Hi guys,

A question for those with the technical "know-how" ....

A sympathetic MOT tester let my car go through the test, despite there being a slight emissions problem ...

Following which,

Rather than fork out £126 for a new EGR valve, I blanked it off with a home-made steel gasket and have noticed an immediate big drop in the smoke levels churning out the rear end under hard acceleration.

Are there any consequences to driving about with this arrangement left in place permanently, apart perhaps from a slight loss of acceleration and maybe a MPG fall off ??

I'd be interested in hearing anyone's views.

Thank you,

Cheese

you may want to get a deacent piece of metal to blank it off though, there is a thread on this board about it and you can order one that will do a perment job of it, using the gasket will eventually be eaten though and you will be back to square one.
roy

As yet there has been no reported problems for the 8v.
However that can not be said for the 16v, sensors detect it somehow and the engine management light comes on.

Make the blanking plate out of stainless steel and it will last longer than the car.

Mine is a 2004 8 valve and my ecu detected the egr being blocked off, it recorded an error code and went into limp home.

NumanR said:

Mine is a 2004 8 valve and my ecu detected the egr being blocked off, it recorded an error code and went into limp home.

Click to expand...

What was the error code?

Maybe you actually do have a faulty EGR and it needs replacing?

Similar to my 2003 8v. It recorded a P0403 or P0404 (can't remember which) but no EML and didn't go to limp home mode.

No idea how it detects it with no lambda sensors fitted.

A stuck open EGR valve will create a lack of oxygen in the exhaust, since the re-circulating exhaust has all its oxygen already burnt. O2 sensors can detect this and are used to check for proper EGR operation, the 8v doesn't have any O2 sensors so its impossible for it to check for proper EGR operation.

If a fault code is thrown up it must be coincidence because there's now way an 8v can detect a blanked EGR hence the power loss and smoke we all suffer when they do fail.

Edit.
Both codes point to an electrical failure rather than the cause being blanking off the EGR.

The causes for a P0403 EGR code could be any of the following:

Bad EGR solenoid
Excessive resistance in control circuit (PCM controlled ground) due to an open, chafing or damage to the harness
Poor connection at the EGR solenoid harness (worn or loose pins)
Water intrusion at the EGR solenoid harness
Blockage in EGR control solenoid holding solenoid open or closed causing excessive resistance
Loss of supply voltage to EGR solenoid
Bad PCM

The causes for a P0404 EGR code could be any of the following:

Usually this code points to either carbon buildup or a bad EGR valve. However that doesn't rule out the following:

Open or short in the 5 Volt reference circuit
Open or short in the ground circuit
Open or short in the PCM controlled voltage circuit
Bad PCM (less likely)

Source: http://www.obd-codes.com

It's none of those Shadey because when I took the blanking plate out and refitted the swirl plate, the code never returned.

As far as I know, my EGR valve is working, there's no symptoms of it not working anyway.

Then removing the EGR to take out the blanking plate must have desturbed something electrical because there's no way the car can detect a mechanical EGR fault. If it could we wouldn't suffer power loss and smoke?

Hi.
Both my JTD 115 had the EGR blanked for many thousands of miles no EML and no faults registered.
The car’s seemed to run much better with less smoke on hard acceleration once blanked.

Blanking off the EGR on an 8v shouldn't cause any issues because the car has no way of detecting it.

However, here's 2 people that say their cars did detect it somehow. Personally I'd say it was an electrical fault caused by removing the EGR but I have no reason to disbelieve what they say. It needs further examination so I've asked a friend who remaps cars to take a look and see what he thinks. If the car can detect a blanked EGR he should be able to find the part of the cars MAP that relates to it.

If there's nothing in the cars MAP then there's deffinately no way the car can detect a blanked EGR so I'd be 100% sure their fault codes were produced by one of the electrical problems I posted earlier.

Shadeyman said:

Then removing the EGR to take out the blanking plate must have desturbed something electrical because there's no way the car can detect a mechanical EGR fault. If it could we wouldn't suffer power loss and smoke?

Click to expand...

I didn't remove the EGR or disconnect anything, just removed the 2 allen bolts then slid the swirl plate out and the blanking plate in.

I'm intrigued by this now. :chin: Need to swap the blanking and swirl plate several times to see if the code comes back. I can't do it now though because my FES laptop has taken the g/f to Thailand for 2 months.

I've got the restrictor plate I fitted to my daughters Multiwagon, removed it and kept it after the car was wrote off.

I'll give it a go, try and create the fault on our 2005 Stilo.

Normal EGR to Blanked off.

Normal EGR to restrictor plate.

Restrictor plate to Blanked off.

Nothing better to do this afternoon than spend a couple of hours messing around in the "mancave"(my garage ).

A quick zip up a local dual carriageway should have the desired effect after each swop.

I'll let you know how things pan out and what the remappers say, still waiting for a reply, I guess searching through a cars MAP isn't something that can be done quickly.

From your list of definitions for P0403 and P0404, possibly blanking the EGR valve could be interpreted the same as these 2 to set the code(s).

Shadeyman said:

The causes for a P0403 EGR code could be any of the following:

Blockage in EGR control solenoid holding solenoid open or closed causing excessive resistance

The causes for a P0404 EGR code could be any of the following:

Usually this code points to either carbon buildup or a bad EGR valve.

Click to expand...

£17.27

Davren said:

From your list of definitions for P0403 and P0404, possibly blanking the EGR valve could be interpreted the same as these 2 to set the code(s).

Click to expand...

But they would only relate to a car that was able to detect such a problem, like the 16v. The 8v has no way of knowing there is a blockage, if it did all of us with blanking plates and EGR's full of crap would have error codes stored.

I've just spent the last 2 hours doing my best to make my car throw up an EGR related error by swopping from Restrictor Plate to Blanking Plate to Normal EGR and I can't do it, it will not detect anything other than me unplugging the EGR.

I've personally blanked off the EGR's in 3 Stilos now and none of them have detected it and thrown up any sort of error code. I've just spent 2 hours trying my best to make my present car(Stilo) throw up an error code by swopping plates but nothing, no error codes. I can only assume the errors you(Davren) and NumanR received were just part of owning a Stilo and were electrical faults not related to physically blanking off the EGR.

Davren said:

I didn't remove the EGR or disconnect anything, just removed the 2 allen bolts then slid the swirl plate out and the blanking plate in.

Click to expand...

If thats the case, then your EGR could still be clogged up with the soot & carbon. Enough for the little solenoid plunger not to operate smoothly perhaps? I'm still learning about the different effects the EGR can have when they play about. Hope that helps anyway.

Thanks for all of you taking the time to reply, appreciated.

In retrospect, I should have made it clear that mine is a JTD 115 estate car.

Since running about for 3-4 days with the EGR valve blanked out, I have to report no significant change in performance and as far as mpg is concerned, that's works in progress !

It's fitted now, so I'll stick with it for a bit and see what develops.

I can report, that smoke emissions have reduced dramatically.

Hi all, im having a big problem with removing my egr again. Looks like the bloody screws with the Allen key thing inside of it has rounded.

So know I need new bolts, I will have to grind them off and drill them out.

So any suggestion on where can I get these from and how many do I really need???