How did EGR delete affect soot on your OM602?
 

For those of you who have done the EGR delete on your OM602 and have done oil analysis, how did the EGR delete affect your soot production?

On my 92 300D, when it had about 200k miles on it, I was seeing soot levels of 1% at 7,000 miles (mixed city and highway). Curious what it will be now....any guesses?

The acceptable soot level question has been beaten to death....not interested in reviving that discussion (though the topic interests me).

I use M1 5w40 and have been playing it pretty safe with drain intervals every 5-6k miles....will probably extend a bit.

OK...no takers....let me broaden the inquiry. How 'bout data from 603 or 606 engines?

EGR shouldn't have much effect on "soot" (I assume you mean particulate matter) emissions. It's there to reduce combustion chamber temps and thereby lower NoX emissions, which Diesels love to generate. I suppose that there could be some bleed-over into the engine oil but there's no direct path between them.

Dan

I'm fairly confident that EGR increases the engine oil's soot load..

If there is it would be a function of ring seal which should show up in a compression check - or better yet, a leak-down test. Valve guide leakage might have a smaller input but that should show up with or without EGR.

I did this stuff for a living for over 31 years.

Dan

Engine oil yes but out the exhaust no. In the newer engines with a throttle plate ahead of the EGR valve (90+ engines) deleting the egr should reduce soot if you provide an alternate air sourse to the intake.

On a totally different engine, OM606, I have deleted the EGR and my soot level stays below 2% past 15k miles on M1. I change the oil at 15k. Sorry, did not test prior to EGR delete.

Soot happens.

If concerned about Soot and there is room for it install one of those 0.5 Micron Bypass Oil Filter.
Your Oil will still get black but the particle sizes in the Oil will be reduced.

Here's my data:

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/2994708-post43.html

Thanks, Kris. IIRC the way a Blackstone report denotes soot is under "Insolubles," is that correct? Was this after you did the wastegate swap or before?

So that's not bad...0.4% at just over 6000 miles.

I want to say that is after the wastegate swap. I'd have to check my records.

I'm not sure if that's equivalent to soot or not. I think I emailed and asked but never got a reply.

Looking around a bit, it seems that insolubles includes soot but also other stuff.

If so, it's hard to imagine you'd see numbers like that prior to the EGR delete....unless you're doing entirely highway miles or something. Both my 91 and 92, prior to EGR delete, produced soot at the same rate: 1% every 7,000 miles or so.

I do like 95% highway. Only 5% is <45mph. Mostly 60-80

One forum member with whom I've been corresponding has done OA both before and after EGR deletion on OM60x engines. His experience has been that there's about a 50% reduction of soot after deletion. That's the kind of info I was looking for. So, if that held true for my cars, I could go about 14k miles before I reached 1%. But I'd probably call it a day at 10k.

Why would you stop at 10k miles? If you are reaching the one year anniversary of the oil, I can understand, but if you are not close to 2%, I'd keep going.

15k miles and one year of use happen at about the same time for my '95 E300, that's why I use that mark.