Engine cleaning.............on the inside

[Rude Dog]

Anyone tried either of these? The second one seems to get the :thumbs: but I'd rather hear it off someone I know and trust :nod:

1.) Right before changing your engine oil add small amount of transmission fluid to your oil, let engine run for few minutes, change oil. Will rid your engine of sludge and other gunk.

2.) "If you really want to clean the carbon out of your engine follow these simple steps. Fill an empty soda bottle with water. Remove your air cleaner. Start your engine. While using one hand to control the throttle, trickle the water into the carb or throttle body with the other while holding your thumb over the bottle opening. Keep the engine rpm's up so that the engine doesn't die. Make sure that you don't pour the water in too fast! Water doesn't compress and if you pour too much water in, severe engine damage can result! White smoke from the exhaust is normal. If you have a port fuel injected car, you obviously won't be able to use this method, but I have had success with connecting a vacuum hose to a port at the base of the throttle body and sticking the other end of the hose into the bottle of water. The vacuum of the engine will suck the water in, creating the same effect. This will clean out even the most stubborn carbon, by 'steam cleaning' your cylinders."

[Matty T]

You should find this useful....

http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/vbb/showthread.php?t=66640&highlight=engine+flush

[Rude Dog]

You should find this useful....

http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/vbb/showthread.php?t=66640&highlight=engine+flush
Interesting read :thumbs:

[AshmanS13]

I'd try coca cola instead of water :nod: it will rot your teeth in no time so must get rid of carbon deposits :smash:

[Rude Dog]

I'd try coca cola instead of water :nod: it will rot your teeth in no time so must get rid of carbon deposits :smash:
Would I be right in assuming your taking the piss :confused:

[AshmanS13]

Would I be right in assuming your taking the piss :confused:


Erm, yeh :) tbh i thought you were :confused:

"Make sure that you don't pour the water in too fast! Water doesn't compress and if you pour too much water in, severe engine damage can result! " Sounds a bit risky to me :nod: What's too fast?

[Dave_S]

Apparently a fine mist of water sprayed past the AFM has the same effect as 10kboost :)

Dave

[Wak]

Erm, yeh :) tbh i thought you were :confused:

"Make sure that you don't pour the water in too fast! Water doesn't compress and if you pour too much water in, severe engine damage can result! " Sounds a bit risky to me :nod: What's too fast?

Yeah - Rude you can't be serious :no:

Do not pour water into an engine, it would very likely all go the way of the pear and a large repair bill would ensue

[Rude Dog]

I found the above on another forum and the discussion was quite lengthy there with most people disagreeing with option one due to the chemical makeup of tranny oil but agreeing that option 2, if done very carefully, basically steam cleaned the inside of the pots etc and worked a treat. I had never heard of either. Being old skool I was always taught that the crap in the sump shouldn't be a problem and a cruddy engine on the inside was fine if it ran ok. Sometimes the buildup of crud can actually plug leaks. I wouldn't post something like this as a joke as there is prolly someone silly enough to try it and the last thing I want is a msge saying someones fcuked their engine coz of me. Just wondered if there was any validity behind the above statements thats all. If I wanted to clean my engine I flush the oil out, drop rthe sump and clean it out that way and then take the head off and go for a decoke. But i WOULDN'T FEEL CONFIDENT DOING EITHER NOW AS ITS BEEN YEARS SINCE i TINKERED, AND THAT WAS IN THE DAY WHEN THE PINTO AND eSSEX LUMPS RULED. sORRY caps lock playing up aGAIN :wack:

[2 Black Lines]

Yeah - Rude you can't be serious :no:

Do not pour water into an engine, it would very likely all go the way of the pear and a large repair bill would ensue

Nice Quote :D


Would agree wuth the Water thing, but coke goes into Central heating systems to flush the radiators out.

[Jonny]

I've heard of using transmission fluid before an oil change before - usually to cure noisy / stuck hydraulic tappets. I'd be wary of what 'a small amount' is though!!!

Jon

[manic_mechanic]

Those Forte oil flushes are superb - oil stays clean for AGES after. I'm always a bit wary of flushing engines tho - not recommended on a CVH apparently - causes oilway thrombosis! If you want to clean your valve gear and you're pre-cat, a £1 can of carb cleaner works well - done the same way as the water treatment

[John Bennett]

When I took the head off an abused, 90,000 mile, 13 year-old S13 engine there wasn't really much carbon build up in it at all. Scraped off what was there with perspex, put it back together and the difference driving was negligible.

Just my experience though :) .

[Rude Dog]

The carbon builds up more if you do loads fo short runs tho doesnt it? A well used motor should be relatively free of this with todays detergents in pertrol?

[Dunk]

CONFIDENT DOING EITHER NOW AS ITS BEEN YEARS SINCE i TINKERED, AND THAT WAS IN THE DAY WHEN THE PINTO AND eSSEX LUMPS RULED. :

Yeah, but Pintos :D

My mate had a 1720 Race Pinto in his Capri..

It caught fire from carb stand-off igniting

It had open twin 40DCOEs

We chucked sand on it to put the fire out

1720 Race Pinto swallows about a kilo of unfiltered sand :wack:

1720 Race Pinto coughs, splutters, drops to 200rpm, coughs again, bangs once, then resumes normal Race cam lumpy idle :notworthy:

All hail the Pinto!! :D

As for water down the engine...

Use a garden/flower spray bottle with a mist nozzle and spray away.

The bulk component of water is oxygen

You won't suffer catastrophic meltdown of the engine if you chuck too much in - it'll just disagree with the oil film on the bores...

Think about it - you can drive round with a shagged headgasket causing draw-down of coolant on the down stroke for how long?

Water is cool...

And it'll clean everything up a treat.

:thumbs:

[John Bennett]

The short journey = carbon buildup theory is what I always thought.

Before I pulled it apart, the engine had just had a year of short runs from me driving it and the last 2 owners had only done about 20K over 5 years. S13's also run a bit rich, particularly the pre-cat ones. I expected thick chunks of carbon - there was less than 1mm. Mind you, it did get the odd BLAST a couple of times a week so that might have helped :D .

I should take apart the parent's Volvo 440 to see what short runs do to a car but they might object...

[Wak]

As for water down the engine...

Use a garden/flower spray bottle with a mist nozzle and spray away.

The bulk component of water is oxygen

You won't suffer catastrophic meltdown of the engine if you chuck too much in - it'll just disagree with the oil film on the bores...

Think about it - you can drive round with a shagged headgasket causing draw-down of coolant on the down stroke for how long?

Water is cool...

And it'll clean everything up a treat.

:thumbs:

Yes, a fine mist would be OK

True, water is 2/3s oxygen but we're not talking about the chemical composition. I would think it would take more than a trip through an engine to seperate the oxygen from the hydrogen

Meltdown - well actually it might. Water is not compressable so in theory you could lock the engine up on the compression stroke if you put too much in. Happens to cars going through floods.

Yes you can drive around with a blown head gasket but it's only a a tiny amount (like a garden sprayer - perhaps less) of water going through, and hot/under pressure too so it turns into steam pretty quickly.

[Dunk]

Yeah - but you need to chuck in an enormous amount of water to achieve compression lock.

When I ran water injection on the Cal-T, I found I could chuck in water at a ridiculous levels in comparison to fuel/air ratio before rough running would occur.

In literal terms, you can compress water (as you can any liquid) but the force required to compress is not achievable by a petrol engine.

Anyways - as the water enters the combustion chamber, the temperature -even at idle - should be enough to convert water to its gaseous state, a process which requires a massive amount of heat energy - hence why its used to prevent det in big boost turbo cars.

If I was to chuck water down the inlet, I'd be doing it at around mid-revs to ensure the combustion chamber temperatures are high enough to cause this conversion.

As for the conversion to component form, I was of the opinion that mixing with fuel air at 20psi @ 90 odd degrees, compressing to 10:1, then igniting to around 500 degrees was sufficient to cause component breakdown of its elements?

I thought it was this separation, and the heat absorbed during the process, that makes water injection so good...

[2 Black Lines]

Water mist systems are available to combat detonation, as to cleaning the inside of the combustion chamber, surely some carbon is needed as a perfectly clean surface would retain heat therfore lead to detonation?, not what turbo car needs.

As for using AQF in the oil for flushing, never tried it, but most of the engines I deal with are so slugded up ( with poor quality oil) we boil the blocks to remove it, even then we still steam clean some with the gallery Plugs out to remove the crud, AQF by itself will not do this, more than likely to release some deposits, which is not what we want for them to be lodged in the bearings.

[2 Black Lines]

Yeah - but you need to chuck in an enormous amount of water to achieve compression lock.


.

As for the conversion to component form, I was of the opinion that mixing with fuel air at 20psi @ 90 odd degrees, compressing to 10:1, then igniting to around 500 degrees was sufficient to cause component breakdown of its elements?

I thought it was this separation, and the heat absorbed during the process, that makes water injection so good...

If I remember chemistry; Water doesn't burn, sorry but it doesn't, to get the water to split you would say pass a current thru it, break it down to hydrogen + oxygen, the hydrogen burns in the oxygen, la da da water again.

the water passing thru an engine would not be under sufficient pressure/temperature to change its structure, it is inert, hence the reason we don't put evian in the petrol tank.

[Dunk]

Well I know water doesn't burn (not unless you're my missus, in which case it IS possible to burn water)

Right - explain how and why Water injection works then.....

[2 Black Lines]

Well I know water doesn't burn (not unless you're my missus, in which case it IS possible to burn water)

Right - explain how and why Water injection works then.....

1st part, pls exp sounds funny.

2nd part, the water is used ( from what I remember) the water slows the initial burn of the fuel air mixture down, two reasons, 1 to stop detonation, bad, VV bad in turbos, 2, to provide additional cooling of components, ie intake tract and inlet valve to avoid detonation.

Once the burn has taken place remember that cardon dioxide, carbon monoxide,nitrogen monoxide>nitrogen dioxide and water(steam) are produced.

Can any chemistry types correct any of the above as its 18 years since I last did Chemistry, so feel free to blow me out of the WATER, so to speak.

[Wak]

Right - explain how and why Water injection works then.....

:D Now you've got me

I don't really know, but Isn't water injection to do with cooling the charge by latent heat with the atomised water evaporating rather than putting extra oxygen into the charge by seperating it from the hydrogen in the water? What happens to the liberated hydrogen? :eek:

I'm sure someone will be along to tell us how it works in a minute :thumbs:

[Dunk]

WATER? Water exists mainly in a liquid state because that is its most stable inter-molecular structure. When we apply heat energy to it, its molecules begin to expand: a great deal of heat is absorbed during this process owing to water's specific heat capacity - approximately 4.2kJ/(kg.K). When the water changes from the liquid to gas state, large amount of heat energy is consumed in sustaining the process. The latent heat of evaporation is 2256kJ/kg, approximately six times more than gasoline!

SO WHAT? Because of its huge specific- and latent- heat capacity, water is the perfect liquid for regulating excess heat under certain engine-operating conditions, for example induction charge air cooling; but its biggest contribution is inside the combustion chamber where, under excessive loading, pre-ignition and detonation can otherwise occur. Such abnormal combustion is particularly common in force induction engines, where exhaust temperature can exceed 1100°C!


Thanks to Richard Lambs excellent ERL Aquamist site...

Aquamist was used by me on the Cal-T to great effect and I highly recommend it

[2 Black Lines]

WATER? Water exists mainly in a liquid state because that is its most stable inter-molecular structure. When we apply heat energy to it, its molecules begin to expand: a great deal of heat is absorbed during this process owing to water's specific heat capacity - approximately 4.2kJ/(kg.K). When the water changes from the liquid to gas state, large amount of heat energy is consumed in sustaining the process. The latent heat of evaporation is 2256kJ/kg, approximately six times more than gasoline!

SO WHAT? Because of its huge specific- and latent- heat capacity, water is the perfect liquid for regulating excess heat under certain engine-operating conditions, for example induction charge air cooling; but its biggest contribution is inside the combustion chamber where, under excessive loading, pre-ignition and detonation can otherwise occur. Such abnormal combustion is particularly common in force induction engines, where exhaust temperature can exceed 1100°C!





Thanks to Richard Lambs excellent ERL Aquamist site...

Aquamist was used by me on the Cal-T to great effect and I highly recommend it


Yeah, thats what I said but without the big words. Was I close?

But does it clean the inside of the engine?

[Rude Dog]

If I remember chemistry; Water doesn't burn, sorry but it doesn't, to get the water to split you would say pass a current thru it, break it down to hydrogen + oxygen, the hydrogen burns in the oxygen, la da da water again.

the water passing thru an engine would not be under sufficient pressure/temperature to change its structure, it is inert, hence the reason we don't put evian in the petrol tank.
LOL :D
You got this one by the jugular :nod:
So the short answer to all this is dont clean an engine unless its stripped down to its component parts coz you may do more harm than good?

[Jeffers_S13]

FFS, dont tip water in your engine :rolleyes:

[Sideways Danny]

i don't see why a fine mist sprayed in should do any harm. It's the same as water injection, and have you seen how clean it gets inside the combustion chamber after a blown HG?