EGR only comes on at a certain RPM range...it doesn't really do anything at idle. I'm thinking you might end up pulling the cylinder head. I remember a guy I knew who had a Mazda Protege, with very similar symptoms. It ended up being a burnt exhaust valve. When was the last time you had your valves adjusted? Perhaps they were adjusted too tight....you might look into that.

 

the valves were not adjusted recently. at least not that i know of i have only had the car for a couple of months. however we did check them and they were not overtightened. i have not seen the inside of the egr but what my shop teacher was describing was that it came apart on the inside and blocked off the air passagel. we have just sorta ran out of other ideas. i only have a couple more days in school before i grad so we are working with very little time. hopefully it will not come down to pulling the head off. but it might. thanks for the response Joe