Engine intake decarb spray

[abamfo]

Has anyone ever used one of the seafoam or liqui-moly air intake sprays for decarbing throttle body, rotors, valves, combustion chamber, etc.?? Obviously it wouldn't be as effective as a physical clean but I saw the video below the other day where they scoped before and after of the piston crowns through the spark plug wells and it definitely reduced the amount of carbon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6UeJXkzDW8

Not sure how it would work with the supercharger or if there would be any issues with putting that plastic thing in the throttle body

I removed one of my spark plugs to check fouling and reset the gap the other day and used a video scope to check the piston crown through the spark plug wells and it didn't look as clean as I hoped it would for 17k miles...

[BuffDavid]

I literally saw this video last night as well! I was watching how to change your own Rotors and Pads since I've never done it myself,and this video was the follow-up video that played.
I was very interested in it....especially since they say our cars are known for high carbon build-up. I really wanna test it out myself

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[LittleDozer]

I've run seafoam in the car plenty of times while running E85 to avoid buildup in the HPFP, seems to do OK.

Never heard of an intake spray but I'm sure it wouldn't cause any harm to the car. The only thing to be concerned about is while it breaks up carbon deposits, those deposits technically can cause scouring of the combustion chamber. I'm no expert though.

I removed my TB and physically cleaned it out, not hard to do. But carbon cleaning definitely can suck so if you aren't interested in wrenching, this spray would definitely help.

[BuffDavid]

I've run seafoam in the car plenty of times while running E85 to avoid buildup in the HPFP, seems to do OK.

Never heard of an intake spray but I'm sure it wouldn't cause any harm to the car. The only thing to be concerned about is while it breaks up carbon deposits, those deposits technically can cause scouring of the combustion chamber. I'm no expert though.

I removed my TB and physically cleaned it out, not hard to do. But carbon cleaning definitely can suck so if you aren't interested in wrenching, this spray would definitely help.

Thanks for chiming in. They do say, driving the car slightly aggressive will help clear crap out too,but I'm sure there's still plenty of build up. I think I'll do this method myself...just as a preventive measure. I don't wanna pay someone nearly a grand to clear it for me =/

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[LittleDozer]

Thanks for chiming in. They do say, driving the car slightly aggressive will help clear crap out too,but I'm sure there's still plenty of build up. I think I'll do this method myself...just as a preventive measure. I don't wanna pay someone nearly a grand to clear it for me =/

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Yep driving hard will help. People who drive only city are the ones that get boned.

We had my supercharger off at 18k miles. I took a look at the valves and they already had a little bit of carbon forming. It's pretty ridiculous.

[jygesq]

using a high quality gas can help. I suggest Shell 93, if available. Lots of cleaners and higher octane.

[BuffDavid]

Interesting. Shell V-Power is all I've ever used. I know it's good gas,but the cleaners aside, I can actually feel like it pulls harder when I use Shell V-Power (93). I was a big Chevron User,until I noticed the Difference.


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[eurotic]

I thought it was fairly widely accepted that on these cars the spray cleaners do little to help. Someone created a thread here about using a chemical soak to clean deposits and if you look at that thread you will see why I am suggesting this type of product will do very little for you. I guess if you only are looking to clean the throttle body and maybe piston crown it might work okay. But the real issue with carbon is on the valves and since this is a direct injection car the fuel has little impact on those deposits (at least on the intake side) since fuel never touches those valves. And although the spray cleaner will hit the valves (assuming the supercharger doesn't prevent it) unless you have no real build up it is going to be like throwing a baseball at a tank.

I will see if I can find the thread later and post it up.

[infinkc]

Audi even sells their own Fuel additive for direct port injected engines, it was highly recommended to be used on the 4.2 engines. I put some in the s4, but who knows if its doing anything as i never scoped my valves.

[j1n]

Ive used it on my sisters old Toyota Matrix. The car was idling at a high RPM and the seafoam fixed it.

[waxxonMTL]

I did the carbon cleaning by having a shop doing it with the sandblast ( forgot the actual name for that process).. Car had 95k km. Mostly highway driven from what I was told ( car was driven by a 45yr old lady in complete stock form.. so i doubt it was driven hard tbh!). The shop said they saw much worse but none the least it wasn't a bad idea to get it done at 100k km.

I honestly saw zero difference, nor can I say I saw better fuel effiency. So I say, dont stress with that.. move on :) lol

[SwankP3RF3ct10n]

This would be a much better solution to try and use. There's another thread on here where this is discussed in terms of trying to keep the valves clean. In terms of keeping the rest of the fuel system and combustion chamber clean, go with some Gumout Regane.



Some carbon crystallization on the dome of the piston is part of a good combustion process and perfectly fine. This product won't strip off all the buildup that's there for good measure. It'll clean everything else up fairly well though. I've run in it all my cars for years at every oil change or more often depending on if I did the oil change every 3k or 5k or 10k. In terms of the CRC intake valve cleaner, I ran two cans of that within about 200 miles of each other just because I never had a valve cleaning done every and needed to really soak the down. I will probably run that every oil change from now on to hopefully put a dent in the whole carbon buildup thing. According to the other thread, the clearer does work, but I think it was agreed that without knowing how much carbon is currently built up, no telling how much you need to run to get them clean again, but starting with clean valves, running the CRC product through the intake would help mitigate the buildup nicely compared to not running anything at all. I'll try and find the other thread if I get a chance... it had to do with carbon cleaning after a supercharger teardown by one of the guys on here and he tried several products on each of his intake ports to show the ability of the product used.

[chi123]

I cleaned out my intake valves at 90K miles. I was replacing the PCV valve and noticed how bad my intake valves were. There were chunks of oil on them and covered in carbon. I used a cordless drill with a wire brush attachment with carb/choke cleaner. I used Seafoam but it wasn't strong enough to break apart the build-up. Ran through 4 cans on cleaner. Took me about 6 hours as I never did something like this before. Now I just have run a cleaner through occasionally to keep the carbon from building up.

Attached two pictures, one with valves how they were and other comparing before/after.


IMG_1102 (480x640).jpg IMG_1160 (640x480).jpg

[Works2shoot]

From new, I used Chevron with Techron every 3-5k miles in an attempt to prevent buildup. I'd be interested to see down into the chamber.

[abamfo]

Thanks for all your input! Unfortunately some of the products discussed aren't really in Australia. They do have liquid-moly here which I bought this morning and going to give a shot tonight. It smells like brake cleaner, toxic as hell to smell. Not sure how I am going to get it to fit past the throttle plate but I'll see what I can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKqNF9LhuoE

LittleDozer, surely the temperatures within the combustion chamber would destroy any carbon. What is scouring of the combustion chamber? Is that carbon getting stuck around the sides of the piston or something? I spend lots of my time driving in the city which doesn't help with carbon :(

I get misfires logged on VCDS when I lift off the accelerator or when changing gears and I wonder if carbon might be a factor involved.

When we're all driving electric cars, we won't have to worry about carbon.

[SwankP3RF3ct10n]

From new, I used Chevron with Techron every 3-5k miles in an attempt to prevent buildup. I'd be interested to see down into the chamber.

That would work if the fuel injectors sprayed past the intake valves and into the chamber, but that won't work on direct injection motors. That's why with these you have to run some kind of cleaner through the intake on a pretty regular basis if you want to keep the problem to a minimum. Running it through the fuel system won't do anything for the intake valves, but it will clean the rest of the fuel system and combustion chamber, it just won't touch the intake valves.

[abamfo]

Does anyone know if this plug where the VW Evap systems pumps fuel vapours back into the intake can be removed without it breaking it??

I'd like to use it to put the decarb spray into the intake tract as the throttle body doesn't open enough to fit te plastic thing past it at 3000 rpm.

[Militant-Grunt]

Does anyone know if this plug where the PCV pumps crap back into the intake can be removed without it breaking?? I'd like to use it to put the decarb spray into the intake tract as the throttle body doesn't open enough to fit te plastic thing past it at 3000 rpm.

It can, you just have to be gentle with it. The way I loosen them is, I gently insert a screwdriver between the lock and the side of the lip, I gently pry one side while pulling up. Once its loose, I still keep pulling up gently, and pop the other side. Then I wiggle it out once both sides are loose. Sometimes when both sides are loose I also stick, the screw driver between the mouth of the hole and the lip of the hose and gently pry up.

[abamfo]

Today I tried to push the decarb spray plastic nozzle past the throttle plate and it caused the throttle plate to open quite wide and the car nearly stalled and then idled badly, and threw some throttle malfunction codes... I'm trying to wonder how people use these sprays in modern throttle body / EFI cars

Hopefully I can try and get the N80 evap valve out of the intake inlet on the supercharger (shown above) and run some of the decarb through it... I've bought the stuff so really want to try it now

[SwankP3RF3ct10n]

This is easy to do. Put a small piece (8" or so) 2x4 wood under your brake pedal and over your accelerator and wedge it in such a way that it stays put and causes the engine to idle at 3k RPM. There is a small vacuum hose in the back of the intake tube just in from of the throttle body that comes out. With your aftermarket intake, it should be even easier. With that out, it won't cause any issues with the engine running so it's fine to have it disconnected while doing this. Use that port to inject the cleaner, but do it in short bursts because if you do it too much, it'll stall out the engine, that's just a fact when you do this type of cleaning, so the instructions on the product may need to be slightly modified to have good results with the injection rate/time. Don't disconnect the PCV port... that's not where you wanna inject products like this. Do it before the throttle body and use the port I'm talking about. It's usually harder with the OEM intake because that port is 90 degrees down, but with aftermarket, it should be easier since most of them come out straight or have a hose barb that can spin around or come out or whatever.

Honestly, with you being in Australia, there's places there that do the walnut blasting to clean intake valves and that's the best way to handle this as a proper cleaning. It does involve taking the supercharger off, but it's the best way. After that, run these cleaner products through every 3-5k and it should keep the intake valves fairly clean for the most part.

[abamfo]

DELETE

[kmarei]

Are you sure that breather tube has vacuum to suck the decarb into the intake?? Have you done this before?

I've done the sea foam spray by taking off the intake hose
And just spraying into the throttle body
Did it for about half the can.
stopped the engine
Let it sit for 15 minutes
Started the engine, and finished the rest of the can
Then took it out for a spirited drive
While enjoying the trail of white smoke coming out the back :)

It definitely idled better after that

[SwankP3RF3ct10n]

I used a spray cleaner and that was the port I used because I didn't feel like taking off my intake to spray directly into the throttle body without the intake in the way. This port allowed for that to happen easily since it's right in front of the TB. Don't just take the hose off and stick the hose in a bottle, won't work like that because the hose goes behind the TB to another component that requires vacuum, not creates it. Also, Seafoam won't do shit, you're wasting your time if that's what you plan on using.

[abamfo]

I used a spray cleaner and that was the port I used because I didn't feel like taking off my intake to spray directly into the throttle body without the intake in the way. This port allowed for that to happen easily since it's right in front of the TB. Don't just take the hose off and stick the hose in a bottle, won't work like that because the hose goes behind the TB to another component that requires vacuum, not creates it. Also, Seafoam won't do shit, you're wasting your time if that's what you plan on using.

The hose you are referring to on my car has definite vacuum for the PCV/OS system, which is where I thought you were referring to spray the decarb. I now know you were actually referring to spraying the decarb into the intake tube barb where the breather hose connects, so it is then sucked into the throttle body.

[SwankP3RF3ct10n]

Take the hose off the barb on the intake tube forward if the TB. Spray into the barb. Pretty cut and dry.

[abamfo]

Take the hose off the barb on the intake tube forward if the TB. Spray into the barb. Pretty cut and dry.

I get it now, albeit I can't imagine that is any different to simply spraying it on the throttle plate itself... I think that the best way would be to shoot it straight into the intake tract through the N80 fuel vapour port on top of the throttle body.. either way, I'm not expecting it to cure carbonization but help maintain the issue... my valves looked pretty good last time we had the charger off

[SwankP3RF3ct10n]

The point is, disconnecting the hose I was talking about keeps everything else working as it should during this process and you won't get any soft codes or actual CELs doing it this way. Technically speaking, you should be taking the intake completely off to spray it, but this is easier and won't mess with anything. Disconnecting shit after the TB introduces a level of question as to what could or could not trip in terms of errors, etc. But hey, it's your thing... do whatever you prefer.

[cspcrx]

I agree with Swank if your going to do it that makes the most sense.

[Audi Junkie]

meh, I just pop out the MAF and use it's port. CRC GDI cleaner....now I see Valvoline has come out with a GDI cleaner for semi-pro use, off the fuel rail I believe