Does anyone know where you can buy some sort of abrasive pipe cleaner to clean out the EGR ports on the intake manifold? This CEL has been on for like a month and it's getting old.
I've got 112k miles on my lude and the check engine light had been on for months. I finally pulled the plugs in the manifold this weekend and cleaned it out. I baby the car all the time so needless to say, the entire passage way was chalk full of carbon. I used carb cleaner, a vacuum, and a long piece of flexible wire. When you clean it make sure to get the small holes at the bottom of the passage directly below the port opening clear. These lead down into the intake runners. There was so much build up in mine I almost didn't see these and probably would have still had the check engine light on if I didn't clean them.
I've been wrestling with mine for the last month or so - code 80 insufficient flow. Haven't had any luck w/ carb cleaner, wire brushes, & pipe cleaners - but I may have had a breakthrough. I had some Seafoam sitting around, so I poured as much as would fit into the two EGR ports. Then reinstalled the EGR valve, reset the computer, and drove it around for a few minutes until the white smoke stopped pouring out.
Reset the computer again to clear the code that resulted from the Seafoam - code came back on. Reset it again for the hell of it, this time it ran really poorly for some reason. Throttle tip-in & let-off was extremely jerky & crappy for some reason - something obviously wasn't right, I dunno what. But I reset it again, and it's been fine for a couple days now. I've been in a couple situations that usually trip the code again (coasting down from 50+), but so far so good.
If the CEL pops up again I'll try one more round of Seafoam. If that doesn't work, I'll probably bite the bullet & extract the plugs to do it all by hand.
__________________
Once you don't have something you've never needed before, it turns out you don't not need it.
There's a section in the Helms on how to do it. Little plugs in the EGR port on top of the intake manifold that you drill out & extract to get access to it for cleaning.
There's some threads/posts on the subject in the Accord & Prelude forums on honda-tech.
__________________
Once you don't have something you've never needed before, it turns out you don't not need it.
****, I'm not drilling anything under the hood of my car. I'd rather pay someone to take it off...I don't have time to take this damn IM off.
It's really not that big of deal. You can do it in an hour or two. Just find the 4 brass plugs in the top of the intake manifold and use a slide hammer to pull them out, clean out the carbon, and put 4 replacement plugs from honda in. You don't have to pull the IM off.
And like I said, try some Seafoam first. So far 5 days and counting for me w/ no CEL. And I'll be putting another 800 miles on the car this weekend, so I'll update again on Sunday when I get back.
__________________
Once you don't have something you've never needed before, it turns out you don't not need it.
Yes, those are the ports. You're only concerned with back 4 (the ones farther away from the fuel rail). Go to autozone and get a dent puller (slide hammer) and go to a honda dealership and get 5 or 6 replacement plugs. Once you see the dent puller you'll understand how it works. Basically you drive a screw into the plug, attach the screw to the dent puller, and slide the 2.5 lb weight on the dent puller upwards. It yanks the plugs right out.
That was my thought as well, that the sea foam dislodged all that crap, causing the the EGR to become plugged somehow. It's only been there for ~2 weeks and I havent tried any fixes yet, except for resetting the ECU (which didnt help). I'll probably pull it off and check everything out soon.
I've been reading up a lot on the Sea Foam method. Do you think just sucking it in through the brake booster line will work? Or should I pour a little in the actual EGR ports?
Quick update - put another thousand miles or so on the car this weekend, so a total of 2k since I Seafoam'd the EGR ports. Still no CEL . . . . so it looks like I'm in good shape. NH just started sniffer testing emissions this year, so I'll see what that looks like next month.
__________________
Once you don't have something you've never needed before, it turns out you don't not need it.
Linear Mode
