EGR question (on goes the '93 300D 2.5 saga)

[cgunderm]

Now I have a question about the EGR:
When a local MB indy mechanic suggested the other day that to keep the air intake clear of soot (it had just recently been cleaned before I bought the car) I should disable the EGR, I said, right, put a BB in the vacuum line. He says no, I have a better solution. I'll have my machinist make a metal plate to completely block off the EGR from the intake. I agreed to have him do that. When I pick up the car, it's completely gutless. Essentially like a non-turbo (and this car was fast before), on hills you not only have to floor it but you have to kick down into third gear, and it still won't go really good. When I take it back, he says: oh, we'll have to look into the electronics. It looks like something is wrong there, bad diesel injection controls.... The whole thing seems really fishy to me because the car was running really fast before this, and each time he gets his hands on something he has to "look into" it tends to cost 1 grand +. So I started wondering if maybe the electronic controls of the intake/injection might be thrown off by this metal plate and not be functioning correctly anymore. Usually if you disable the EGR you get better power and better mileage, right? But I've never heard of anyone putting a metal plate in the intake like that. What are people's thoughts about that...

And btw, I sorted out the supposed valve noise and smoke and skipping idle. It was the injectors. They were completely bad, and the seals bad as well. As someone else wrote here recently, the injector noise can really mimic lifter noise. I could have sworn it was a lifter/lifters...So this is running great now, all the mystery smoke and skipping after about 2 minutes after cold start is gone....