Pulling off the vacuum pipe and putting a ballbearing or a snipped off artist's brush handle has the same effect as an EGR plate - it just stays closed. You will get an EGR - Insufficient flow error code and light though. It will need to be turned off in software. Note this will make the engine sound more dieselly.
Flaps, they server a purpose so may as well wait until they fail. I cleaned my whole post EGR intake out at around your mileage, the ports to the inlet valves in the head were almost completely bunged up in sooty sticky coke, I scraped it off in lumps. Expected a noticeable increase in performance afterwards but there was none I could perceive.
|