What is my EGR valve, Where is it, How do I clean it?

[SixSick6]

Your EGR valve is on the opposite side of the throttle body (intake manifold) It is slightly underneath the IM and above your alternator and looks like this:



You'll need a 10mm socket to take off the threee bolts holding it on. There is a thin metal gasket between the plenum abd the valve itslef, be careful not to bend or break this gasket. Otherwise you'll be buying a new one when you could have used it again.

Take the 3 (10mm head) bolts off and take the EGR valve out. Use a scraping tool and a can of carb and choke cleaner to clean the carbon build up from inside. Make sure you work the plunger back and forth as carbon will also build up on the arm of the plunger. When you're done cleaning, it should slide freely without sticking.

Here it is taken out of the car:


The valve itself is going to be the same between the LX/DX and GT, however, the GT is controlled by electircal solenoid and the LX/DX is controlled by vacuum.

There are two chambers inside:

You want to clean all of the carbon out of both, it's usually alot. Use something to scrape along with carb and choke cleaner.

Notice the build up along the plunger arm ^^^^^^^



You can compress the diaphragm by hand for accees to the plunger arm



You also want to make sure that the diaphragm and plunger will stay compressed under vacuum:


Clean it up, re install in your car, reset the ECU, and you should be okay provided the EGR valve and solenoid are in working order to begin with.

Warm your car up to running temp and run it at 2500-300 rpm for 3 minutes and check to see if the check engine light comes on. If it doesn't come on, you could have a leak in the vacuum system, a faulty O2 sensor, or insufficient fuel injection.