[97V8LX]

My check engine light came on the other day, and it turned out to be the EGR flow was insufficient. I ended up taking the EGR valve out and capping the line. I also made a plate to cover the manifold inlet. the car runs a lot smoother, and a little faster on the acceleration as well. Is this backyard fix a smart idea? Or will this damage my engine?

 

[Jurgen]

if you have or get a tune you should have the egr turned off .

 

[General Zod]

wont damage anything, you'll just lose a bit of fuel economy......since the air mass flowing into the cylinders is now cooler without the EGR flow, it might feel a little peppier as you describe

also, a broken vacuum line to the EGR valve is one culprits of the "insufficient flow" code....did you check that?

 

[justin case]

before i had my tune i cut the egr tube going from the manifold to the intake and smashed it in a vice and made a block off plate for the egr on the intake. it ran fine and had no codes so long as the dpfe and egr vacuum regulator are hooked up. it was kinda funny though before i made the plate for the egr on my intake you could hear it start to suck air in through the egr at cruise and such it sounded like a turbo spooling haha

 

[97V8LX]

i plan on fixing this in the future, so what would it take to completely remove the EGR system? would there be computer retuning involved, and if so, where and how would i do this?

 

[General Zod]

yes to turn it off, tell your tuner.....they will literally change a "1" into a "0" on your chip or flasher, and your EGR will then be gone .....if you dont have a sct chip or flasher, you need one

 

[97V8LX]

since posting this not 16 hours ago, I have driven the car to New Jersey and back. I got no "Insufficient Flow" code, and I averaged around 22 - 23 mpg. It seemed to run rather sluggish to tell the truth, and i was wondering where I would be able to get my chip reset to eliminate the EGR valve code, as well as to set my O2 sensors to read normally, as I plan to remove the 3 cats on this car. any insight would be appreciated.

 

[97V8LX]

I cleaned my throttle body out, and the carbon buildup was unreal. the EGR problem came from the inlet in the intake plenum, where the carbon buildup had closed the hole to the size of a pin. After a can of degreaser, the car runs like a champ.

 

[stadium13]

Cleaning carbon buildup.......

Can you post the steps to cleaning the carbon buildup and dealing with the throttle body.. I think I have the same problem but don't know if this is something I could handle doing on my own.....

Thanks
stadium13

 

[nickmckinney]

since posting this not 16 hours ago, I have driven the car to New Jersey and back. I got no "Insufficient Flow" code, and I averaged around 22 - 23 mpg. It seemed to run rather sluggish to tell the truth, and i was wondering where I would be able to get my chip reset to eliminate the EGR valve code, as well as to set my O2 sensors to read normally, as I plan to remove the 3 cats on this car. any insight would be appreciated.

I found I can run about 5-6 degrees more part throttle timing with EGR enabled and no other changes.

 

[conversion02]

Is it just me, or is it a complete PITA to get to that EGR valve? Took me almost a day to figure out how to get to the damn thing since I ended up having to drop the exhaust at the manifolds.

 

[JCG1]

Nick, you mean WITH the egr system properly functioning, correct? (wanted to make sure I understood what you meant by enabled).

Here's my hijack/question (which probably belongs in eec tuning, but what they hey): what's being turned off in the tune is the checking function, correct? The computer doesn't control the workings of the egr, it just monitors it, right?

In other words, with the EGR tube (and vac source) still hooked up, is the egr system fully functioning even though it's turned off in the tune?

 

[nickmckinney]

I found with the SCT setup that you only need to have the DPFE plugged into the harness for the ECM to think its good and give the full EGR duty cycle. I learned this when on the last test I plugged in a defective DPFE that didn't even have the exhaust tube hoses hooked up and the computer ran the EGR just as normal. I unplugged the DPFE from the harness and the computer would not cycle the EGR valve. Since the DPFE seems to fail often (at least with me) this makes me real happy to work around it.

So basically the only functioning parts needed are the valve and the vacuum solenoid that runs it.

Without EGR I had to cut the low and mid throttle RPM timing a bunch to prevent pinging and the engine was lazier (my timing/EGR tables are highly modified from stock). At WOT (wide open throttle) the EGR is disabled by the PCM, EGR is only used above idle and below WOT. With the plastic intake there is little heat soak difference from the EGR so to me its a win win to keep it in this case.

 

[JCG1]

I agree, that's why I went to the trouble of keeping mine intact. Only to discover that it had been turned off in the tune (without my asking).

Wait, *(sorry for being so thick) are you're saying with it totally turned off in the tune (I know it is because I've loaded tunes with it NOT turned off and immediately gotten a check code) the egr is NOT cycling even though the tube is attached and the vac is connected?

I was concerned that it might not be functioning at all if it was disabled.

My dpfe sensor is currently hooked up the same way, btw - to the harness but no hoses.

 

[nickmckinney]

Wait, *(sorry for being so thick) are you're saying with it totally turned off in the tune (I know it is because I've loaded tunes with it NOT turned off and immediately gotten a check code) the egr is NOT cycling even though the tube is attached and the vac is connected?

I don't know how your tunes are written I only know mine. I confirmed my EGR cycling with a vacuum gauge on the line that feeds the EGR and via the EGR duty cycle in a datalog. My DPFE is dead, I have no codes, however my EGR is working just fine. The consequence of my setup should the EGR valve or solenoid go bad the engine would ping pretty hard I imagine since the computer is assuming everything is flowing fine and will keep adding the extra timing.