boost controller and forget about it.

Yes u can take out the cat, but good luck keeping the boost under control without it.

I always though without the air pump, the cat CLOGS.

David

The best that I can figure out, that's nothing more then rumor/speculation. I don't anybody has ever conclusively linked a 'clogged' cat with removal of the airpump and, in fact, many cars have airpumps that operate during startup only (to help with startup emmisions, typically when the car puts out the highest emmisions).

While trying to figure out an airpump solution for my single turbo, a tech at Random Tech explained that barring excessive fuel, a cat should lead a normal life w/o an airpump.

People that remove airpumps typically do so when modifying their cars, and a cat gone bad is more likely due to a less then perfect state of tune. That, or cats in most rotaries (before the Renesis) are just doomed to a short existance, due to the neccessarily rich state of tune at idle/low rpms. :)

I beleive you are correct. I'v been a porsche/audi tech for years and they have never had an airpump to heat up the cats.

So, dclin, what you're saying is, those of us that still have cats can rid ourselves of the obnoxiously loud airpump, and not shorten the life of out cat? (please say yes! ;) )

Sorry, not saying that either. Just saying that there is more to clogged cats then whether or not the air pump is still present - and that thought is needed when tinkering with ones car. I would never recommend something that would put you in (likely) violation of your state smog laws anyways.;)

Damnit, I hate that friggen airpump. I'm so goddamn sick of that mooing. Anyways, thanks for looking out for our air.