Kreen with Auto-RX/HPL Engine Cleaner

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Nov 13, 2002
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OH, US
Hi there,

I semi recently came to own a junkyard k20z3 engine from a crashed Civic SI, and the shape of the inside is pretty bad. Lots of varnish, light sludge, etc. It has 110k miles on it, and lived a hard life as far as I can tell, but was cheap and runs well but it smokes a tiny bit and compression is slightly low.

I don't drive the car with this engine often, and it's a summer only car, so racking up thousands of miles is gonna take months and summer will come and go before I reach them. I'm curious, has anyone ever convinced a solvent cleaner like Kreen with an ester cleaner like Auto-RX or HPL Engine Cleaner? Did it work? Given that both are slow and gentle cleaners, maybe they could do their slow gentle thing together and make progress slightly faster?

Given that Kroil doesn't indicate Kreen as incompatible with high ester content or synthetic oils, and you could just as well run it with Redline or something like that, I don't see an obvious reason they would not play well together. That said, I'm obviously not a tribologist so I'm curious what others have to say.

--Matt

P.s. I have Kreen and HPL Engine Cleaner sitting here already. If it's a seriously bad idea to combine, and I instead do them sequentially, which would go first?
 
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No point in mixing

HPL/ARC, either can be used for the full interval.

Kreen, depending on dosage, should be used as a pint flush product on a no load cold engine 5-15 minutes.
I don't care to thin my oil out too much with a full interval dosage of Kreen, as some will use a couple ounces for the full interval too.

I bet your engine will clean with normal OCI's over time. 3-4 3000 mile oil changes with 3-4 different brands of full synthetic oil, and then inspect. I'd use neither for the 1st 2-3 oil changes.... Valvoline, Castrol, Pennzoil, Mobil1.... are a good start. If that doesn't work, Kreen/HPL/ARX away.
 
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I have seen excellent results from both. Choose as you see fit. Cost would be my deciding factor.

I think I will go with the 1 that is a sponsored product on this Board instead of the 1 that is no longer a sponsor here on Bitog.
Thank you 4 getting back 2 me.
 
Thanks for the advice y'all. I pumped out a quart and put in the HPL. The engine just has GTX 10w30 in it right now, since I didn't wanna put anything expensive in right after installing a new oil pan just in case it leaked. Hopefully the combo works fine.

Some background, which I should have probably shared, is that I've done 3 short OCIs with Edge Extended Protection 5w30 so far. It seems like I got it just yesterday, given how little I get to drive this Civic, but "semi recently" is actually spring of 2021 and the car has only gone ~2700 miles with this motor 🤣🫢.

I noticed the mess when I pulled the oil pan to do some maintenance just last week. Hopefully none of that makes Kreen a more ideal option, but I'll probably still run it later since I have it.

--Matt
 
ARX definitely works, I’ve used it and was not expecting to remove gunk in an engine that had regular oil changes and highway driving.
 
Thanks for the advice y'all. I pumped out a quart and put in the HPL. The engine just has GTX 10w30 in it right now, since I didn't wanna put anything expensive in right after installing a new oil pan just in case it leaked. Hopefully the combo works fine.

Some background, which I should have probably shared, is that I've done 3 short OCIs with Edge Extended Protection 5w30 so far. It seems like I got it just yesterday, given how little I get to drive this Civic, but "semi recently" is actually spring of 2021 and the car has only gone ~2700 miles with this motor 🤣🫢.

I noticed the mess when I pulled the oil pan to do some maintenance just last week. Hopefully none of that makes Kreen a more ideal option, but I'll probably still run it later since I have it.

--Matt
You made a good decision.
 
ARX definitely works, I’ve used it and was not expecting to remove gunk in an engine that had regular oil changes and highway driving.
I've owned a few oil burners over the years and used a bunch of ARX as a result. That stuff certainly does its job well! Proper ARX treatment and a steady diet of HDEO thereafter works wonders, even on Saturn SLs 😍.

It seems like the HPL Engine Cleaner is the current/new variant of the same basic idea, ester-based gradual cleaning, but distributed in a base oil instead of raw like ARX...and it's cheaper! Hopefully it works as well as I'm accustomed to ARX working. 🤞

--Matt
 
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Hmm...I'm seeing "results" suspiciously early. This engine has had an oil pressure flutter on and off while cruising at steady state I've noticed every time I've driven it since gauges went onto the car. I'm only about 100 miles in with the HPL EC and I haven't seen it a single time in 3 days.

Surely this couldn't be the additive. I went with 30wt, same grade I ran before, so viscosity hasn't meaningfully changed. Is there some explanation or is this some bizarre coincidence?

--Matt
 
Hmm...I'm seeing "results" suspiciously early. This engine has had an oil pressure flutter on and off while cruising at steady state I've noticed every time I've driven it since gauges went onto the car. I'm only about 100 miles in with the HPL EC and I haven't seen it a single time in 3 days.

Surely this couldn't be the additive. I went with 30wt, same grade I ran before, so viscosity hasn't meaningfully changed. Is there some explanation or is this some bizarre coincidence?

--Matt
Would you rather see results Later? 4 me, if I go into a Fast Food Place, I want the food right away, not like an hour later.
 
HPL EC is a very mild cleaner, it takes time to work. I threw it in a 09 Accord I bought last year, just hit 1500 miles on the oil. Decided to swap the filter out just in case. I have 0 records with this motor, all I know is it was a college students, and there was a lot of golden varnish.

I cut the filter open, only found a small speck of carbon every few pleats, nothing at all significant, however I lack a baseline for this motor anyways. I don't much care how the motor is, just using it to use it, car was stupid cheap, and I simply wanted to clean up what I could. I plan to run EC for 4k miles.
 
Would you rather see results Later? 4 me, if I go into a Fast Food Place, I want the food right away, not like an hour later.
I mean, sure, but it seems unrealistic that a mild/gentle/slow cleaner would make any sort of difference in such a short time. Maybe it's a bunch less slow in pressurized areas or something? Just seems kinda unbelievable that it'd do anything at all in such a short time.

Went for another drive this afternoon, still no fluttering pressure. :confused: I could set my watch to that waggle before.

--Matt
 
I mean, sure, but it seems unrealistic that a mild/gentle/slow cleaner would make any sort of difference in such a short time. Maybe it's a bunch less slow in pressurized areas or something? Just seems kinda unbelievable that it'd do anything at all in such a short time.

Went for another drive this afternoon, still no fluttering pressure. :confused: I could set my watch to that waggle before.

--Matt
After adding Rislone daughter and I noticed significant improvements in our engines in several hundred kilometres and still improving.
 
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