AIR EFE exhaust question

[no8086]

I really hate the AIR pump, and the EFE is just ugly. They do so little good and i dont have any visual inspection problems, so I want to get rid of them both. My question is about the section where they connect in to the exhaust at the bottom of the manifolds. Can I just pull those short sections out and move the current exhaust up, do I need to put in a spacer of some sort, or will i have to pull those sections out and modify them for free flow?

I plan on a simple dual exhaust at some point, but that is for later.