EGR Disconnected!!

[alanstead]

Hi Rob,
I have already taken my egr valve off and cleaned it, and it made little or no difference. I assume its worth cleaning more of the system out, the egr valve was pretty badly clogged. What would you recommend cleaning out and is it a difficult job? Is it just really the egr valve and intake manifold that need cleaning? I've had an intercooler pipe off a few months ago and it seemed fine, it just had a very small amount of oil lying in the bottom of it. If I take off and clean the intake and egr valve would it be ok to then blank off the egr to prevent it clogging the intake manifold in the future?

Cheers, Alan.

[tony_anon]

How does disconnecting the EGR affect cars that have been re-mapped? I'm guessing it dosen't make much difference unless you want to get rid of the smoke which a re-map wouldv'e also resolved.

[Marco34]

Hi All,

I have just been reading this thread and would like to offer a word of warning.

I have repaired many vehicles that have had EGR valves disconnected or blanked off… the results in the long run were not good.

Firstly, you are producing smoke on start up and wide open throttle due to a build up of thick oily gunk in the intake system, reducing and contaminating the air drawn in. This is then combusted, the EGR valve opens and lets it back into the intake again… A vicious circle as it were!

From experience removing and thoroughly cleaning parts of the intake and EGR system WILL resolve the smoking problem and give noticeably better drivability.

Vehicles that I have had in my workshop that have had EGR valves tampered with have all suffered later with running faults. I have found that the original oily gunk that could have been simply cleaned away has turned into dry, hard soot that breaks away from the intake system a builds up around the valves starving the engine of air.

Just a little something to bear in mind.

Rob

Interesting point, and I agree Rob. After I had mine disconnected for a week I developed a whistling noise as though the turbo was still spooling. I didn't like it. The engine looked very clean without it.

I have re-connected, some 6 months ago and have made a small adaption change to slightly reduce EGR. At idle egr was 59%, it's now about 55%. I had a very slight flat spot at just below 2000rpm. After having vagcom connected I decided to reduce the egr and seems perfect at the setting I am at. I don't have any startup smoke and non under hard acceleration apart from the slight grey mist, which is normal.

The best thing I did was clean the MAF and add dialectric compound to many of the connectors undert he bonnet, particularly the MAF and egr solenoid connections and the high pressure side of the air intake. The car runs perfect and MPG can be late 40s around town and easlity 55 - 58mpg on longer runs. That's with an accurate DIS. Oh and keep the air filter changed regularly too. I do mine every 12 months.

[Marco34]

Hi Rob,
I have already taken my egr valve off and cleaned it, and it made little or no difference. I assume its worth cleaning more of the system out, the egr valve was pretty badly clogged. What would you recommend cleaning out and is it a difficult job? Is it just really the egr valve and intake manifold that need cleaning? I've had an intercooler pipe off a few months ago and it seemed fine, it just had a very small amount of oil lying in the bottom of it. If I take off and clean the intake and egr valve would it be ok to then blank off the egr to prevent it clogging the intake manifold in the future?

Cheers, Alan.

If you havn't already I would ensure the air filter is clean and the MAF is working correctly. You could use the rosstech cable for that and do a drive and measure the values. I've got some documents which explain some figures for diesels to check. You should see approx 250mg/str or slightly more for the MAF value upon idle.

Also use some fuel additive like Forte. I've used it for years and I've had no issues with smoke. It's very could and quite hard to come across as it's primarily used by dealers in the motortrade. It's about £11-£12 a bottle but worth it. I use it direct in a new fuel filter and each time I service the car ( 6 months). It's not one of these cetane boosters either.

Marco

[catters]

Hi

Just thought I'd share my findings. I've been toying with the idea of disconnecting the EGR. Anyway, after accelerating hard up a slip road and producing a small cloud along some influence from forum members, I have disconnected it. At the same time I changed the adaption on fuelling to somewhere approx 5mg/h. Ross-tech say this can help with driveability problems and increase. Seems to have helped.

The biggest gains have been from the lack of smoke and I'm returning 58mpg on runs where I normally had 54-55mpg with a much smoother response. It should improve too as the soot and gunge is slowly cleared from the EGRs operation.

Regards

Marco

Thanks for the information I have a 2001 tdi 130, were on engine is the EGR pipe? so i can try to block it??