Ahhh yeah that makes sense on the EGR. I chipped it all out / vacuumed it up good.
This was done a while ago.. and you're right, the previous owner had vertical plugs on it, not horizontal ones. I noticed that about when I had that lower plenum off too.
And if you look at the last picture... about 10 beers hard. LOL
Seriously though, it took me 2 hours from unplugging sensors to lifting off the lower manifold and I could do it in about 20-30 minutes now. Putting it back together was another story.
The first time I put it back together I bolted it all down and had one bolt that wouldn't go in; had to take it all back apart. I took a die to the stubborn bolt cleaned it up, and I grabbed a thread cleaner from a friend: bad idea. The thread cleaner snapped off in the bolt hole. I had to drill out the center of the cleaner and use my dremel with a grinder to get the rest out, and then install a new heli coil.
Then I got it all bolted down and went to connect the inlet and return lines but they wouldn't go, so I had to unbolt it, fix the threads up on those and do it all again.
Then I put it back together AGAIN and when I started it up coolant pissed EVERYWHERE: didn't know I wasn't supposed to use rtv on the gasket surface. You should have seen how much coolant was in my oil. Couldn't have been good for my crankcase.
Anyway, now it's running alright. I had significant noise before and it's much quieter now. Little bit of a lope now though.
The second time I put it back t