ive just read alot of bad things about egr only good things ive read is not getting fined. for example:
The pro's of keeping your egr cooler:
A VERY important part of the decision to keep or delete is the legal aspect of it.
The EPA regulates this stuff, and modifying any pollution control device (such as your EGR cooler) is a Federal crime.
If you have local or state mandated emissions testing as part of your annual inspection (now or in the future), you will fail.
If there is a Law Enforcement Officer out there that has a bad day and knows what he is looking for, you could get a HEFTY fine ($10,000 or more). Granted, this is extremely rare, but it HAS happened.
That wraps up the "pro's" as there is nothing to be gained by filling your intake or combustion chambers with exhaust gases.
The "CON's" of keeping your EGR cooler.
This component is failure prone. It all comes down to where in the coolant stream this thing sits. It is directly AFTER the oil cooler.
Take a look at the design of an oil cooler and you will quickly figure out that it would make a fairly effective coolant filter. It grabs all the junk in the cooling system and keeps it there. This plugs the coolant passages of the oil cooler.
The coolant leaving the oil cooler is directly fed to the EGR cooler.
Lets stop right here and look at just what the EGR cooler does, and why coolant flow is critical for its survival.
The EGR cooler (Exhaust Gas Recirculating) job is to cool the exhaust gases before the gas in reintroduced back into the engine. Your exhaust gas temperature can easily be over 1000°F. I see you have a 2006. That means that in the passenger side exhaust 'up-pipe' where the EGR cooler attaches to the exhaust system, has a 'scoop' installed inside to direct as much of the exhaust that is possible through the EGR cooler. So the internals of your EGR cooler can reach up 1000°F, the coolant has to move through the body of the EGR cooler rather rapidly to wick that type of heat away without boiling. Slow down the coolant flow, and it starts to boil. Boiling coolant will raise the pressure inside the EGR cooler. Put the high heat of the EGR cooler together with extra pressure of the boiling coolant and you will soon have a failure in one of the coolant passages in the cooler. This will allow coolant to flow two different ways.
One way being when the engine is running and the EGR valve opens. The coolant will flow into your intake manifold and into the cylinders. Remember why the EGR cooler failed? Higher than normal pressure created by the presence of stem, right? Guess what, the same principal applies in the cylinder. The steam pressure created by burning the coolant can cause high enough cylinder pressure to actually stretch the stock head bolts.
The second way that the coolant leak from a failed EGR can harm your engine is when the engine is switched off, or when the EGR valve is closed.
When the truck is running, and the EGR valve is closed, the coolant will flow out with the exhaust gases. This means that, due to the location of the EGR cooler in the exhaust stream, that coolant will be forced upwards from the egr cooler and into your turbo. The turbo is controlled by variable vanes, and those vanes are on the 'exhausrt drive' side if it. Diesel exhaust is sooty by nature and toss some coolant in with dry soot and you make a nice paste. This paste will impede the free movement of the ring that controls the vanes, making them stick. Overboosting of your engine is a very real possibility. (add this to the high steam pressure from burning the coolant... starting to get the full picture now)
Now, when the truck is shut off, the EGR valve is closed. The cooling system is still under pressure. The coolant will still flow out of the failure in the EGR cooler, leak into the exhaust 'up-pipe' on the passenger side, and down into the exhaust manifold. Then the coolant will seek out the lowest point, and find whatever cylinder has the exhaust valve open and flow into it. If the failure is severe and the truck has been left for a while, the leak can actually fill the cylinder and the exhaust manifold. That will hydrolock your engine.
Another con is the soot. If the EGR cooler is in place, you are sucking exhaust soot into the EGR valve (clogging it) and the intake manifold (choking it).
Pro for getting rid of it, beyond the obvious that you could gather on your own from above is the lowering of the exhaust gas temperature. Typically an EGR cooler delete will lower your EGT about 40°F or so. That is good news for your turbo.
I have deleted my EGR cooler,my EGR valve still sits where it is supposed to be. There is a SLIGHT chance that when you delete your EGR, you will NOT get a code. I will bety you that you will.
P0401: Insufficient EGR flow detected is the code you will get. There is only 1 way to get rid of that code. That is with the proper custom written tune. That sounds expensive, but it really isn't.
SCT is the most popular platform for custom tuning on the 6.0 engine. Most every custom tune writer uses it. You can get a capable SCT tuner with 3 different custom tunes for a cost right around $430.
This post was edited by DarkSiedge on Feb 26 2013 02:13pm