I've been searching and can't find a good tutorial. I've heard that the black box is only for the EGR in these years and can be removed if the EGR is deleted.

 

What about the vacuum controls for the automatic transmission? I'm assuming give the year and model, half of the vacuum lines in that box are used to control transmission shifting, and not egr. At least, this appears to be the case on my 1983 240D.