egr bypass?

[John_D.]

So the egr fills the intake with soot and gunk after a while, plus it hangs open after it gets old and causes the car to run rough.

It helps emissions, but only marginally. And the emission product it helps is usually not even measured.

So why have it?!

I believe there is a sensor that detects if the egr is moving as directed, so to avoid the dreaded SES, the egr valve needs to be present, and wired. But not necessarily connected to anything, right?! ;)

Who has done it, what does it take?
Blockoff plate on the exhaust.
Remove tube from the intake and block that off too?
Or leave the tube in the intake?
I've seen an egr tube mod, and it seems like complete removal would be faster, easier, and have a bunch of beneficial side effects.

(I'm putting headers on in a couple of weeks, and figure I might as well leave it off, instead of hooking it back up...)

[ May 26, 2003: Message edited by: John_D. ]</p>

[Shadly]

It reduces your combustion chamber temps when they get too high. You might want to leave it there.

[MustangEater8251]

I am not an expert but if you do not blcok off the tube going into the upper intake plenum you will have a huge intake leak causing you to idle high weather you ahve it hooked up to the intake or anywhere.

[John_D.]

Seems like someone a while back posted that they had taken the egr out of the exhaust and intake, put in block-off plates, and just left the egr hanging by the wires... I did a quick search before making my initial post, but didn't find the old post I thought I remembered.

Anyone have experiences (good or bad) with removing the egr like this?

[ May 26, 2003: Message edited by: John_D. ]</p>

[Seppo Kaitainen]

I believe all the sensor in egr does is make sure its openning and closing. So if you block it off but leave the egr still plugged it. You should be able to get away with no ses light.

One day I'll do an investigative report on how these illegal hot rodders do such a thing.

[CrazyBosnian]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by John_D.:
So the egr fills the intake with soot and gunk after a while, plus it hangs open after it gets old and causes the car to run rough.

It helps emissions, but only marginally. And the emission product it helps is usually not even measured.

So why have it?!

I believe there is a sensor that detects if the egr is moving as directed, so to avoid the dreaded SES, the egr valve needs to be present, and wired. But not necessarily connected to anything, right?! ;)

Who has done it, what does it take?
Blockoff plate on the exhaust.
Remove tube from the intake and block that off too?
Or leave the tube in the intake?
I've seen an egr tube mod, and it seems like complete removal would be faster, easier, and have a bunch of beneficial side effects.

(I'm putting headers on in a couple of weeks, and figure I might as well leave it off, instead of hooking it back up...)<hr></blockquote>

Tour egr opens anyways when you are about 25 mph, when its new, thats what its supposed to do. WHen it gets old and clogged up, it will not just hang open, it wont open at all most likely causing you to fail emissions.

[DeathBuzzz]

Taking out the EGR system is a big LT1 mod that a lot of guys do, but I havent heard of anyone doing it on a 3.8L. I WILL cause you to fail emmissions and the visual check. IMHO its not worth the trouble.


~Brian

[John_D.]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Seppo Kaitainen:
One day I'll do an investigative report on how these illegal hot rodders do such a thing.<hr></blockquote>
:D

Thanks for the info folks. Looks like I will be fabricating a couple of block-off plates when I do the exhaust system...

[ May 26, 2003: Message edited by: John_D. ]</p>

[MustangEater8251]

I am all for it, jsut making blck of plates any idea how?

MMy egr came loose and friend my passenger side wires/plugs, its coming loose agian cuz I jsut ran soem seafoam and know how it makes alot of smoke out of the exhasut well smoke was coming form the bottom of the egr.

[Wicked 3800 V6]

AFAI Have heard, the EGR is only on at Idle and cruise? or something that didn't affect performance driving ... but it increases combustion chamber temps a lot ... Try some plates (just machine some metal in the shape of the gasket, buy a second gasket, sandwich the metal in between). You could also try a restricted EGR (machine a block-off plate witha small hole drilled through). And be careful when working with the EGR -- it's expensive if you break a pipe /etc.
-Rob

[AZ3.8Camaro]

I have heard that it only does stuff when on a hill or something. Maybe just a rumor.

[John_D.]

Ok I'm resurrecting this one, now that it's been done and I'm having problems.

Got the headers installed. Blocked off the egr ports. (a tire valve stem works great on the intake port) Left the egr valve wired into the harness. Got an "insufficient flow" code. How the heck does the pcm know how much is flowing...????

I did forget to hook the wires back up for a little bit. Didn't bother resetting codes until the o2 sim came in the mail yesterday. So maybe the insufficient flow is just a byproduct of the egr valve not reporting back how much it was opening, when it was not hooked up to the harness.

I thought about hooking it all back up, but I did some damage to the metal tubing, which would have to be replaced. Also it seems to be press fit into the egr valve mount, which makes me think I would have to get the whole thing, in order to get good tubes...

But now the light is back. Battery ran out on the laptop, haven't scanned the new code yet, so maybe it's something else, but probably not...


So any ideas on how to prevent the "insufficient flow" error without actually hooking the egr up again?

Any ideas on how to replace the tubes without getting the whole casting replaced?

[ May 26, 2003: Message edited by: John_D. ]</p>

[bustacap54]

i found this on camaroz28.com:

http://web.camaross.com/bb/Forum1/HTML/094412.html

[Magnus]

I removed mine and fabricated blockoff plates from tool steel.

It sets a DTC, but my SES light is always on anyway.

I have pics on my website. Just check the albums

[John_D.]

bustacap54 - thanks for the link. It helps explain why the pcm is so smart after all...

Magnus - I checked your site, never did find a picture or description of the egr. It might have been one of the other pictures and I just didn't see it. I went the easy way out on the fabrication for mine. (it was at the end of the day, about 1am the next morning actually, and I wanted it over with).

First, I removed the flanges from the egr tubes (by squashing the tubes, so there was no turning back at that point).

Then I found a place on the old exhaust gasket that was the same size as the flange (used an existing bolt hole too), and took the tin snips to the gasket to make a thin solid gasket that fit under the flange. I used the thin metal double gasket that was on one side of the thick material. Bolted the flange down over the top of the gasket metal. It's thin, but works for now.

For the intake, a tire valve stem I had laying around fit exactly in the hole in the intake, and the hole in the flange fit over the top of the valve stem just right...

[ May 26, 2003: Message edited by: John_D. ]</p>