Help Identifying. Odd Part on my '68

[benbloom]

Anyone recognize this part? Ive had 3 67-72s and never seen anything like it before. it looks to connect to the heads through little tubes on top of the engine, and the carb through a vacuum line. Is it a generator? the alternator is directly underneath.

Thanks!

[LongBox]

Looks like the air injection pump. It was required in some states. Shoots air into the hot exhaust to help burn up some pollutants.

[Grumpy old man]

Air pump for smog system

[benbloom]

Wow they were already getting on our asses in 1968? Thats nuts.
So is this something i can remove easily? if i can block up the ports feeding into the heads and remove the pump?

[Stocker]

Yeah, many (probably most) were removed and the exhaust ports plugged. No harm, and as I understand it, your '68 is exempt under California law. Might want to hang onto all the bits & pieces, though. The law probably won't be changed, but someone somewhere might be able to use that stuff.

[57larry]

air pump. take it off

[davepl]

Why take it off? It serves a purpose (if it still works) and doesn't take any power. Plus your carb and dist could be calibrated to expect it there (though it's absence shouldn't really matter).

Nothing wrong with smog equipment that doesn't compromise performance, and this is just injecting air in to the exhaust pipe AFTER you're done with it, it doesn't hurt perf. Takes about 1/10th of a hp to spin it, probably.

[Stocker]

My only personal experience with those goes way back to late 1967. I bought a '68 Camaro with a 327, 4-speed, and that A.I.R. pump. I lived in Oregon and it was legal to remove those -- and in my youth, I suspected it might take a *little* bit of horsepower to operate, so why not?

One thing I noticed about the car was when you released the throttle to shift, the engine "sneezed" for lack of a better word. I think it happened mainly before the engine was fully warmed up. After I removed the pump & plumbing, the sneeze went away.

Dunno the significance of that, just passing along what I remembered of it.

I heard of a lot of those pumps being disabled by removing the belt. After awhile the pump would seize, possibly due to exhaust gases migrating from the manifolds to the pump.