EGR BLANKING

Guys,i was speaking to a vw mechanic about egr and the problems we were facing with hesitation and smoke etc he said and I have to admit I done it on my passat that they can be blanked off but I said yeah tried that but the engine light comes on. He replied he could get past that by a modification, he didn't elaborate. Now on various forums ppl have blanked off the egr, you can even buy blanking plates and they claim the car runs better, what do you guys think???

You can do it on the VAG's a lot of people have done it.. not sure on the Honda. But I would suggest you just leave everything as it should be and proactively maintain the engine and components. Who knows what the long term effects will be if you start bypassing stuff..

as far as I know and correct me if I'm wrong all the egr valve does is clog up the intake manifold with carbon by recirculating exhaust gases. I'm sure thats all it does...if it was blanked the engine would perform better....

Nope you're right, in principle it's job is to help your engine burn fuel more completely and efficiently by recirculating exhaust gasses through the combustion process again.. it's vital to the emissions control of your ECU.

I honestly don't know what the real world effect would be of you bypassing it... so maybe you should try it and let us know

You know me fahad, always experimenting lol will try it and let you know

Personally I wouldn't do it , far too many sensors on the car, it was bad enough trying to diagnose the hesitation in the first place. IMO and hopefully someone will clarify this but blanking off the EGR will presumably alter back pressure, therefore everything dependant on that will function differently, having a knock on effect on whatever depends on the thing that depends on the certain back pressure. For anyone with a re-map it will possibly throw all the carefully tuned settings out, in one word

NIGHTMARE!

The other side of it is Honda kindly put the EGR in a nice easy place so it can be taken off and cleaned, same with the IMRC valve, to be fair I am yet to do this together with cleaning the MAF to hopefully eliminate the small unevenness that I sometimes get (nowhere as bad as before I replaced the IMRC Solenoid thanks to your good self Waj)

I completely agree that the EGR is unnecessary to the performance of the engine apart from for emissions, however many heads have been scratch over at Honda, trying to decide on the best way to fit all the emissions legislation into the car and counter measures to deal with the effects of having it on the car, any changes in this would have some effect and i would imagine a bad effect rather than good, so unfortunately I think we are stuck with it.

I suppose the only way to find out the answer is to do it, but many of us know how one little change can have a dramatic effect on the engine, it's whether you want to risk it now the car is working fine.

Ok, right alot has been covered here, but theres some more I can add, EGR block off plate is what that guy was referring to, and its like a gasket but with a solid middle. by doing this the engine doesnt throw a code as the sensors and piping etc are all still there, thinking its working.

No damage to the engine will occur, but you will not pass emissions, so would would have to take it off for the MOT. Also the EGR plays big role in fuel economy by filling the combustion chamber with waste gas which goes in and out without producing power. So not having waste gas enter theres room for more fuel and air, hence performance increase and fuel economy reduction.

The ultimate ideal design would be to add a butterfly valve/solenoid in there, so its open during part throttle, and closed under full throttle.

I think that's how the Accord EGR valve works Marcus, it is either vacuum or electronically operated depending on if it's pre or post facelift.

Im not sure on the electronic systems or specifically on the 7th one for that matter, Based on my 4th gen my brothers Civic and a 6th gen, all which are vacuum controlled the EGR is never fully closed or fully open its given info by the ECU. Idle being the most open it gets. When I started my car with the whole EGR unit off, just leaving a hole for exhaust to shoot out from, it car seem to struggle to find a idle, it was going between 1000rpm-2800rpm. But I wont do that again, curiosity got the better of me haha

On the VAG cars when you blank it off you normally have to do an EGR delete in the maps..

Could the ECU not be programmed to restrict the operation of the EGR?

Good point mmck, fahad what you think?

Don't think so because it's not operated by the ECU, but you need to delete it from the maps to stop the ECU expecting readings from it if that makes sense.

Waj,

I've looked into this a little more and stick with my original opinion of don't do it

I'm posting a couple of articles explaining EGR's, how they work and purpose etc .

Understanding EGR Systems

EGR Systems: Operation and Diagnosis

The biggest problem I see with what you are suggesting is that you would have to have various maps re-written or erased, you would also need to address any emissions control maps that may put the car into limp mode as the OBD II Emission standards have been breached.

Then the MAP sensor in the IMRC valve will be giving abnormal readings as it also contains the second Air Intake Temperature sensor, (the first one is in the MAF sensor), this will alter fuelling, possibly swirl volume and the overall temperature of the mixture.

Unless Fahad can get elite to look over the maps and see if it is doable and this I would also imagine would need a couple of rolling road sessions to ensure that everything is written correctly, which I would imagine isn't going to be cheap, then each year your going to have to take of the blanking plate and re-map to the old maps.

I understand where you are coming from, but I really am not sure whether this will cause more problems than the initial problem that is trying to be avoided by blanking it off.

One final thing as the EGR introduces exhaust gases to reduce the overall combustion temperature, then it would follow that with the EGR disabled the overall combustion temperatures would increase and in the article posted above it mentions a couple 100 degrees, I'm not sure what effect this will have on the valve and seats as they will be exposed to far higher temperatures than designed to operate in.

I personally think it is too tightly designed into the whole running of the engine to be removed without serious issues, unlike say de-CATing

That's my take on it, sorry


By the way did you change the Chamber comp Vacuum on the EVR and did you notice any differences?

Elite can do it, but it will cost... I would also advise against it.

I did discuss this ages ago with Allard when they fettled my IC, long story short they said it was fine for your unrefined tdi / pd engines but not a great idea on more refined engineered CDTI engine types. He also said that TDI's dont mind red diesel / cooking oil derv, he then asked me whether I would consider using that fuel for my car well you know what I said

I will say this however when I was down there those egr kits where selling like hot cakes and seemed to be the number one mode for landrovers.