While extracting the SAI system on Saturday, I was stuck for ideas for keeping all the muck out of an exposed connector. The solution above proved very effective with a small ziptie. Got some funny looks from the wife as I walked out to the car with a condom in hand!

It was a day for strange items entering the engine bay. Looking for a temporary plug to seal off the pipe from the airbox, I found this fit perfectly!

Fear not, once I'd been to B&Q it was replaced by this much tidier item:

Very satisfying removing all this junk! The pump was full of water when I pulled it out. Nice. Probably due to being deactivated ages ago. Removing the end cap gave me the room to get it out before removing the bracket. The bracket was pretty easy to get out with a breaker bar and 8mm hex socket. As you can see two of the pump mounts had died a death already. Surprised how much the pump weighed.

Made the oil change after much easier too.

She's been treated well this week. New cambelt and pump, new oil and some bay love!

She's probably wondering why you have a rubber in the first place! :p

Sent from my Galaxy S2 not a Crapple!

You may need to get the SAI mapped out or fit inline resistor else you probably will get a cell .If not lucky B****

You may need to get the SAI mapped out or fit inline resistor else you probably will get a cell .If not lucky B****

No CEL for me buddy! Got it all mapped out by Shark a few months back. Gloriousness

No CEL for me buddy! Got it all mapped out by Shark a few months back. Gloriousness

Ah nice one, same here Shark did mine also

Bodge out of interest how much you get charged for having the CEL mapped out? You can pm me the price if you'd prefer

Hi

Firstly I read this thread due to being intrigued/confused about the title! haha

My cousin, lofty79, has been a great help recently and aided in the purchase and service of my 4x4 turbo Octy. I remember him saying that my SAI was the cause of the blowing/sucking noise for first minute after first cold start. I can't however remember what he said about what it does and the benefits of removing it.

Please can you enlighten me in newbie terms?

cheers.

Bodge out of interest how much you get charged for having the CEL mapped out? You can pm me the price if you'd prefer

I think it was about £50 inc. vat for any map tweaks. Give them a bell to double check though.

Hi

Firstly I read this thread due to being intrigued/confused about the title! haha

My cousin, lofty79, has been a great help recently and aided in the purchase and service of my 4x4 turbo Octy. I remember him saying that my SAI was the cause of the blowing/sucking noise for first minute after first cold start. I can't however remember what he said about what it does and the benefits of removing it.

Please can you enlighten me in newbie terms?

cheers.

Yep that annoying blowing noise on a cold start will be your secondary air injection system running. The system consists of a plastic air pump (located low down at the front of the engine) and a combination valve mounted on the exhaust side of the cylinder head. On a cold start the pump pulls fresh air through the airbox, then blows it down the exhaust system. At the same time the VVT (variable valve timing) activates, putting the valves into massive overlap and causing the exhaust gases to contain unburnt fuel. The unburnt fuel and fresh air then combine and cause a post-combustion event in the catalytic converter. Which forces the cat to heat up quickly, reducing emissions from the cold engine.

The problem is that the pump isn't particularly robust. There are steel rivets that hold the plastic body together, which wear out or corrode causing the compressor housing to come apart. It's at that point that it becomes noisy and eventually stops being able to flow enough air, giving you a fault code. You can try and fix the pumps, but it's not really worth the effort. A new pump is insane money. My car was recently in at Skoda for a cambelt, as part of the service they do a health check. After this they told me my pump mounts were broken and it would cost £480 to fix it! Haha. Thieves. They were knowingly trying to rip me off as you can buy the pump mounts separately (I know because I bought 3 from Skoda!). They were obviously quoting for a new pump.

Removing the system gives you a simpler engine, with less horrible noises. Less to go wrong and less junk to get in the way when you're doing other jobs. It also saves you a bit of weight (if you're that way inclined). The disadvantage is an engine light coming on, but this can be mapped out if you have a remap from a decent tuner. The car will still pass all emissions tests come MOT time.

Basically, if any part of the SAI system is acting up, it's cheaper just to remove the lot. Hope that explains it

Hi

Firstly I read this thread due to being intrigued/confused about the title! haha

My cousin, lofty79, has been a great help recently and aided in the purchase and service of my 4x4 turbo Octy. I remember him saying that my SAI was the cause of the blowing/sucking noise for first minute after first cold start. I can't however remember what he said about what it does and the benefits of removing it.

Please can you enlighten me in newbie terms?

cheers.

If you want to keep the Secondary Air Pump, you can just replace the rivets with nuts and bolts. I just did it on SWMBO's TT. From memory, I think that the bolts were M4 x 40mm long and I used nyloc nuts so that they didn't work loose.

All sorted for a couple of pounds.

If you want to keep the Secondary Air Pump, you can just replace the rivets with nuts and bolts. I just did it on SWMBO's TT. From memory, I think that the bolts were M4 x 40mm long and I used nyloc nuts so that they didn't work loose.

All sorted for a couple of pounds.

 

this.

 

Did mine the other week. Paid pennys for the nuts bolts and washers, drilled out the rivets, made sure the bolts where nice and tights, not been a problem since.