There is some misunderstanding with what I am doing with the EGR. I repair the EGR by altering the EGR cooler's butterfly valve, which has a big tendency to lose boost pressure, and a lot of power, out the butterfly shaft.
The purpose of the butterfly valve is to bypass the EGR cooler's heat exchanger when the water temperature is below 140 degrees. The supposed improvement in warm-up is pitifully short. The real purpose of the valve seems to be it's 'design obsolescence'. In other words, the part is designed to fail, it's expensive and your car runs poorly and may not be able to be licensed without it.
For a device we have seen people spend over $300 for the part and about 4.5 hours to install, that valve is an expensive problem to replace, is of little benefit even when it is working. If you delete the EGR cooler, you may cause your vehicle to be out of compliance by local emission rules and will reduce engine efficiency when it is not installed. We have seen EGR coolers replaced 3 or more times. Once we fix that valve, we have not seen any failures for our modified EGR coolers. We warranty our repair for 5 years.
We are not against the purpose or effectiveness of the EGR. Having grown up in SMOG Central, Los Angeles, I can appreciate breathing cleaner air and the efforts to reduce NOX, which is the main purpose of the EGR valve on a diesel. I can also attest that when the EGR valve is correctly operating, the system for the BRM engine is reasonably clean and does not have the clogging problem that was associated with the previous ALH engine.
In the States, the delete is illegal by Federal Law (As some mechanics have found out, "Blantant abuse of EPA rules and regulations..." $10,000 per incident fine can be levied) In several states, like California and I believe NY, NY, you cannot get the car passed inspection without the proper smog equipment installed. In other states, you will not be able to pass inspection with a CEL light on.
In many of our colder states, the EGR valve is beneficial in warming the engine and keeping the engine at a good operating temperature, just as GoFaster mentions. I have seen fuel economy can decrease 15%+, if the engine will not properly warm up.
In all, we do not see a problem leaving a correctly repaired EGR in place. We provide a kit that is comparable to making a EGR delete tune, but leaves the whole system intact. We take your old EGR cooler in as a core and the kit of seals is not only 'the right stuff', but actually makes the job easier by using our gaskets with clips we found to hold them in place.
The big question is, What is wrong with improving a part that has a high potential of failure into one that is virtually Zero failure? That is our EGR cooler kit.
Questions?