96 Accord P0401 easy fix

I did a search to try to find out what gives on these 2.2 engines when the mil light comes on and it gives up a P0401 code yesterday and was unable to come up with anything. After pulling the EGR valve I found out that the hole that goes to the intake seemed to be blocked. I filled the passageway with carb cleaner and started the engine and it didn't empty. I then removed the fuel rail and associated wiring, the throttle cables and some other stuff and got down to a plate with 5 6mm bolts(10mm heads).After removing this "plate" it turned out to be a sort of manifold to distribute the EGR gasses. Well it was blocked up tight with carbon including the hole in the top of each passage for each cylinder in the intake. Cleaned all of this stuff out and reinstalled everything, cleared the computer and took it for a drive and like magic the monitor for the EGR system was set in less than 5 miles. I was told by the dealer that this occurs quite frequently and on the 98 and later models there is a tube kit they sell where you have to drill and tap in order to install this kit but it is supposed to eliminate this insufficient flow problem. Hope this helps someone else as I am hardly ever able to find solutions here and when you ask you get a whole bunch of answers from people that usually haven't a clue how things work. I'm not trying to offend anyone but sometimes there is a whole bunch of wrong advice about some things. Just trying to share my experience and my opinion about just another problem that seems to be quite common.

Thank you for the post. It is really a valuable one.

I agree with you about some guys posting replies like OR YEH I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM or SOMETHING SQUICKING and so on….
but still disagree about this forum. I have visited forums that are much worse than this one. We have guys here that do know what is going on. They know how to fix and how to troubleshoot.
The only problem is that they are not that active as I wish they would be.

Once again,
Thank you!


Sam