Well, I wanted to get rid of my air pump because it is so cumbersome in the engine bay and I wanted to clean it up a little. I looked into the air eliminator kits, but at $160 for two pieces of metal and a pulley, I thought that was a little steep. I then considered fabbing up my own, but decided with the time and effort it wasn't worth it either. What I did instead, was found a used air pump (I wanted to keep the original just in case) on ebay that I got shipped for $33. I opened it up and removed the fins and internal gears attached to the fins (if you open it up you'll see). The benefit to doing this it that it retains the alternator bracket in the stock location, which the eliminators don't do (causing twisting of the alternator if you don't custom fab some type of rear support). I swapped it out and removed all of the hoses and the plastic box that they connect into. All that's left is to get one more end cap for the exhaust manifold (I could only find one in my toolbox of leftover plumbing parts)

Overall I think it cleans it up nicely.

Matthew

ps - I just zip tied the two connectors from the plastic box to another loom - is that what anyone else who did the mod has done???

Removed from inside air pump:


Cleaned up driver's side:


Cleaned up passenger's side (you can see the two connectors I zip tied):


Removed tubes:

One of the first things I did when I got my car was remove the air pump. It cleans up the engine bay quite a bit. I also just zip tied the cables under some wire loom.

that thing is nothing but a failure waiting to happen.

I would save as much as possible, tho... if only for future originality concerns. By then, the C4 will no longer be daily drivers.

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I hope you mean the original air system is a failure waiting to happen???

I'm saving it for S&G...I don't really care.

Matthew

yea, the original system is a failure point.

gutting the pump means it ain't doing nothing no mo...

I just painted the alternator and air pump black, I don't like seeing all that crap anyways. Just the engine.

Im confused. Where does all this plumbing come into view? Anyone have a before/after pic?

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Not the best pic, but you can see the black airbox on the left of the screen (behind a/c compressor)that was removed - from there tubes run down the passenger side of the engine as well as in front of and across to the driver's side exhaust.



Another pic, pass side - here, the two hoses to the far right are smog hoses.



Matthew

Thanks. What did you plug the big holes with on the passenger side?

I don't really understand the question....There are two holes that need to be capped off - those are on the top of each exhaust manifold. Just buy the correct sized pipe cap and screw it on.

Matthew

Or you could replace those old exhaust manifolds with a set of headers... that was my solution..

DG