EGR Valve on L98

'90 L98 Vert. Service Engine Light would come on after about 15 minutes of driving. Any time I would turn off the engine, it would reset. Comes right back on when it warms up. Took it to local Firestone. They said my EGR valve was badly stuck. Said if I continue to drive as is, the Cats would eventually load up with Carbon. They want $450!!! I think this is a bit excessive. Is there something about an L98 that makes this a difficult job? From doing some searches, looks like the going rate for the valve is around $70.

Thanks for your input. gjt

Reply to
gjt
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Reply to
Bob I

Bob's right on the money on this exercise ACDelco is the cheapest valve at $60/$65 and they have 2 numbers 2145535 and 2141429 (plastic vacuum fitting). Airtex is $70 and a metal fitting but shows no gasket with it so check before you get back to work and there is none, FEL-PRO gasket part # 70954, and ACDELCO part # 10077547. Wouldn't be a bad idea to remove the valve to take it with you, but before you do that clean it and the manifold up and see if the diaphragm will hold a vacuum and work the plunger, if so put it back with the new gasket. The $450 repair just became a $2 job.

Reply to
Dad

Thanks guys......

Reply to
gjt

Take a close look. My '89, and I think all of '85 - '91 had the EGR under the plenum -- not out in the open as in the LT1.

If this is the case, you'll need a set of Torx bits and a flare wrench to remove the plenun and the vacuum lines. It's tight but you can get the EGR out without pulling the runners.

As Bob says, get the little gasket for the EGR. Shop around and get a partial intake gasket kit...one with just the gaskets between the runners and the plenum. New throttle body gasket is also a good idea.

If the '90 has a MAF, remove it but leave the throttle body hanging. Disconnect the vacuum hoses to the plenum and check for an electrical lead to a MAT sensor on the bottom of the plenum ...might not be one on the '90. Gently tap the plenum to break it loose from the runners and lift it out, vertically so as to not scratch the mating surfaces or drop broken gasket material down the runners.

Should be about two hours coming apart, 30 minutes to swap the EGR and clean up the intake mating surfaces and a couple of hours putting stuff together again. If the car has over 80K miles it might be good to clean the inside of the plenum

Looks like you're making about $ 85 an hour and have some "free" tools for the next job. Six-pack isn't included in this pricing. (8-O

Suggestion: Not that I don't trust the highly qualified Corvette specialists at Firestone... however, before you leap into this, dump the codes and make sure you're dealing with an EGR issue.

The Haynes C4 manual has some tests that can be run on the EGR. Making sure there's vacuum to the EGR is a good idea-- a vacuum leak would prevent the valve from working.

HTH

-- pj '89 auto / '02 6-spd

Reply to
Joe

My answer is a little bit off topic but it concerns the egr valve. Don't know where you live but if you don't have yearly smog tests to pass. I suggest you block off the egr valve.

Now I don't have a 90s Vette but bear with me. On my 92 Ford Ranger, the computer controls the EGR valve position using vacuum, then there's an EGR position sensor to verify that its working. So disconnecting anything brings up the Check Engine light and a trouble code.

To get around the computer, I made a metal plate which matched the outline of the EGR valve gasket and installed it with the gasket. The EGR position sensor reports that the EGR is working and no error codes!

Why block off the EGR? It recirculates the exhaust gas back into the intake manifold to reduce NOx emissions. Ideally, you want the coolest air in the intake, the EGR adds extremely HOT exhaust gas in. And it screws up your fuel/air mixture - rather than clean outside air, you have hot CO gas coming back in. The result is less power and poorer gas mileage.

Blocking off my EGR valve increased my overall hp (every little bit counts on a 2.3l ford) and increased my gas mileage by 20% around town.

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'90 L98 Vert. Service Engine Light would come on after about 15 minutes of

Reply to
Eugene Blanchard

Excellent info. Thank you!!!!!!!!!

Reply to
gjt

Reply to
Bob I

Since my LT-4 doesn't have an EGR valve because of additional cam overlap I'm assuming the valve is supposed to close when rpm/throttle increases (vacuum decreases, or should I say manifold pressure goes up), so it's 'active' only with little or no throttle. And since the ECU controls the mixture thinking the EGR is working I'm wondering if the mixture will be richer because of the blockoff (instead of just a cooler charge) -- enriching mixture is usually a good thing for power and throttle off/on transition with these newer cars that run so lean, and more power means less throttle at any given power setting so mileage would go up a little maybe. But what about carbonizing the cat. over time because of the richer mixture? Maybe the fix will cause an expensive repair later on if the cats. are left in place and block up?

Just a thought...

Butcher '96 LT-4 CE

Reply to
Butcher

Yep, that's what the guy at Firestone told me. If left alone and not corrected, the long term effect is loading up the CATs with carbon. He said the CATS on an L98 are not cheap.

Reply to
gjt

Hmmm.... "badly stuck" can have two very different meanings:

The 1990 Vette has a basic negative backpressure EGR valve. It doesen't have an electrical connection, so the ECU cannot directly determine if it is functioning. The ECU calculates EGR functionality based on changes in sensor output (knock and O2) when it "expects" the EGR to turn on/off. If it doesen't see the change it expects, it will set a code 32 (EGR circuit). If the EGR is stuck open, it will most likely set a code 45 (Rich exhaust). A stuck-open EGR will reduce oxygen content in the combustion chamber at all times though, resulting in poor performance (especially at idle).

basically... Stuck open = runs bad, code 45 present, CAT damage possible Stuck closed = runs well, no code 45, CAT damage doubtful

Fixitman

Reply to
Fixitman

You might of guessed it by now, but the cat is long gone...

Reply to
Eugene Blanchard

Reply to
Eugene Blanchard

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