1988 Suburban Project

[Enginerd]

No serious changes to report as of yet. Being out of town for a few weeks for training have limited my time, and then the holidays haven't helped progress either. I actually just started cautiously driving it regularly yesterday.

While looking under the hood today I saw that the belt to the air pump has been removed. I live in a state where emissions testing is not required. No tailpipe sniffers or visual testing will occur. So....Can I just remove the air pump? If I unhook the wiring from the pump , will it trigger a Check Engine Light?

Also, Can I remove the charcoal canister with no ill effects, assuming that I make sure there are no vacuum leaks afterward?

Finally, this old Burb still has the original catalytic converter that is now nearly 29 years old. There are no O2 sensors downstream of that converter, so I can safely remove it....right?

By the way....does the GM TBI system even use an O2 sensor? I haven't looked too hard, but it hasn't jumped out at me either.

 

[toastyjosh]

I am pretty sure you can go with no cat. I think the o2 sensor is in the ypipe at the merge pipe. The y pipe is were most of the exhaust restriction is from fixing that would help lots.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/flo-y250300/overview/

 

[kojackJKU]

Sweet burb. Nice square body to build. keep the progress rolling!

 

[Bojak]

Deleting the cat is no big deal. The o2 is a whole thing. I read and tried a heated O2 sensor. I spent lots of effort and more $ than I care to remember trying to get my TBI 5.7 to run what I considered "right". When I first got it severs mechanic freinds said ditch it and go carburetor. I said they were shade tree and how could fuel injection not be better? I can promise you I wish I had listened. After 5 years and lots of frustration and old mechanic summed it up pretty simply. They never ran right, even new. Always something not right, throwing a code, too rich, blah blah blah. I'm just trying to offer my experience so you end up happiest the soonest. Sweet burb, be quick about the build and use it more than you wrench on it.

 

[NevadaLover]

You'd be nuts to install a carb in place of the TBI, I've had 4 different TBI trucks and twice that many carbs in 30 years and I can say that in my opinion TBI is ALWAYS preferable to carbs in a truck that you work and wheel!! no pumping the throttle to start, no altitude problems, and better mileage usually! my current TBI is a '91 crew cab 3+3 that has a small block, I had a high flow cat and a better muffler installed and that's it, no heated O2, just a delphi O2 and quality tune up parts and this old girl starts no matter the temp or elevation and has never had a hiccup! Keep the TBI and do some tuneup work to it and it will run forever!!