Took the plunge.....

[Doggy]

....and outed the egr and air dosers.

Some goodies I collected

The bits tied together with red tape are a set of 'Nico pipes', as used by coupe 'super tractor' owners to replace the air dosers.

I used the left-hand flanged pipe, but instead of chopping up the lower hose that links the turbo boost pipe to the bottom of the intercooler and the bypass heat exchanger, I simply substituted a 110 HDi turbo / intercooler hose, (which fits perfectly), as discovered by my learned friend, gingermagic.

The three plates in the foreground are, from L - R, 3 mm thick steel egr blanking plate for egr valve / exhaust manifold, 2 mm steel plate for egr pipe / inlet manifold and Doggy's secret weapon, a 1 mm thick aluminium plate I fashioned myself, using the others as patterns.

Right - normal layout, beforehand

and possibly the world's gunkiest intercooler / bottom boost hose.

A view of the air dosers, note the oil contamination on the lower of the two vacuum capsules
The vacuum pipe was very loose.....

..as were the hose connections at the bottom of the intercooler and the bypass heat exchanger.

......and after

The 'Nico pipe' in place - I haven't removed the bypass heat exchanger yet as this involves re-routing the coolant hoses. Thought I'd make sure everything's tickety-boo first.
View from the other side - can you spot where the egr blank is fitted?

Not very obvious.
Hoping this will sneak through if they start getting anal about this in MOTs

A few bits I don't seem to need anymore......


After a short test drive, it all seems to work just fine. Maybe a tad less turbo lag, seems more eager at very low revs.

I haven't changed the software as yet, (this is preparatory stuff to enable me to enhance things if I decide to go further). I thought it might complain about the airflow but so far it's happy. The electrovalves are all still in circuit, but those associated with the air dosers and egr valve now have no vacuum supply. This significantly simplifies the vacuum system, leaving less to go wrong.

I'll try to get some miles on it before doing anything further.

[GingerMagic]

Looks good my friend.

It is amazing how much space there is now at the front of the engine - even more when you remove the heat exchanger ( 3 torx screws and re-route 1 water pipe... ) Also note how much easier it will be to replace the starter motor, should you need to.

As a hint, keep the 2 now obsolete EV's plugged in to keep ECU happy, and it also makes a neat way to stash 2 spares if the left-hand one goes wrong...!! And maybe add a second jubilee clip to the top hose / Nicopipe as mine kept popping off when I used the loud pedal too much.

Nice job.

[jasper5]

Good job

[GingerMagic]

I forgot to say, when Finchy did my EGR removal, he put the 180 map with EGR on as I was having MAF and EV troubles with my car at the time.

The car was fine with this map, just a bit hesitant between gear changes. I can email the 180 map without EGR if you need it to complete your handywork....

Kelv.

[gumby6371]

That looks suspiciously like my engine bay!
It's quite amazing just how much vacuum pipe you can have sitting on the floor that your engine really doesn't care about.
The vac reservoir and redundant EV's are still in mine but look a little lost with no pipework, BTW if you have any ideas on which cars have the correct vac pump and brake servo connectors to eliminate the blanked off pipes let me know and I'll trawl the breakers in the name of tidiness

I wouldn't worry too much about the EGR blank as it's not visible without removing the engine cover and I doubt any but the most jobs worth will dig that deep on an MoT.
I blanked both ends of the EGR just in case it developed a leak there in the future.

Well done that man

[dirtydirtydiesel]

Well done doggy , still got to do mine , I've been a bit tied up with my new purchase .
A caravan , gotto take the kid's on holiday somehow & this seemed the most cost effective solution .
Which reminds me I'll pm you soon re re-maping mine.
Glad your's went well & i hope you get a few more mpg's aswell as a bit more bhp

[Doggy]

BTW if you have any ideas on which cars have the correct vac pump and brake servo connectors to eliminate the blanked off pipes let me know and I'll trawl the breakers in the name of tidiness

It occured to me that the vacuum pump to servo hose from a 110 might be the answer.

Had a quick look under the bonnet of my bro's this afternoon - the fittings look the same but the 110 pipe has no branch at the pump end and two restricted 'take-offs' at the servo end. On a 110, one of these goes to the turbo wastegate e/v, the other branches to the egr and doser e/v's.

Sounds like just what we need to minimise joints and blanked off pipes, what do you think?

I'm minded to run one direct to the turbo e/v, the other to the swirl flap e/v, possibly via the reservoir.

[Welly]

Top fiddling there Doggy, nice EGR blankage too I aint never not seen no 2.2 hosage before, it looks weird. Why did the 2.2 get all that? was is so that the engine heats up as fast as possible etc?

[jonsowman]

Well done Eric, great job. I'll be interested to hear how it goes for the new few hundred miles. You're using the normal "180" map right? Interesting to note that it doesn't complain about the EGR being blanked without it being disabled in the map.

Very tempted to do this to the Coupe now!

[steve_earwig]

Top fiddling there Doggy, nice EGR blankage too I aint never not seen no 2.2 hosage before, it looks weird. Why did the 2.2 get all that? was is so that the engine heats up as fast as possible etc?

Emissions, emissions, emissions. It's what the air dosers and egr are all about. There's a how to over on the coupe club, it does seem a preposterous amount of tubing

[Welly]

I get it now, instead of the charge air being squished around various dead ends and attempting to inflate all that hosage it can now, with the Nico, deliver the charge straight into the engines' face with less lagg and moar throttle response.

Seems a bit quiet on the Doggy front, I hope he didn't break down this morning

[rwb]

Hats off to Doggy

Interesting to note that it doesn't complain about the EGR being blanked without it being disabled in the map.

This has been puzzling me too.
Disabling the EGR, either by blanking or removing the vac supply doesn't cause a fault (but unplugging the solenoid does) either on the Bosch or Siemens system. Ditto on the 407 too.

However, the system can tell that something us up because the MAF measures greater than expected flow when the EGR is supposed to be open. IIRC you can see an intermittent fault logged in PP2k. Fortunetely, as observed, it doesn't cause limp mode.

What's confusing, however, is that the air doser 'copies' the position of the EGR, throttling the air intake in order to achieve the required amount of gas recycling. I'd like to know more about this feature, and whether it gets removed from the map when the EGR is deleted.

The air doser butterfly housing (2) is used at low engine load to increase the temperature of the exhaust gas and to facilitate
the conditions of combustion of the soot trapped in the particle filter during the PEF regeneration phases.
The air doser butterfly housing (2) is also used to improve the stability of the engine in these different phases of operation and
when the engine is switched off.
When the EGR regulation is active, in certain cases of operation, the EGR valve is fully open and does not succeed in
achieving the required rate of recycling of the exhaust gas.
A valve regulation effect is applied at the intake to assist in achieving the required rate of recycling of the burned gas.
In this case, the air doser (2) position reference value is determined by the EGR strategy.

[gumby6371]

Had a quick look under the bonnet of my bro's this afternoon - the fittings look the same but the 110 pipe has no branch at the pump end and two restricted 'take-offs' at the servo end. On a 110, one of these goes to the turbo wastegate e/v, the other branches to the egr and doser e/v's.

Sounds like just what we need to minimise joints and blanked off pipes, what do you think?

I'm minded to run one direct to the turbo e/v, the other to the swirl flap e/v, possibly via the reservoir.

That sounds ideal, if it already has the restrictor pipes fitted even better.
I've already disconnected the reservoir from mine so the 'T' at the vac pump end runs to the swirl actuator EV and the turbo EV is fed directly from the servo end.
The reservoir is still sitting in my engine bay but only so I could hide the blanked pipe behind it if an over zealous MoT man spotted it and asked silly questions.
If the 110 pipework goes in ok it 'should' make it as simple as it can get as far as potential leaks are concerned.

[Doggy]

Seems a bit quiet on the Doggy front, I hope he didn't break down this morning

Fear not. All's well in 'Super Tractor (Touring)' land.

[Welly]

Why do I get the feeling you're planning to take your tunerage to the 'next step' so that you can further out-drag all those BM's and Howdies on the A14 of a morn?

I'm worried that your increased torque will affect the lunar tides and GMT accuracy.