EGR Delete - The Whole Story
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Published 2024-03-10
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Today we're doing an in-depth video about the EGR or the exhaust gas recirculation system. We are going to talk about the history and evolution of these devices, their operating principle, their difference in petrol/ gasoline and diesel engines, their benefits, drawbacks, real-world problems, and more. By the end of this video, you will have a firm grasp of this important and often very misunderstood engine component and you will be able to make an educated decision on whether you should delete it or not. So instead of me feeding you over-generalized subjective opinions and telling you what to do today I’d like to empower you with knowledge so that you can decide yourself and I’d appreciate it if, after watching the video, you tell me what kind of conclusion you have reached.
So let’s start with the history. Why were EGR systems invented? As you probably know they were invented to reduce emissions but what’s important is to understand which emissions specifically EGR devices are concerned with and they’re concerned with Nox or nitrogen oxides.
Now nitrogen oxides form whenever we create a sufficiently high temperature. To create nitrogen oxides all you need is heat and nitrogen and oxygen. As we know the air we breathe in or the atmosphere of the earth in which we live in mostly consists of nitrogen and oxygen. And whenever we have heat in the presence of these two we create Nox or nitrogen oxides.
So what do you think is one of the greatest sources of nitrogen oxide emissions? Believe it or not, it’s lightning storms. Yes. A very natural thing. The temperature of a lighting bolt is 28.000 Celsius or 50.000 Fahrenheit and lightning storms of course occur in the atmosphere where we have nitrogen and oxygen.
But here’s the catch. Lightning storms are something temporary, they don’t occur continuously in the same location and most lighting bolts are between clouds or within a cloud which means that most nox emissions from lightning storms occur 4-5 kilometers above the earth’s surface.
On the other hand vehicle transportation is continuous and concentrated mostly in urban areas. Engines create hot combustion whenever they are operational and vehicles travel on the surface which means that they can dramatically increase continuous local concentration of Nox emissions.
Nitrogen oxides react with other elements and form smog and acid rain. But their impact isn’t limited to the environment. Nitrogen oxides are primarily composed of NO which is nitric oxide and No2 which is nitrogen dioxide. Of these two nitrogen dioxide is the one that creates serious health concerns for humans as it negatively impacts respiratory health and causes an increased number of asthma cases as well as other lung and respiratory-related diseases.
The problem we have is that the more heat and pressure we create the greater the amount of nitrogen dioxide we create. Interestingly enough, one of the first major contributors to increased nitrogen dioxide emissions from engines were early catalytic converters, a device designed to reduce emissions. Early catalytic converters were mostly concerned with converting carbon monoxide to less harmful carbon monoxide and burning unburned fuel or unburned hydrocarbons. The problem was that back in the late 70s when these early catalytic converters became relatively widespread manufacturers prioritized performance over emissions. Hence, engines ran much richer or with more excess fuel than today. The high amount of unburned fuel riching the catalytic converter led to a very high reaction rate inside the converter which resulted in very high temperatures of the converter. These high temperatures than made the catalytic converter itself a source of nitrogen oxide emissions. However, manufacturers soon improved the design of catalytic converters and resolved these issues.
The actual major source of nitrogen oxides is the technological advancement of the engines themselves. Increased compression ratios as well as the advent of widespread forced induction have increased the amount of heat and pressure inside the combustion chamber.
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#d4a #egr #diesel
00:00 Video contents
00:48 History and Purpose of EGR
06:48 How EGR Works
11:34 Pumping Losses
12:16 Diesel Problems
15:51 EGR and PCV
20:42 I Blame the Government
22:00 I Blame the Manufacturers
23:38 I Blame the Users
26:37 I Blame "Tuning" Shops
29:27 EGR Reduces Engine Life?
All Comments (21)
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Excellent summary. Note that on modern petrol engines, EGR can be achieved without an EGR valve at all by adjusting valve overlap through the cam timing. There is no EGR valve at all.
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I am 82 years old, so I have been around since before all of the emission specs were introduced. Before the positive crank case rules were required, a pipe came out of the crank case which was just open to the air while the engine was running. When the positive crank case rules went into effect, the manufacturers just ran the pipe right back into carburator(sp) which made the engine run poorly. I recently discovered your channel. Some time back you talked about the belief that "they" don't make cars like they used to. That is absolutly true. A car with a 100,000 mile on it was shot. It was only when the Japanese started importing their cars to America that Detroit started making good quality cars.
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There's no one I've come across that has the ability to explain mechanical concepts like this guy. Thanks for your insights!
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When I worked as a warranty issue investigation engineer in the powertrain department of a major automotive company (not naming companies because of my non-disclosure agreements), EGR coolers fatiguing and/or burning out and dumping the coolant was a considerable cause of engine failures. A friend who also worked in the same company (actually, in the same two auto companies I've worked for) had the same thing happen to his current vehicle. Moral of the story: the EGR might not kill the engine, but the EGR cooler will have a go at it instead!
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As a diesel mechanic one of the main problems with egrs is the soot build up in the intake manifold and head. I've opened up manifolds that were almost all the way closed off being so clogged with soot. Also have seen major build-up on valves. Love your videos
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As car mechanic nowerdays we repair mostly the exhaust aftertreatment than the engine itself.
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CAT tried hard not to introduce the EGR. They've invented the ACERT system which sadly didn't work so they went for EGR. And then in 2008 when DPF got mandatory they got out of producing engines for road use because they said the aftertreatment got insane and the reliability will get worse and worse.
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I have been reading about EGR valves since the 1980s to study for my California Smog technician’s license. This video is by far the most informative and entertaining EGR tutorial.
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what a cool car part i can't wait to take it off my engine
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Great video! You should do one about DPFs at some point, talking about wet vs dry DPFs and different regeneration types, plus the advantages and disadvantages and deleting!
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My egr valve works flawlessly sitting on my shelf as a paper weight
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As a German automotive engineer, I salute the quality of your work!
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I’m a heavy duty diesel technician and I work on Detroit engines. The egr system puts so much soot in the intake hose and intake manifold and clogs a lot of the track up
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heck, i liked your video in the intro alone based on how real it is. you don't ask for the like, you ask for an honest review. i like that a lot man.
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Love the video. Well done as always. To your point on carbon deposits. I am not a proponent of deleting EGR systems, but I also know of more than one "deleted" diesel engine that has clear oil at its service intervals. That's something I've always found notable. To your point on reliability, here in the States we see high failure rates of EGR related components within the first (non-leased) ownership. Coolers, sensors, and valves on modern light and medium duty truck engines are well known to encounter problems within the first 30-60k miles. That's notable since many of these owners put on between 15k and 40k miles/year. These repairs, depending on the engine, can range from a few hundred bucks to upwards of 3-4k dollars. The cost and perceived unreliability are the major contributors for the folks I encounter to delete those systems.
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I work in automotive engine R&D and I'm very happy to see a fact based video on EGR for once. Very good content!
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I was never in favour of removing or disabling EGR valves, but when mine became clogged on my Peugeot 307 2.0Hdi diesel I had no other choice but to block it off as it's placed behind the engine and can't be removed for cleaning without tearing out half of the engine bay. What a terrible design!
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My dad thought about deleting a EGR system on a Toyota LC 200. Ended up deleting the whole Land Cruiser and bought a new 4.6L gasoline V8 instead
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By far the best technical automotive channel on YouTube. Well done!
