Removing pollution equipment

Not much pollution equipment on a 1977 AMC six. Most of it actually helps the engine.

FSJunkie wrote: Most of the things that people say about emission controls is utter nonsense. People just don't like the idea of the government telling them how their engine should run, so they say it chokes the engine down. It makes them sound like an expert. The reality is much different.

I did some research on this back when I was first learning about the CeC and determined that you can break it down to two groups:

1-Old knowledge. I will not deny that the earliest forms of emission controls were very crude. Such things as the fixed-orifice EGR which ran under all engine conditions, or the early pellet-type catalytic converters which ran hot and were prone to failing often enough that the TSM dedicates a section purely to opening the converter and replacing the catalyst. By the end of the 70's you began to see what became the modern standard operational requirements for things like spark control, secondary air and the EGR but a combination of horrible first impressions and poor maintenance resulted in a stigma that it just never worked.

2-Unwillingness to learn. (people don't like hearing this)
It's complicated. We are all men. It's hard to admit sometimes you have to look at the manual, I know. ;)
AMC's TSM's especially are invaluable and the vacuum routing diagrams for every model and region are available in countless configurations and yet how many times do we read threads where "I don't know what plugs into this" is repeated? Sometimes you do have to substitute for EOP products or install alternatives. There's at least five different size vacuum hoses used in the Eagle for example. You can substitute to two common sizes and performance is not impacted. The dual-mode CTO switch is not available from anyone as-is, but after a few hours of looking up temperature specs I found a compatible substitute that had no AMC cross-references but still screwed in and works exactly the same.
The biggest misconception about secondary air is that the smog pump robs horsepower. It doesn't It's a vane pump with negligible load requirements compared to a belt idler. Other than the vanes the only wear point is the front and rear bearings.

Yet coupled with the first group and the homework you have to do on the second it seems most people opt to remove it and hope for the best with mixed results or as mentioned, admitting the car will never run right in certain power bands without major alterations to the engine because it's been redesigned over the years repeated to match the tune provisioned by the emission control system.

Thanks for the info. You guys are being very helpful. Keep it coming.

The nutter bypass is a procedure used to separate the computer from the ignition module and the carburetor so you can either use different ignition systems, a different carburetor/EFI or run the engine in a pre-computerized configuration. Starting in 1983 the coil TACH signal passed through the computer rather than go straight from the Duraspark to the coil so it could electronically retard the spark timing as needed but if the computer failed or was missing the engine would not run. The year prior to that had the famous Yellow Grommet 3-cable Duraspark and before that I believe it was still the good-ol' blue grommet 2-cable, then Prestolite once you went into the 70's.
It is worth noting that when the bypass is performed you mush COMPLETELY isolate all computer control of the vehicle (feedback carb, idle kick, secondary air, spark control etc. because the CeC will only work correctly if the engine is *completely* stock and will not allow major alterations) or it will lose its mind and blindly try to continue operating the car. It is also worth noting that in regions that mandate inspections it's an immediate fail, hence why most of the write-ups I've seen online thinly mask it as "a diagnostic procedure" because it mainly gets used for emission deletes and performance upgrades.

The CeC was mainly an 80's thing for the Eagle/Jeep/Concord. I don't believe the Pacer hung around long enough to get the same treatment.

Edited by MIPS - May/30/2023 at 11:21am