Cleaning Carbon from the Head

[Ryan00TJ]

Found this over at JU today and was wondering what everyone thinks or if they have ever used this method?

It is SO easy to thoroughly clean the carbon from your engine that it's not even funny, save your money. The usual way to do this is to slowly and carefully dribble 12-16 ounces of water, yes I kid you not, into the air intake as the engine idles. Feed it CAREFULLY and slowly enough that it will take a minute or two to drain the water container. This is not a dangerous method, it's well-proven and most mechanics do it this way. Mopar's CCC (combustion chamber cleaner) is ok too but is expensive and doesn't really do any better job at this than plain water does. This will leave the inside of the combustion chamber sparkling clean. Sometimes ATF will be used instead of water but ATF doesn't work any better and it just causes great white clouds of smoke, something your neighbors wouldn't appreciate.

Just be careful to keep the water container under complete control so you don't accidentally dump in too much at once that could conceivably cause hydrolock. Trickle the water in and you'll be fine, it's a very good technique.

And I really doubt your engine even needs to have the carbon cleaned out unless you drive your Jeep like a 96-year old lady... since driving ultra-conservatively and never revving the engine very high will encourage carbon deposits. Unless your engine is exhibiting signs of carbon build-up by pinging excessively, I'm certain your dealer is just out to make extra $$$ off of you.

 

[Dr. T]

How is water going to clean out caked-on burnt carbon from hydrocarbon combustion. What's next, water in the fuel tank/system is good?

 

[47HO]

I've heard of this. My understanding is that as the tiny water droplets enter the combustion chamber they "explode" (flash steam?), knocking the carbon deposits loose.

 

[BlueBird]

I guess this is for carbed engines only , like , how would you get anything past the MAF then past the TB and then into the intake ?

 

[SteveD2]

quote:

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Originally posted by BlueBird:
I guess this is for carbed engines only , like , how would you get anything past the MAF then past the TB and then into the intake ?

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I don't know how it is on other vehicles, but with my jeep I can just take the air tube off the throttle body and pour in whatever I want...

 

[cousincletus]

I know a mechanic who uses this method, except with a spray bottle. Supposedly, it really works, although I never saw the inside of the engine before/after the water spray was used. But I have seen how clean everything is on a car with a blown head gasket. The cylinder head and top of the piston will be spotless.

 

[eldawg4100]

it has a steam cleaning effect I believe... a cylinder with a headgasket leaking water and coolant into it will be absolutely spotless!

 

[eldawg4100]

it has a steam cleaning effect I believe... a cylinder with a headgasket leaking water and coolant into it will be absolutely spotless!

 

[oilcan]

I use this method myself, In fact I learned this from my High School shop teacher and that was in 1966. If you have ever pulled a head off an engine that has blown a head gasket, or broke you will discover that the cyls. that took water have very little to no carbon on the piston or head.

 

[tom slick]

i have used the water method before, it seems to work. on a fuel injected car you use a vaccuum port on the manifold to suck up some water.

 

[Aaron]

I can say that I have done this and have often experienced positive results afterwards.

I also know of many mechanics that swear by this but I can't name a single person that has verified whether there was actually any cleaning.

For those of you wondering how this is done on fuel injected engines. The two most common methods are:

A. Find a *suitable vacuum source upstream of the first intake runner or port and remove the hose from it. Block off the hose you just removed. (*suitable means something you can remove but will still allow the car to idle) You then place a hose between this source and your container of water.

B. Remove the intake boot from the throttle body and place your hose from the container of water into the opening for the bypass air valve. (so you get some suction)

You will probably need to block open the throttle a bit but it will idle with the MAF sensor bypassed.

Either way you do it, you will need something that will allow you to control the flow of water through your host. I use a pair of needle nost vice-grips.

 

[Ken2]

DON'T WATERWASH YOUR COMBUSTION CHAMBER ON A TURBOCHARGED ENGINE! You don't want the water hitting the small, fast turning turbocharger compressor blading.

On medium and large diesels, we do inject about a half or one litre of water daily into the air-side blades to kinetically knock any dirt off. Periodically we wash the gas blades while the unit is running on diesels burning heavy fuel oil. In this case, a medium sized engine is like a large locomotive engine (but not EMDs to my knowledge).


Ken

 

[Horatio]

just to clarify this to my walnut sized brain; you did mention adding 3qts of ATF directly to the fuel tank of whatever vehicle you're cleaning?

Greg

 

[novadude]

You guys should be careful doing the "water" trick. If you use a manifold vaccum port that is tapped into one cylinders runner, it would be very easy to suck too much water and hydrolock the thing.

Why not just try FP or something?

 

[Gary Allan]

I prefer ATF ..it combusts cleanly (that doesn't mean that you don't get the white cloud ...in fact you get a tremendous one). That is, it doesn't interrupt the combustion process like water. It appears, in my experience with many carberated and several sensored and injected vehicles, to be transparent to the engine.

The problem with most injected engines is that they, I assume due to the Air/Fuel idle motor, have abandonned the traditional PCV for the CCV (metered office). On many engines they do not have a central manifold plenumn location (like my Jeep). MAF engines ...I don't think that they'll even start with the air tube unhooked

and I'm uncertain if ATF would pass through injectors (fuel filters) of all engines. I've used this on my 92 3.0 Mitsubishi (just added 3 quarts to the tank) and had no operational anomolies after it was purged below a certain level (mild pinging for about a day). If any of you are so bold (or foolish if you will

) ..do so with the engine running so that the fuel pump is circulating the fuel. If you just add the ATF ..the sump picks it up "enmass" and you'll crank for a decade before enough fuel gets to the injectors to start the engine

How do I know this?

I've witnessed the results of this ..many times. The first was with a 60's vehicle with a bad vacuum modulator that leaked ATF into the intake manifold. The port was on the drivers side rear of the intake manifold (V8) ..the head had to be pulled and that cylinder looked like someone had used a buffing wheel on it. The others were covered in carbon (thank GOD for fuel injection). I've also had cause to pull exhaust manifold before and after doing this (again a carberated engine). It too was cleaned down to the metal with no carbon build up.

This technique has fallen out of vogue for several reasons. Mainly the mass use of fuel injection which negates a need for it for about 100,000 miles in the average engine. You don't have sticking chokes and whatnot. The other factor is mainly demographic. You have to be around 40-50 years old to even have witnessed the practice.

If I have a central manifold vacuum source I get about a half gallon of ATF and run a hose into the passenger compartment. I then get on the highway and put the engine under as much load as I can and uncork the hose and shove it in the bottle until empty. Sometimes I cycle the engine from coast to acceleration if the flow isn't good enough. Naturally I do this either at night or early in the morning. Any environmental insult that I may produce will be more than compensated for with reduced emissions in the long term.