Yes. See you both for passageway answer. He may have been working on an ion which has I believe an EGR system that goes through the block or head and gets hopelessly clogged. Check the video as to what vehicle he is working on. The ecotec engine in the ion, some L cars, and the Vue is a different animal entirely from the s cars

 

Nope, I was correct in the thread from 2021 about cleaning the pipe

back to where all of this crap is coming from to clog up your EGR. The answer is the exhaust tube that is feeding the intake to the EGR. After you clean the EGR but before reattaching it, put towels down to cover everything under the hood that doesn't move. Most definitely cover the input pipe to the EGR with a towel, but not before spraying a decent amount of carb cleaner on all walls of that pipe. Let this soak for about 15 minutes. Works best if the vehicle is already a little warm.

Never ignore your instincts.

 

just recleaned the EGR. there was carbon in it. and i dont know why, but i thought it would have a better deal in general, I an a sprinkler tech by trade, so i am familiar with solenoids quite well. i guess you cant have a rubber gasket due to the higher tamps, but i thought maybe a nicer machined seal..

Have the two ports exposed. ran a thin wire down the outlet and flushed with lots of carb cleaner. Wanted to get carb cleaner into the passage way itself, so I rigged up some hose to seal nice and tight and pumped like half a can down it. When i removed the hose, it was bubbling nicely. I am currently " letting it soak" so your msg timing was great. ill keep the thread posted... maybe we no longer have to deal with this damn code!

Any mess should* come off at the car wash , right? i do have stuff covered, but i am anticipating a mess anyway

 

Dude, you cannot have half a can down that pipe.
siphon some out before you turn the key.

It's flammable and if it ignites off the hot exhaust, you will have a fireball coming at you. I understand your intent, but get most of the liquid out of there before you turn the key

 

the carb cleaner just blew out and evap'd upon engine start, no fire, no nothing...
There was no ooze, goo or anyting even remotely like that
I did stand out while engine was running and manually ran throttle body. " some" dried chunks of carbon came out, but honestly not that much\
i kept putting ****loads of carb cleaner into that port, no idea where it went really.
I kept revving engine till i no longer really saw any carbon chunks coming out.
the reinstalled EGR was clean, and upon one of your other thread, clean it again.. did that.

Here is my dilemma, should the engine light have gone off it this fixed it? when i installed the new EGR like 2 days ago,. the code went away for 50 miles or so .
i am experiencing no acceleration loss or rough idle, nothing, so i dont think it could be a clogged CAT , I have had that issue on 2 previous saturns. Would a clogged cat still give off a p0401? This car runs as well as it ever has. I hate to " throw it away" because of a check engine light and emissions.

 

Unplug the EGR and take it for a drive. Does it drive differently? Also, people in the past have had issues with aftermarket replacement EGR valves where, basically, the positions it moves to or senses it's moving to do not match where the PCM thinks the pintle should be. I vaguely remember you saying the EGR was dirt cheap. I found that very surprising as that was not the case in the old days.

Given that you were not burning any appreciable oil, there must not have been too much in the way of carbon deposits. The cleaner will evaporate over time so that may be where some of it went or it vaporized against the hot metal.

Back to my first paragraph. EGR issues can be with the actual valve being clogged as well as with the PCM thinking the pinto is not moving to where it should and or not moving there fast enough. And then add on the aftermarket unknown factor.

I would return the one you purchased, spick span clean and get something like

STANDARD MOTOR PRODUCTS EGV544

If buying from RockAuto.

Honestly, I would buy the correct ACDelco original equipment version off Amazon because it is easily returned. Notice original equipment does not equal OEM it equals sold to the highest bidder to fill the box with a part.

They cost upward of 100 to $160 which is more like the price I'm used to seeing. Be careful there are a whole mess of part numbers that supposedly fit. Go to a GM parts site and find the correct part number, then go shopping. With s cars, this late in the game, you usually get what you pay for. I've always been an OEM parts guy for that car and if the parts were still available, I would use them. Actually I have a bunch of stuff squirreled away in my basement so I do use them haha.

I would definitely try another EGR valve and not a cheap one. But I also won't spend your money for you. Your decision on the path forward

 

i cant use rock auto at my address. they have some sort of strange sales tax issue. i think because my zipcode covers 3 separate cities? i dont know, but its frustrating as all hell as their site and pricing are amazing. i ended up buying two EGR off of amazon as shipping date changed on one, then went back to normal, blah blah... so i have a " new" cheap one installed, and a 2nd new cheap one sitting in a part drawer. if the light comes back on, im doing this flush out again and trying with the other valve.. i only paid like 35$ for it... some of my sprinkler solenoids cost more, so i could totally see it being crap

 

When you look at RockAuto for the part, notice that the one with the red heart, the favorite of people who buy it, is the $65 most expensive one. There's a reason for that.

It works