Hello Accord forums,

So in the hunt for a passing sticker I've been trying to clear out my CEL codes and I'm now just stuck on one, P0401. My car is the 1998 honda accord lx 2.3 4cyl 5 speed. I have cleaned out the egr port compleatly with carb cleaner, compressed air and a wire brush. Also I have cleaned the egr valve itself along with the throttle body and upper intake manifold. Now I am at a loss. The only thing that I can think of is changing the egr valve but I know that if it were the problem that I would have a different CEL code appearing. Any suggestions as to what my next move should be? thanks

 

Ok the code its giving you is telling you "insufficient air flow"
so no matter how much you clean the EGR valve it wont do any good!
I would go buy a new one if you want to fix the problem,your looking at about $130 new

 

mechanics will not "clean" the egr valve itself is it can be damaged. Instead they only clean the ports. In the case of the F23 its the return port and the one capture port.

 

When you cleaned the valve, did you "get the inside" of the valve. You have to apply voltage to get the valve to open. Then sometimes they do go bad....If it was my car I would clean the valve first.

 

I actually cleaned the port too. I did a recheck of my work though and found that the egr itself was not opening completely every time, thus possibly causing insufficient flow. I'm going to have to buy a new one this week to see if that solves my problems.