As long as you don't have to worry about emissions checks where you live, go for it.

 

Ah, I looked at it again--I can't remove it, otherwise I lose the water pump drive for the fan belt and alternator.

 

I've heard that you can take the pulleys from a 425 that wasn't equipped with AIR and use them on the 472 to delete the smog pump (you only really need the crank pulley). The 425 had the option of a smog pump (don't see why) and it has the same block as the 472. One of the issus with deleting the AIR, by using the newer pulleys, is that the belt routing will cause the water pump to turn slower, which may effect engine cooling. Also, the alternator will turn a little slower. You probably won't notice that until you get all of the accessories going at once. If you delete the AIR, and the charging becomes a problem, you may be able to find a newer alternator, which can create charge at lower RPM.

But really the smog pump doesn't eat a lot of your power. I wouldn't say it would be worth the power gain to go through all the trouble to delete it, and take the chance of burning the block.

 

If you get a 1970 472/500 set up they did not have a A.I.R. Pump that year only for some reason.