I am working on my 1989 ford 460 fuel injected truck. I am having new exhaust installed and I want to remove all emissions from my motor but am unsure if I can remove ALL of it? I have removed air pump and plumbing to it, can thermactor go? can carbon canister and vapor return go? I need some suggestions on what to do and how far to take it. This truck is the lwb supercab and I use it to tow my toyhauler about 7500 lbs fully loaded. has a new engine with cs1086r cam and 20 over pistons. Also a heavy duty c6 automatic fresh rebuild. do I need to keep the EGR or not? all suggestions entertained


I am "rust free" in Nebraska, practically impossible!

 

With a FI motor, fooling with the emissions and cam is asking for trouble.

Was that cam billed as "EFI friendly"?

As for:

Evap--keep it, it simply collects fumes and cycles them into the intake. It helps prevent fuel loss from evaporation. If you remove it, you must re-do your fuel tank vent, AWAY from the engine compartment. Don't throw the canister away, put it on CL or Ebay as they are tough to find and essential to people in states with inspections.

Thermactor/air injection--do you have a sensor, oxygen sensor, in your exhaust? If so, it isn't going to read the same way without the air injection. You may or may not have an issue here.

EGR--your engine calibration for mixture and ignition timing was based on the EGR. Some here report poor running once it's gone as EGR allows more timing advance, and mixture issues surface as well.

 

The computer basically 'runs the show' .. remove the emissions related parts, it will run rough, it may not run at all.

In 1986 a pal of mine, who was a well known award winning weight lifter and a trainer at Gold's Gym in Santa Monica (where I was working out), bought a '83 Cougar w/a blown 302 engine.

He went to a junkyard, bought a 302 from a '84 Thunderbird, but failed to get the '84's computer.

Once the engine was installed, the car ran rough as a cob. Pal came whining to me, saying what can I do, the junkyard threw away the '84's computer?

So I volunteered to fix the problem on my own time.

I had to look up ALL the ID engineering numbers marked on the 1984 302 engine emission parts, then crossed the ID numbers to Ford part numbers.

Then had to look thru dozens of calibration code parts lists (there are 743 calibration code parts lists for 1981/89 cars!) to find a computer that matched the emission part numbers.

Once the correct computer was installed, the car ran beautifully, but it was a time consuming PITA to find it. After this, I said to myself 'never again will I go thru this PITA rigamarol!'

 

thanks for your input, I am aware of the computers job and the basic knowledge of the oxygen sensors job also, I have worked for 30 + years in the oem and aftermarket parts arena and had some great tech contacts till I moved half way across the country.

 

Simple fix! CARB!!!!!!!!!!

 

You can take off the air pump and all tubing attached to it, as long as you block off all of the ports on the heads and cat(or remove the cat). I think the thermactor IS the air pump, as i'm pretty sure it is just the dumb parts guy at o'reilly's term for it. Do not remove the carbon canister and vapor return. I removed my EGR, and put a block off plate on the "horn" upper intake. Don't bring that rust free truck up to MN between December 1st, and march 31st.

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air pump gone. tubing gone. cat gone. right belt on. new duel exhaust with balance tube featuring magna flow on. runs better, SOUNDS better! still feels like it needs more power released though,......hmm any suggestions? still has a slight intermittent miss that I am chasing. replaced ignition coil helped but still not quite right. might need to play with the timing to nail down 10 degrees. have housing in the way can't advance to far which I guess is a good thing.

 

If you still have a miss you need to address that first. Check/replace if necessary, your plugs, wires, cap, rotor, fuel filter, etc. After you fix the miss, bump the base timing up to 12* BTC, and cut out the "air horns" in the intake tubes.