Hi all!

My son has a '96 F150 standard cab L6 5-speed w/32" tires, diamond plate bed cap, bedliner. We've installed an MSD ignition system, MSD blaster coil, MSD wires, Autolite double platinum plugs, K&N intake... plus replacing the O2 sensors - all intending to up the performance of the engine thereby hoping to boost mpg's out on the highway.

Now that he's in college out in Oklahoma, the truck is eating him out of house and home for gas. The EGR went out (CEL is constantly on), so we tried to replace the EGR valve. Of course, the @#$%^&* thing was impossible to replace without destroying the return line from the exhaust back up to the EGR.

With the EGR not hooked up, the truck runs lousy and gets rotten gas mileage - 12-13 mpg's is about all he can get. It's a major pain in the keester to replace the EGR return line - as far as I can tell, we're going to have to replace just about everything with new parts - perhaps even the portion of the exhaust system where the EGR line mounts. I'd rather not. Is there any way to effectively eliminate the EGR and get the engine to run right?

I realize that changing his tires back to stock would gain some mpg's too. I would be interested to hear about any other ideas how to eek out some more mileage out of this truck. Thanks in advance!

Randy

 

Are you referring to the "return lines" as the tiny lines coming from the EGR tube to the bottom of the EGR valve? I believe those are just heat tubes for the valve itself.

All you really need is the EGR valve itself. You can unbolt the tube from the manifold and the valve and throw it away. Then buy a pipe plug and plug off the manifold. The only thing that the computer wants to see is the EGR opening and closing when commanded. It opens and closes via the EVR (EGR Valve Regulator) and senses this via the EGR valve position sensor.

Now with your being a 96, I think they used a little different EGR valve than in other years, which means you might now have the sensor on top that will just unbolt like the rest.

What codes exactly is he getting?

 

It is not that easy.
First off do does not have the EGR tube, no place to put the plug in the manifold.
Also he does not have a sensor that tells the computer that the EGR valve is open or not.
He has a DPFE sensor instead. I do not know how to fool one of these.
Here is a diagram.



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posting to subscribe.

 

Attempting to remove the old EGR became a futile effort. While we were able to remove the old one from the back of the intake, removing it from the EGR tube was impossible. It resulted in the destruction of the tube, as the huge nut holding it to the back of the EGR was totally fused with the tube and old EGR; we tried heat, pressure, etc. All we could finally do was to cut it off, which of course ruined the tube. Attempting to remove the other end from the manifold was equally destructive. The end result is that we currently have no line from the manifold to the new EGR, and while I have not seen it, I have been told by my son that the end on the manifold is a total mess. Hence our desire to attempt to bypass it completely.

I have no idea what the codes are as I do not have a reader. I do know we took the truck over to the local parts house and had them plug a reader in initially, which sent us down this trek of attempting to replace the EGR.

Seems we have 3 options:

1. Buy all new parts and hook the think up as it came off the assembly line (which I fear will cost us an exhaust manifold!) - very expensive... and we're considering trading it off anyway, so I'm not real interested in spending big bucks just to solve an EGR problem.
2. Figure out how to rig what we currently have - open to ideas.
3. Bypass the sucker if we can figure out how to do so - again, open to ideas.

As for rigging what we currently have... I thought about using flexible metal conduit to replace the tube if we could figure out how to get the conduit to clamp closed sufficiently around the manifold and the back end of the EGR. It's about the right diameter, and should be sufficiently stout to handle the temps (though I have very limited experience with the stuff).

Hope someone has some ideas...

 

When I said you do not have a tube I was referring to the type of tube handyman43358 was talking about.
You have a different system than he was describing as in my post above.
The kind of tube you have has two hoses coming from it as in the diagram below.



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Sub, was gonna throw ya another bone for another nifty picture, but looks like I gotta send flowers to someone else first. Is there ANYTHING you don't have a picture of?