I have just re-done my EGR blanking, and to be honest Im glad I have, as the car is now completely different to drive.
Previously when I blanked teh EGR, I put the plate between the pipe and the EGR valve.
Now I have removed the EGR pipe, and put a 6mm blanking plate on the exhaust manifold and a 6mm plate on the EGR valve.
With the blanking plate on the exhaust manifold the cars pickup from idle is immense, compared to what it was. The car seems to pickup effortlessly fromm idle, where as before, there was a slight delay before the turbo kicked in and the car pulled. Its weird but hey, cant complain.
So possilbe conclusion is that 1) with the EGR pipe gone the turbo spools quicker, 2) I had a small leak from my previous tinkerage or 3) Both
and strangely enough, my recent MPG is up by 4mpg...................