I cleaned the intake valves on my DI engine

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I got a check engine light a few weeks ago that the intake manifold went out on my 2013 VW GTI. It has just over 84K on it. Lots of highway miles from my wife.
I'm a semi mechanic by trade and was a mechanic at a Honda dealer before that. That being said, the job isn't difficult if you have the right tools and watch
a video on Youtube how to do it and have some competence. After I scraped all I could, I vacuumed, blew out the ports with compressed air and sprayed in
GM top engine cleaner and got it all looking new again. After I got it all back together, I test ran my car and changed the oil, spark plugs, gas filter and the air filter.
This is a pretty easy engine and car to do this procedure on.




 
Awesome! Ive done this on a few ecotec's! They weren't DI so they weren't as bad. Do you have an oil catch can installed? Thats helped my engines a lot!
 
Umm, was there supposed to be an 'after' picture?
confused.gif
I can take your word that the difference was amazing, but pictures are so much fun!
 
Originally Posted By: skyactiv
I got a check engine light a few weeks ago that the intake manifold went out on my 2013 VW GTI.


What does this mean?

The 'before' intake pic you posted doesn't look very bad.
 
Originally Posted By: gathermewool
Originally Posted By: skyactiv
I got a check engine light a few weeks ago that the intake manifold went out on my 2013 VW GTI.


What does this mean?

The 'before' intake pic you posted doesn't look very bad.


There's an intake manifold actuator that can fail.

OP, you should have called your local VW service center, as there is an extension to cover the manifold.

I also would not have recommended a valve cleaning; yours don't look that bad, but it is nice to do while you're in there.

Nice work!
 
Originally Posted By: KGMtech
Umm, was there supposed to be an 'after' picture?
confused.gif
I can take your word that the difference was amazing, but pictures are so much fun!


I went "ugh" when I saw the before pics....Yeah how about posting the after??
 
Originally Posted By: rooflessVW
Originally Posted By: gathermewool
Originally Posted By: skyactiv
I got a check engine light a few weeks ago that the intake manifold went out on my 2013 VW GTI.


What does this mean?

The 'before' intake pic you posted doesn't look very bad.


There's an intake manifold actuator that can fail.

OP, you should have called your local VW service center, as there is an extension to cover the manifold.

I also would not have recommended a valve cleaning; yours don't look that bad, but it is nice to do while you're in there.

Nice work!


I took my car to the dealer and they ran the VIN. My car wasn't covered as its a 2013. Some previous years go to 120K!
 
Funny thing is most of us would have forgotten to take the before picture and NOT the after picture!! But not SkyActive; he only took the before picture!
 
Hard to tell how bad the top of the valves are, but the stems and port are pretty bad. With everyone else on wanting to see some after photos.

This accumulation happened using a quality oil? It really looks terrible for less than 100,000 miles. And I would think the accumulation would only get worse with what is already there. What was the code for the CEL? cleaning the carbon deposits made it go away?
 
Originally Posted By: HemiHawk
Hard to tell how bad the top of the valves are, but the stems and port are pretty bad. With everyone else on wanting to see some after photos.

This accumulation happened using a quality oil? It really looks terrible for less than 100,000 miles. And I would think the accumulation would only get worse with what is already there. What was the code for the CEL? cleaning the carbon deposits made it go away?


Those valve deposits are nothing. I wouldn't have even bothered to clean them.
 
Originally Posted By: rooflessVW


Those valve deposits are nothing. I wouldn't have even bothered to clean them.



The first picture has the port opening looking like its diameter is being decreased no? Would that affect airflow/performance?
 
Originally Posted By: HemiHawk
Originally Posted By: rooflessVW


Those valve deposits are nothing. I wouldn't have even bothered to clean them.



The first picture has the port opening looking like its diameter is being decreased no? Would that affect airflow/performance?


It's a mild decrease in performance all the way up until you start to get cold-start misfires caused by the buildup. The n/a engines see a larger decrease in performance.

There have been before/after dynos posted on VWvortex. Seems a 5-10% decrease on hp is normal with heavier building. On a stock daily driver it's not noticeable until you get the MIL. Then you have this:

 
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