my fiance has a 97 accord with the sohc vtec motor. the check engine light recently came on, and i took it to autozone to get the code read. the worker said it was the egr and to try some fuel injector cleaner? then when i asked what can cause it he gave me a blank stare and shrugged his shoulders. does anyone know what leads to the egr valve or solenoid going bad an throwing codes? is there a way to fix it or am i forced to replace it? thanks in adance for your help

 

The EGR manifold ports on these engines are know to clog up pretty bad. There is a DIY EGR cleaning thread in the FAQs IIRC.

94-95 Accord EGR cleaning

You can do the same for the EGR valve & lift solenoid as well. Remove it from teh intake manifold and clean it with carb/throttle body cleaner.

 

Yup, my EGR ports were clogged badly. After I cleaned them up, the car ran smooth.

 

watch out for the fuel injectors. lube them before popping anything back in or else you can have a fuel leak.

 

thanks for the quick responses. guess i know what im doing this weekend.

 

ok i did the diy clean and the car runs great. been a couple weeks. only thing i found wrong is that a few days after i started to smell gas inside the car. at first i thought there was a leak somewhere. but you dont smell it all the time. just at idle sometimes and when the heat is on ocassionally. i checked for leaks the injectors and rail are fine no leaks or anything. only thing i can think of is when i cleaned the egr a little gas spilled in the bay. could that be the problem? like i said its not a constant odor of gas just at random times, but i can not find any gas leaks

 

If it smells more with the fan on that would more than likely be from the engine bay. The outside air intake duct for inside air is on the passenger side at the base of the wind shield. If you spilled gas in the bay when you disconnected the fuel line that is what you are smelling. It will go away as it evaporates, or you could clean it with a quick high pressure spray if it's that bad.

 

i just wanted to make sure i was right on my assumption. thanks. i figured it should be gone here soon.