Shorgasm

My girls little 3.4 camaro has developed an issue with power.It seems to be strugglign badly after about 2300rpms or 1/4 throttle..You can hear the intake sucking loudly and it just feels like you have the brakes on.
Steady driving is fine.gas mileage is about right.Right off the line it is normal but as yo ask for more than say 1/4 throttle is just lays down.A4 shifts fine.No misses or lights coming on.

I pop the hood and there is this assembly on the lefthand side of the motor.It is some sort of EVAP/Emissions garbage.It stems right of the exhaust header.Three little canister looking things.When the car is idleing it sounds normal.When I hit the gas it blows hot *** air out the side.I'm not sure if that is a normal thing or if a gasket is blown.The air escaping is not from the riser to the three canisters.It is blowing from the gap under the canisters.

Any ideas on this?????//

TraceZ

Those 3 canisters are the EGR valve. It's probably gooped up. You can remove it, tkae it apart and clean it out. There will be 3 magnetic solonoids inside, with sliding plungers. Clean them all up good and make sure they slide easily.

Shorgasm

Why would air blow out of it?..it is exhaust.It takes a good bit of pedal but man what a noise.It blows out from under the canisters.I saw spark once...kinda freaked me out...I'm pretty good at stuff like this so no special tools and I could dissassemble and clean with carb cleaner?

Craddock

Yeah I had a 3.4 and the only problem it ever had was the egr and cats. I'm betting egr.

TraceZ

You'll have to take it apart to see for sure what is going on to cause it to leak. I used a wire wheel on a bench grinder to make one look like new again. It worked like new again, too.

One of the 3 plungers in it was frozen. It took me a while to coax it out but once I did, it cleaned up perfectly on the wire wheel. Also use a small bottle brush or a gun barrell brush with some penetrating oil to clean out the 3 plunger bores.

Here is a picture of mine after I was done cleaning it up.

TraceZ

I gotta brag a bit.... It's amazing what a bit of creativity can do. This car barely ran when I got it for $500. It ran like a swiss watch after I was done with it. Not bad for 185,000 miles!

before:

After:

GhostZ28

thats a CLEAN 3.4! Mine was still running strong to 165K when i sold it for 1.5k

Shorgasm

Yup, that's it....It just blows air out the bottom between the canisters and the plate..I'm a little miffed to this..I guess take it apart and see?

TraceZ

It sounds like you are on the right track. It's a pretty simple device, just take it all apart and see what is wrong. It comes apart from the bottom, you wont need to remove the torx screw from the top of each canister. You just remove it from the pipe, unplug it and take out the screws nearset the bottom. Then you'll see inside it. There are 3 plungers, each operates a different oriface.

A wire wheel on a bench grinder works best to clean the parts up. it will make them look like new agian. You might need a gasket or two to put it back together. The valve itself is over $200 new, though so if you can get away with not having to buy one, do it.

I can see two reasons you'd have to buy a new one:
1) a plunger is so frozen in place you cannot get it to slide out
2) one of the 3 magnetic windings is burned out.

Injuneer

A plugged cat might make it run like that, and the increased backpressure in the exhaust may have blown something out in the EGR system. Worth taking a look at.

Shorgasm

One of the screws is broken off that hold the canisters down.It looks to have been broken for sometime...I made a metal plate to seal off the tube from the exhaust.I then sealed off the one to the intake.It does not leak..It runs almost worse..No kidding.Car will not rev over 3k in gear...The convertor was my first idea.Very HOT exhaust coming from the tailpipe.No air movement really but you can feel the heat.The car is not missing and the SES light in NOT on.I have seen it before so it works.The car is not as loud intake wise now but before would at least rev slowly past 3k.Now nothing..

TraceZ

It is sounding more and more like the cat may be plugged.

Shorgasm

I took off the EGR plate I made and she revved like a banshee.Loud as hell so I plugged her back up and off to the muffler shop for a little !cat work....apparently when I plugged up the EGR stuff it sealed its fate.