Removing a water cooled EGR on a Discovery 1 300TDI

Discovery 1 EGR removal

My experience of removing an EGR from my Japanese Discovery 1 300TDI with a water cooled EGR system.  I fitted my Safari Snorkel leaving Larry with a blanked off EGR, but it was blanked off at the end of the water cooler pipe.  I had to do this because Larry is a late Japanese Import 300TDI which has a cooled EGR system and not the standard EGR single pipe set up found on earlier models.

You can see io the picture below shows all the pipework on the right side of the engine bay which you will not see on earlier Discovery 1.

EGR Cooler Pipework

When I fitted the snorkel the pipework on the right (the water feed into the EGR) was pressing very heavily against the air box and I had to bend the pipe out of the way making it a pain (to say the least) to get the air filter box closed.  Also to align the air intake I had to remove the heat shield form the air flow sensor. This in itself was not too much of an issues when I fitted the snorkel because we have had the 2nd coldest March on record, however, it was going to warm up at some time and I did not like the idea of loosing the heat sheild which protected the wiring, after all look what it did to the space shuttle.

Anyway, in the hope it will get warmer I bought a standard Discovery 1 300TDI bottom radiator hose and after spending about 5 minutes looking at a) how long my arms would need to be to change the pipe from above and b) not wanting to lie in the driveway under Larry I decided to book him in for a pipe change in my local garage £30 well spent I think.

So, the pipe has been changed and now looks like this, loads of room to the left of the air box.  You can see the EGR cooling pipes are now not used and where I blanked it off at the end of the EGR cooler.

Standard bottom hose fitted and EGR removed

The next part of the process is to remove the EGR itself so I can re-fit the heat shield.  I did this a couple of weeks later.  It was a simple process of removing the top of the air box and air flow sensor and unbolting the EGR and moving the manifold from the EGR to the manifold.

Tip, I soaked the old Allen bolts in WD40 for a few hours, it needed it.

Strip down to remove EGR, see the hole in the exhaust manifold

Then blanking the EGR on the manifold and re-assembling.

EGR blanking plate on and heat sink in place

Now a lot is said about blanking the EGR to improve performance and MPG.  After I fitted the snorkel I did notice the car ran very well, but I'm not sure if this is because it is sucking in air better, or the EGR removal.

I have a de-cat exhaust now as well, so the engine should breath about as good as it can.  I will check the MPG on my next long trip to see what has happened in terms of economy.

Update on Economy, nope not seen any difference, its doing 20mpg off road, 27mpg on mixed runs and 30+ on long ones at 60mph, however the pickup and running it much better.