Team-BHP - Swift DDIS - EGR disabling. EDIT W-I-P PICS on Pg 3

Hi,
Have you seen a 30,000k service EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) system cleaning done on a swift diesel. If you have, you would know what a sore sight it is to see how a small piece of tubing can make such a beautifully made diesel engine into a coal mine.

EGR or Exhaust gas recirculation is cheap system implemented by car makers to meet government emission norms. But this system costs the end customer his engine's Life, Performance and Efficiency:Shockked:.

EGR works by recirculating a portion of an engine's exhaust back to the engine cylinders.

In a gasoline engine, this inert exhaust displaces the amount of combustible matter in the cylinder.

In a diesel engine, the exhaust gas replaces some of the oxygen in the pre-combustion mixture.

This leads to a lot of the particulate waste getting deposited on the engine cylinder walls. In a diesel engine you would have seen the amount of soot that comes out of the exhaust, so you can easily imagine what might be happening to your engine.

EGR systems on old cars were mechanical and were disabled easily with the help of block off plates.

But today engine's EGR system is controlled electronically by the ECU which controls the EGR valve actuator. The ECU controls the actuator based on certain parameters in ECU's memory. The actuator is a solenoid that pushes a rod (upon activation) against the EGR valve, this opens the valve and ultimately lets exhaust gasses enter the engine cylinders.

To disable the EGR system, the possible solutions can be:

1. Disconnecting the Actuator: But this would result in the ECU throwing an error code and a Check Engine Light.

2. Modifying the ECU: But this is very expensive.

3. Fitting a block-off plate in the EGR system: This could work but depends on the placement of the block-off plate. If placed just after the actuator, the rod would be blocked and the ECU would throw a code.

4. Cutting the actuator rod: This IMHO is the cheapest and by doing this we shorten the actuator rod, thereby preventing the rod from reaching the valve and opening it. In theory, the ECU should perceive the actuator to be functioning properly. This should work unless the engine has a gas sensor that can sense and verify if exhaust gases are entering the engine cylinder.

I'm planning to disable the EGR system on my Swift DDIS and would really appreciate any suggestions, advise and solutions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AbhiJ (Post 2163736)

Wont cutting off the EGR void warranty completely?

And for that very reason I wish to somehow discreetly disable the EGR actuator. As far as I know the actuator is only removed (at 30,000kms) when the EGR system needs to be serviced so the service guys shouldn't know unless you develop a serious engine problem. And in that case you'll have to run around and find a MGP acctuator and replace it before handing it over to the service guysstupid:.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trust_In_Thrust (Post 2163732)

Perhaps Maruti has gone too low on cost cutting and quality.

I couldn't agree with you moreagree:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trust_In_Thrust

They can easily use inline small filter to make sure whatever is sent back is clean.

Yes, that could be one of the possible EGR design solutions. But I believe the amount of soot that goes through there would immediately clog up the filter. (Just wrap a piece of cloth on the exhaust pipe to see). Unless they can design a specialized good quality soot filter that wouldn't work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaggu (Post 2164244)

I really don't know if blocking an EGR will give you so much of additional kms from your engine.

Hi Jaggu,
I really don't like the fact that my engine is breathing in soot and exhaust gases. Apart from that the performance and efficiency gains are just supplementary.stupid:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaggu (Post 2164244)

BUT if you really want to do it, see if you can add few spacer sheets in between, that will increase the height and avoid activation by solenoid?? Kinda like cutting the length.

Hmm.. Interesting idea.. Could youplease: suggest where I could procure some spacer sheets or do I have to fabricate them on my own.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIY Guru (Post 2164470)

Hi Jaggu,
I really don't like the fact that my engine is breathing in soot and exhaust gases. Apart from that the performance and efficiency gains are just supplementary.stupid:

I appreciate your sentiments and sensitivity towards your engine which anyway cloacks more then 2 Lakh KM even with EGR.

Why don't you display same sensitivity for environment and fellow human beings who might be breathing air with your exhaust emissions.

After all EGR is meant to lower the Nitogen oxide emission by lowering the temperature of engine.

This Nitrogen oxide also causes acid rain and hampers growth of plants and crop productivity.

If you have ever complained why your new black shiny umbrella faded away so soon with ugly whitish marks or why cement paint on your building just lasted one season be assured it was acid rain caused by Nitrogen oxide.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIY Guru (Post 2164470)

Hi Jaggu,
I really don't like the fact that my engine is breathing in soot and exhaust gases.

Hey friend, when your engine is enjoying fresh breath, your fellow beings including you and your friends are taking in more Nitrous Oxide. lol: Please think of a situation if all the Swift owners or even all car owners out there decides to take off EGR to make their engine happy? IMHO, messing with emission controls for your engine's happiness is suicidal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by amitk26 (Post 2164647)

Why don't you display same sensitivity for environment and fellow human beings who might be breathing air with your exhaust emissions.

agree: There is no stronger way to agree in Team-BHP. I humbly suggest we at team-bhp should not entertain messing up with emission control systems in the same way we are against drunken driving. Emission control systems, well they're put into place for one thing, to make the silent killers called pollutions minimal. Messing with it, please please don't do that to your planet. We've already done a lot of mess with our environment. Let the coming generations too enjoy the planet, the way we use to enjoy.

Well, if I may be a little bold, I think a lot of the people don't really care about the environment.

You can pretend you do but Really??? Lets conduct a poll to see how many people are willing to sell their sweet rides to drive an electric car.

All that most Indian consumers really care about is how much juice they can get for the least amount of cash with practicality in mind (Wait a minute, Hey that includes me toostupid:)

And of course I don't blame them, its not that I didn't consider the electric car option (No more fuel station visits, YAY!!!) but the price, the range, the size (for the price) don't agree with me (BURP!!).:OT

Anyways, back to the debate, the amount of NOx gases that are released is a negligible difference comparing with non EGR engines. Proof - An EGR disabled car easily passes the emission tests.

Its just that the government has imposed such stringent emission norms on new vehicles that car manufacturers are forced to provide simple, cheap solutions to keep the cost of Research and Development down and hence the price of the car low so that we people buy it (see what I mean???, One of the reasons why Maruti Suzuki is so successful, they understand the minds of Indian Consumers)

As suggested by fellow bhpian, Maruti could have done some research into solutions like this

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trust_In_Thrust (Post 2163732)

Perhaps Maruti has gone too low on cost cutting and quality.
They can easily use inline small filter to make sure whatever is sent back is clean.

but no, they know we don't really care about that (Hey, I do!). Ahh.. you get the point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIY Guru (Post 2165729)

Well, if you had paid little more attention to my posts (than bursting out like that) you would have read that my main concern is the soot that enters the engine in large quantities (and hardens that obviously reduces performance, mileage and increases running costs)

I will not be answering any further questions on this topic. This debate will last forever. This is clearly not the place to be debating on such issues and wasting other peoples time.

Friend, don't be frustrated. :) Forums are places to discuss, and yes sometimes it may go into more of a debate. But how come its wasting others time? No, never. Regarding diesel polluting more, it depends. Diesel tend to chunk out less carbon monoxide than petrol but on the other side chunk out more nitrous oxide. But after introducing EGR system, manufacturers were able to minimize this amount to much lesser levels. So we can't say that diesel pollutes more. Again, on the fact that people are less concerned about environmental factors, yes thats a hard truth. It's always a trade off between positives and negatives. So my point here is don't get frustrated, and let the discussion keep going. :thumbs up

Topic of this thread is Disabling EGR, so its best to keep the discussion focused on how to acheive this or how its good or bad for an engine or other possible alternatives if any to achieve the end results.
Most of the team-bhp regulars are well ware of the environmental hazards when they go about modifying their rides. Or maybe we can start a "Modifying your car and environmental problems it creates" thread dedicated to discuss such issues, instead of cluttering cat-con removal/egr-disabling/other performance modification thread. And why limit to air pollution, lets include light and sound pollution too in that thread.

As for EGR disabling i think Rippergeo already did that in his Swift, CEL lit up, and i think he enabled the EGR after that experimenting with it for a while. Then Tadu did the same thing with his Elantra and i read him reporting that he lost a bit of top end rush etc. Don't know the current state of affairs.