How to clean clogged EGR cooler?

I did mine today. 160,000 miles and completely clogged. I used carb cleaner and pressure washer methods but eventually ended up just using a metal rod and dawn dish soap. You could say my cooler was 98% clogged. Worse than the cooler pictured in earlier post. What do i gain from doing this? Better mpg, emissions, lower combustion temps?

 

Oven Cleaner does a great job, and less work. You might still have to use the metal rod,
but the oven cleaner softens it up.
The main gain is less back pressure of the head gasket. I didn't gain any mpg's from cleaning mine.
But it did run smoother this last time. I also notice smoother and faster acceleration.

 

The last mainly, which hopefully means a longer life for your head gasket.

Did you do the intake manifold too, it's really the final leg of the EGR circuit, from where the EGR pipe connects to the small diameter passages at each port. Clean the ports too: With the ports, I wouldn't spray anything in, just spray a cloth and wipe. And take it easy around the fuel injector tips.

 

Much longer engine life.

 

Yes i did intake manifold a couple weeks back. I worked backwords for some reason. Intake, tube, egr, cooler.

 

My friend has around 220k on his ‘12 PIP. He bought a used/cleaned egr and cooler before hand. This way, no down time cleaning, soaking, etc. Since a couple of his family members and friends have Prii, and all need this done, there will be a clean egr and cooler to swap in to speed up the process. I have about 130k on my ‘13 PIP. Figured it could use some love and knocked this out today. I used my friend’s egr cooler. Yesterday, I had my 3000 psi Honda pressure washer out and decided to blast the carbon buildup out of the cooler. This worked great. Make sure to stand to the side kinda when doing this. There was a lot of blow back at first and all kinds of carbon deposits spilling out. After about a minute, I had a good flow of water passing through it. I continued to power wash it from both ends of the cooler for about 4-5 minutes. This got the majority of the gunk out. After, I sprayed it out a handful of times with carb cleaner and then let it sit.

My install went well. Cleaned up the my egr and pipe really quick, and reassembled using his cooler. My cooler was fairly clogged up. Now it’s pressure washed and cleaned, ready for the next Prius.

 

Have you got a Catch Can yet?

 

I have one that i bought for my other vehicle that i never installed so its going to get installed on the prius next weekend. I'm still trying to get my mpg understood because traveling hwy speed (77mph) im lucky to get 40 on long distance drives. Maybe that normal though. Maybe the extra weight of the solar package has something to do with it? Probably my damn cheap tire purchase lol.

 

Driving 77mph is why your mps's are lower. As it would be with any vehicle.
Just driving 70, would improve your mileage. Driving 65, it would be even better.
Driving 35mph would greatly improve your mph. But that's too slow for the highway.
And it would take forever to get anywhere!
And slower would also improve it. But on the highway, there is a safety factor where you have
to balance the speed with safety.
From what I've read in Prius Chat, the ones that seem to have a more clogged egr cooler, are the
ones that drive a lot of city driving, or speed in excess of 70mph consistently.
But as always, results may vary....

 

As far as I know, every Prius generation has an adjuster on the intake cam, and no Prius generation ever had one on the exhaust.

 

Make sure the hoses are high quality reinforced. Don't use heater hose as it gets warm and can collapse.
And just as well install new PCV valve. I had to use electrical tape around one of the nipples on the Catch Can as the hose from the PCV was just a hair to big.

 

What about this chart?

Different format here too.

 

Well, the "different format" second link looks like a correct chart for a Gen 2, showing the intake timing moves around and the exhaust timing doesn't. It's followed by a post from Trollbait confirming that even in Gen 4 the adjustment is still intake-only.

The chart copied above, from the first linked thread, is for an Otto-cycle 2ZR-FE engine as used in some other Toyota models, with dual VVT-i. It was posted in February 2009 by someone speculating that the 2010 Gen 3 Prius 2ZR-FXE might also turn out to use dual VVT-i.

It didn't.

 

Yeah, I think the notion in that thread was mistaken.

The above chart is clearly from the New Car Features Manual (more info) for some other Toyota car model that uses the 2ZR-FE Otto-cycle engine. I can see where the chart says "internal EGR" for the case with the exhaust closing and intake opening overlapped. It might still be interesting to go look at the rest of that New Car Features section to see if it says anything more about said "internal EGR", in particular whether it really achieves the same range of advantages that conventional EGR gets specified for, or is more just a highfalutin' term for something they did to reduce pumping losses, as it says in the chart.

 

Has anyone tried carburetor cleaner or acetone....?

 

I think I did, after lacklustre results with brake cleaner. No better.

Concentrated/hot oxi-clean solution, stopper one end and pour it in, wait an hour, rinse and repeat, got mine like-new shiny with about 5 repetitions.

Less toxic too; you can do this in the laundry sink.

 

Tried and no where near as effective as a pressure washer.

That does the trick quickly and removes the deposits.

Give that a shot .

 

We got a bottle of sodium hydroxide (lye) for wife’s soap making hobby; maybe I’ll give that a try next time.