im not tryin to be a jackass, but if your university came to the conclusion that an egr has no adverse effects on an engines cleanliness/longevity then there is something wrong with their testing methods or their politics. this is not to say that an egr equipped vehicle cant last long, it'd be stupid to suggest that. however. . .

the proof is in every single egr equipped vehicles intake manifold, intake tracts, valve bowls, etc. everything is gummed/caked with carbon, soot, from the throttle body to the combustion chamber in an egr equipped vehicle. it only gets worse over time. . . there will be little to no grime whatsoever in an intake, and far less grime in the bowls/around the valves in a non-egr motor. this is especially true in an engine equipped with a mild cam, with small duration and overlap, such as the motors that are in these trucks. "higher performance" cams with increased duration and smaller LSA allow more gasses back into the intake, which causes a mild egr cycle inherently. this is still short of intentionally forcing unburnt fuel (soot) with the lubricative properties of sand back into the engine via an egr cycle.

i can agree to disagree, but there has been far more abundant and far more extensive tests in the real world in the form of hundreds of thousands of miles on engines that are equipped with egr's, and motors that arent, with the results indicating a huge mess in egr equipped vehicles. its not that a motor without an egr wont experience adverse effects over time from carbon buildup and the wear it causes, but egr equipped vehicles experience them at an accelerated rate. it is a widely known fact that an egr equipped vehicle not only gums up faster, but contaminates oil faster as well. both are not good for engine longevity or performance. a more extreme example of the adverse effects of egr cycles are in todays egr equipped diesels and all of the problems associated with them (the damaging effects of egr is even further accelerated in a diesel). 250k on my cummins head and all of the intake tract is spotless.

 

I recently purchased a nice new chrome air cleaner and am looking forward to putting it on! I likewise need to safely disable my EGR by reprogramming it. I'm glad I researched it on here because I heard the engine kinda goes insane when you take the system off without "telling" it... Still need to do more research on exactly HOW to remove it though. I also plan on keeping the OE stuff so that I can put it back on to fool the stupid California smog people () into thinking its always like that L0l . I also plan on removing just the belt to my smog pump; my engine has three belts running off it and that one is not necessary, or so I've heard? If anyone has any info on this, I'd love to hear all about it!

~RR

1979 Ford F100 Custom 302 V8 5.0L

 

Got rid of my cat, EGR and smog pump. . I can tell a difference in power and mpg actually went up, but I think that's because the cat was clogged.

I get 14 mpg with my 351w. But I am running 3.89 gearing on 35's, so I know it will go up when I get my 4.56 gearing in.

 

I know I felt the same way. I got to trend the raw data, not a report. I never look just at a report. The EGR's can (and do, on an improperly, and (very much less so) properly tuned engine) introduce soot in the intake, but the EGR engine had no more apparent wear at a ~280000 mi (sim) rebuild, even though it had soot in the intake. I couldn't believe it till the tech showed me the old parts and scratch pattern of the walls. The soot apparently tends to float in the chamber. There was some scale buildup (not too significant) in the cooling passages from higher temps in the non egr engine.
There are a lot of other changes to most on road engines. EGR was introduced along with a lot of other emissions crap, that many people scrap. It's the collective effect that causes the damage, not just the EGR.
Easiest way to dump EGR without the computer whining is a coin or piece of soda can to just block it off.
-Mike

 

So basically only thing it would do is make the engine cleaner by blockin it?

 

Quick answer, yes the engine would be cleaner, but you need a custom tune of the ECU to reach high/maximum potential. You are changing the mix and ratio of fluids (gases) in the combustion chamber, and the ecu needs to be changed to take that into account.
-Mike

 

yeah, sounds like it. Also sounds like it reduces the amount of crud cycling back through the engine, which through common sense, just strikes a bad note in my mind. Engines just should not have EXHAUST being recirculated.. The point of exhaust is to get rid of it.. not cycle that stuff back through again.. yughhh

 

Wonder how much one of those cost.

 

Probably already be installed on your truck.

 

curious question, I have shorty headers on my 5.0 and no piping thats routed to go back into the engine.

Does this mean there is still exhaust re-circulating back into the engine? I still have the EGR in place and the piping from that. But that doesnt seem to be tied into my exhaust anyway.

Also, in doing the "penny" mod to the EGR. Does that affect anything then say if the ECU tells it to do something and it doesnt?

 

I have the sad feeling that alot of people here don't actually understand what egr does.

by recirculating exhaust gas (which is inert) it fills the combustion chamber with a certain amount that is not going to burn, which in turn makes an engine "smaller" than what it really is. ie, if a 302 has 10% of its volume filled with exhaust gas, then it makes that 302 run as if its a 270ci.

now, the egr system, which on an eec ford, is operated by vacuum (vacuum is the force that opens the valve, a spring holds it shut) the vacuum going to it is turned on/off by a solenoid that is controlled by the computer. this is so than at X amount of engine load and Y rpm the computer knows that the engine needs Z amount of egr. it knows how much EGR the engine is getting from the little sensor on top of the EGR valve. when its pumping EGR, it advances the timing so that the smaller amount of air/fuel has time to burn amongst all the re-introduced exhaust that doesn't

however, the EGR is not supposed to function at idle, WOT, or high load! therefore, a properly working system has no affect when you stick your foot to the firewall.

if your EGR is stuck open, it will cause crappy performance and crappy mileage. if it doesn't open, like from a bad vacuum line, mileage will suffer and it sure isn't helping emissions. if it thinks that its opening but it can't flow. all your getting is some additional timing, but not getting the mileage benefits.

as far as "crud" being recirculated back in, if its being brought back in, then its coming out in the first place. and if its that bad, your engine has other problems. a good running EFI controlled engine has very little more than a handful of gases coming out the tailpipe. if its not burning cleanly, it needs maintained better.

my 88 had a dirty valve at 130k that got replaced. 130k isn't too bad in my book... but at 170k (10k ago) I had the upper intake off to replace valve cover gaskets. for as far as I could see in the intake, it wasn't carboned up, gummed, or anything. the engine doesn't smoke, burn oil, and at the time it was getting 18mpg with complete emission equipment. egr, cats, and smog pump looked no different than the 100k 5.0 that I pulled out of my capri last night (carb w/ no emission equip).

EGR simply just still has a bad reputation from when it first came out and really was a crappy system...

my pickup just passed 180k and has a cracked egr tube. last tank got just over 14mpg. everybody here can make their own assumptions about the system. but mine is getting fixed...

 

That's perfect muscletruck. Exactly what I was trying to say but I couldn't find the words ( I've already switched back to engineeriese). Reps to ya.
-Mike

 

I am happy to see someone else chimed in on this subject with a positive spin and some facts.

To the OP, it is your call to try and re-engineer the engine control system to your liking if that is the path you want to take. I hope the project meets your intended goals.

 

The 5.0L truck engine pulls the exhaust gases from an exhaust passage in the intake manifold.

 

i would have to agree.

very well said. almost straight out of a textbook.

and, if its stuck open, it severely hastens the egr's ill effects. its like smoking full flavor 100's vs ultra light cigarettes. both are bad, one is worse.

to apply this to an engines longevity, there is always partially burnt fuel present in the eg's (albeit slight on a fresh, properly functioning vehicle). with that being said, incomplete combustion only worsens with age, as rings and valves begin to lose their seal (loss in compression). the more "incomplete" the combustion is, the more gunk is carried with the exhaust. the more gunk there is in the exhaust, the more gunk gets introduced back into the engine via an egr system. gunk is bad. the oxygen deprived exhaust gas is inert, yes (as you suggested above), but its also filled with gunk that sticks to everything.

i replaced my ls1 intake with an ls6 @ ~30,000 miles. the gunk didnt have time to build up, but there was a uniform layer of sludge that coated every square inch of the inner walls. the car is now at 55,000 miles, over 400 wheel hp, and theres no such sludge in the intake. the ls6 doesnt have an egr, so i deleted it with the intake swap. it is worth noting that a few of the engines in the "LS" family pass emissions straight off the assembly line without the use of egr.

the egr's sole purpose is to reduce NOx emissions. . .and all egr systems have done this the same manner; by introducing 5-15% of the exhaust gasses back into the intake depending on load. valves and solenoids have changed but the quantity of egr has not. nor has their ill effects. egr's damaging effects is what forced manufacturers into using urea (a much cleaner way to introduce "inert gasses") to replace the egr cycles in diesels. . .while egr's may be more damaging for diesels than gasoline engines, the same things that kill the diesel kill the gassers, just not as quickly.

again (FWIW), the egr's sole purpose is to reduce NOx emissions, and my ls1 (and any other gasser ive ever owned) passed emissions without an egr and with high flow cats. and, before ya say i just fooled the comp at the testing station by not throwing a code on my obdII, just before my last test they made it mandatory to do a sniff test so i couldnt do that anymore. cars can still pass emissions without egr's. . .especially if they have high-er compression.

considering how much ive contributed to this topic using facts, i guess this was directed at me