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Good price for swirl flap and egr removal?

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flap swirl
8K views 20 replies 11 participants last post by  DavidAlfa166 
#1 ·
Hi all,
Starting to get stuff done on my car now :) just wondering whether this is a good price for the following.
- before dyno ryn
- egr blank and swirl flap removal
- I'll clean the intake while it's off too.
- map to suit egr and swirl flap removal (but not increase power yet)
- after dyno to see if it's helped my dead spot under 2000rpm haha.

All that for £450 :)
 
#13 ·
That's what I'll be (asking you very nicely) to have done for me when in it's for a cambelt service in a few months time :). Not that I'm missing any swirlflaps, but I want a shiny clean intake while the belt is being done anyway

More generally, I can't see the reasoning behind removing them. EGR yes as its a crap idea and clogs the intake, but swirl flaps perform a useful function....
 
#4 ·
Oh rats, I have bought an inlet manifold without swirl flaps with intention of replacing my original when I do the timing belt. Like JTaylor I have only heard good things, with the possible exception of low torque. I have to confess that one of the more respected Alfa mappers on here did not thing it was a good idea to remove them but I live in fear of my engine trying to digest them.
 
#5 ·
You wont feel any change...Perhaps a few Nm low down can be found if before/after on rolling road, but i for sure dnt feel any change myself when i removed mine :)

BTW: Remember to do all timing belt related if 2.4 you got (new waterpump etc. ) now that everything is getting removed to get the manifold out anyway, off course unless its very few miles since you had it all replaced.
 
#7 ·
I have just fitted a deflapped manifold to my 2.4, the old one wasnt leaking too badly, the rod was still on and only a small build up around the valve tops but it was heavily sooted up and it now starts and runs much better with no noticable loss of low torque, it has had the egr deleted and blanked.
I cant really compare between a swirl and none swirl valve manifold as the old one was badly sooted up and the new one is clean so it is quite possible that the swirl valves do give a bit more torque.
Possubly the main reason for removing the swirls on the 2.4's was that the manifolds were nearly £400 but now they can be bought new for less than half that means that a new original manifold is about the same price as a cleaned and blanked one.

But to answer the original question yes that is a good price, its a big job on both the 1.9 and 2.4 engines, though as its all apart its worth fitting a new belt kit and pump which you dont mention.
 
#8 ·
Cheers for the info. I can't find just the flaps available anywhere as like a repair kit for leaks which is a shame. I know one of mine is leaking but if I am honest I bet it makes almost no difference at all as the volume of leakage is so small.

I can't even imagine how badly sooted up my manifold is! I took the map sensor out and it was one huge block of carbon. Just cleaning and replacing would probably be as good as actually blanking the flaps I bet it was the clean out that made the difference on yours really.

As for new manifolds they are about £180 on eBay but that's £180 on top of the already there £400 odd to take it apart. When the difference would probably be negligible.

A continental timing belt is £51 so I suppose that would make sense to throw that on. However I am not sure if they will be taking that all off or actually doing it that other way that I have heard works which is to bolt the fuel pump on or something.
 
#9 ·
You cant buy new swirl flap asseblies, the only repair kits are the plugs.
How are you planning on cleaning the manifold.? I've done a few including the one I fitted to my car but I have access to a very fierce industrial ally oxide grit blaster and that took a while to clean out, I tried with a proper pressure steam cleaner and that hardly touched it.
I think that unless you are able to properly clean out the manifold or have another one ready to go on then unless you have a 1.9 with a plastic manifold that has the flaps that fall off you would be better buying a brand new swirl valve manifold as all the new 1.9 and 2.4 ally manifolds have the later better design of swirl valve that do last longer before they leak than the earlier tyoe.
I changed the manifold on my old 1.9 159 when I first bought it and when I sold it 5 years and about 50k miles later the later style manifold wasnt showing any signs of leaking.
 
#10 ·
I am not sure how I was planning to if I am honest. I have seen people split them in half and clean them out? I was going to just do that and scrape it all out. Mind you a new one is looking a lot easier. Do you know what the difference between the old and newer designs are? And whether they both just fit on the same engine without problem? So if I have the old one the new one will just fit straight on?

Thanks for all the info mate :)
 
#14 ·
The different design of the swirl valves is on the earlier type the whole assembly moves in the ally casting and are more prone to wear and leaking, the later type has an outer bush and inner spindle set up where only the centre moves, early and later ally manifolds are completely interchangeable. If yoy buy a new manifold you will get the later type.

You can split them to clean them but you would need to be certain that it was resealed properly, grit blasting is the easiest and best way, steam cleaning wont do it properly.
 
#15 ·
Oven cleaner works well, the stuff that comes in an orange box with a plastic bag. It removed 95% of the gunge from my metal-and-plastic 16v manifold, leaving it for 24hrs with occasional agitation. The plastic is unaffected but the alloy takes a bit of a beating in the caustic cleaner, with a sort of brown plating-out of carbon onto the metal. It's a bit ugly, so I sprayed it with silver heatproof paint.

With a blanked EGR and deleted swirl flaps and the EGR mapped out c/o Autolusso, it runs extremely well. There's no shortage of low-down torque at all, it'll pull cleanly and strongly from tickover on the throttle in 1st and 2nd, though that's a bit cruel to the DMF so I don't. However I ran it for a couple of weeks before getting the AL map, and the map made a difference. I am pretty sure they alter the fuel map to suit the greater 02 availability with the EGR blanked. Certainly the engine seemed significantly stronger at low revs, after the map.

If you just remove swirl flaps but keep EGR, yes, I believe you'd lose low down torque and possibly fuel efficiency. Swirl flaps are only there because EGR exists. The idea is to recover some of the combustion efficiency via swirl, that is deliberately degraded by the inhalation of exhaust gas to reduce CO emissions.

The cost of EGR+swirl delete in emissions terms is that at low revs the higher combustion temps increase NOx. But (a)diesels use very little fuel at idle, so a percentage increase in NOx doesn't add up to a lot, and (b)swirls are fully open by 2krpm so the NOx levels are unaffected. There's no impact on soot AFAIK. My car passed the MOT soot test at ~50% of the permitted limit.

Basically, on the 1.9 16v CF4 with metal swirl valves you either delete EGR and swirls before it trashes the engine or afterwards, or accept that you're going to be replacing the cylinder head rather often, or simply scrap the car. I was lucky, I lost 2 flaps but one was stuck in an inlet tract. I had 2 bent valves and a pockmarked head, and my piston damage was superficial, but unlucky that an injector nozzle also got clattered. If I'd had it all repaired professionally instead of DIY, I reckon the bill would have been pushing £2k by the time belts etc are included.

On a 2.4 or 1.9 with plastic flaps there's not the same compellingly costly reason to delete all this stuff, but it makes no sense to remove the swirls and keep the EGR. You just keep all the EGR problems and gunged-up inlet, and make the motor less efficient.
 
#17 ·
My 2.4 had the swirl flaps and erg removed and the remap by Autolusso around 12 months ago.
The torque is hard from 1500rpm and the peak hp around 260 is from 4000 so it revs out straight to the 4500 redline in a very undiesel like way.
I used to own 1.9TDI Audi Estate with no remap and it run out of puff by 3500ish... zzzzz so boring to drive. Remaps are fun!

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
 
#19 ·
I can agree to this VAG 1,9's is good for about 1000 rpm of fun.

My swirl fixed Borgwarner 2.4 wakes up about 1.700 and just launches al the way to a healty 4.700 rpm
It is remapped and I have changed the injectors to a fresh set (wich helped especially in high rpm)
Only 220 hp. But 530 nm (2.750 mbar MAP, 1.700 Bar injector pressure)
 
#21 ·
I removed the swirl flaps few weeks ago, not big difference in power, the low end torque is a bit reduced but i can live with it.
A remap would also help.
I had to flatten exhaust manifold because it was warped, and emptied the turbo catalyst.
Since then, the sudden drop it did at 1800rpm, loosing noticeable power then recovering it slowly until 2000rpm, is almost gone.
Previously I had the flaps open all the time, and the turbo still did that drop. And the rest, N75 valve, map, and maf were almost new, 6 month old.
 
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