EGR line blowing off? Options

[brandon702bmx]

I’ve noticed that my car has been “lagging” to reach high RPMs. Once 4K rolls around, it’s like power just diess out. However, I’ve been experimenting and forcing my car to 5, 6K (slowly, like a steady climb) and sometimes I’m noticing that the line that links the EGR valve to the EGR modulator (the one with the filter) keeps popping off like it’s under pressure when reaching higher RPMs. When it pops off, I can tell because I can hear a hissing noise when accelerating and sort of a “throbbing noise” at idle.

Is this a bad EGR valve? I’ve done the test with the hand vacuum pump connected to it to see if I could kill the engine and it took quite a bit to kill it. It just bogged and ran erratically until I kept pumping it and it eventually died. Haven’t bothered to remove it and see if carbon was caked in it.

Another thing to note is that the car runs a million times better when that hose pops off. Car doesn’t struggle in higher RPMs and runs beautifully. (I’m sure it’s not the brightest idea to run with it off, kind of hard to pull off on the freeway and reconnect it) I had another engine in this car that suffered from the same issue. Completely different EGR valve and all. Still did it. Where do I start...?

Just extra info in case needed:
1994 Celica GT 5SFE manual trans

[brandon702bmx]

I was skeptical about that and what sort of confirmed it for me was the fact that when I swapped the engine, it sill did it. What I really wanna do is get everything going redone from the headers all the way back. However, I’m not really sold on an exhaust. Don’t want anything raspy and garbage. Rather throaty (or as much as you can get from a 4cyl). I appreciate you confirming it. As far as the car cleaning process goes... from what I’ve seen its a soaking process in a bucket to breaks down carbon.

I’m gonna go with not well maintained. The car was purchased with about 294K the only real selling point was the body quality for me.