Carbon Remover

[bwalker]

I have seen guys many times ask for a product that removes carbon easily. In the past I have used Mercury Powertune in outboards and it worked mediocre.
Recently my daughter's car was running like shat. It has a GDI or gasoline direct injection engine. It has no fuel passing by the intake valves, but the PCV valve dumps oil vapor from the crank case into the intake. Of course this leads to nasty carbon buildup on the intake valves. To clean this crap out the guys at the local Napa turned me on to CRC GDI cleaner. It does indeed work very well. Two applications and 80% of the carbon was gone.
Since then I have also used it to decarbon a Honda 4cyl engine that I ran on old two cycle fuel for years. It cleaned it right up too.

 

[ballisticdoughnut]

Your exactly right about GDI engines, they don’t have that “self cleaning” action that port fuel injected engines do. What I did when I was a auto tech was remove the intake manifold and manually clean the carbon out of the intake ports. After that, I’d do a induction cleaning where a fine mist of a cleaning agent was sprayed into the intake while the engine was running. This was quite effective. I’ve seen engines that were so nasty you wouldn’t want all that carbon going through the engine, hence the manual cleaning beforehand.

 

[bwalker]

Your exactly right about GDI engines, they don’t have that “self cleaning” action that port fuel injected engines do. What I did when I was a auto tech was remove the intake manifold and manually clean the carbon out of the intake ports. After that, I’d do a induction cleaning where a fine mist of a cleaning agent was sprayed into the intake while the engine was running. This was quite effective. I’ve seen engines that were so nasty you wouldn’t want all that carbon going through the engine, hence the manual cleaning beforehand.

That's what I did. I had the manifold off to replace the plugs. I soaked the closed valves in cleaner for a few hours and then attached with wood barbecue skewers. Sucked up the crap with a shop vac with small nozzle adapter. I then ran the engine at 2500 rpm in neutral while I sprayed the cleaner into the manifold via the pvc breather hole.

 

[J D]

I've used foaming oven cleaner to clean Carboned up parts with good results in the past. Don't know if I'd spray it in the manifold of a running engine tho.
Be interesting to know what the active ingredients in the CRC stuff are... oven cleaner is just NaOH (caustic soda/lye) which will also damage aluminium given enough time so you need to be concious of that (& its ability to react with organics like skin & eyes) when using it

 

[bwalker]

The msds is out there. It's basicly naphtha and an amine.
Oven cleaner is out for use on aluminum pistons or cylinders for the reasons you mentioned.

 

[261cm]

I have seen guys many times ask for a product that removes carbon easily. In the past I have used Mercury Powertune in outboards and it worked mediocre.
Recently my daughter's car was running like shat. It has a GDI or gasoline direct injection engine. It has no fuel passing by the intake valves, but the PCV valve dumps oil vapor from the crank case into the intake. Of course this leads to nasty carbon buildup on the intake valves. To clean this crap out the guys at the local Napa turned me on to CRC GDI cleaner. It does indeed work very well. Two applications and 80% of the carbon was gone.
Since then I have also used it to decarbon a Honda 4cyl engine that I ran on old two cycle fuel for years. It cleaned it right up too.

 

[261cm]

I never got into the GDI’s, but on port fuel injection or a carb motor one of the best ones I ever used was Yamaha Ring Free. Yamaha had a really bad issue when running Yamalube in the 3.3 V-6 outboards. While it is a really good 2 cycle oil, it was loaded with molybdenum which is probably the best high pressure lubricant, but it also takes a very high temperature to burn off. What ended up happening is it would build up carbon under the rings and would jack the rings out from the piston, and then it would catch on the port and rip the ring land off the piston. If you didn’t use ring free you could rest assured you would have a power head failure on one of those. I always ran it in my outboards, and what really impressed me with it was I had just bought a old Corvette that was a piece of crap, and was getting ready to pull the motor and go through it. My boat had been setting for a while and I pulled the fuel out of it and put in the vette along with a good dose of ring free. Pulled it out on the road and gave it all it had. Looked in the rear view mirror and all you could see was a huge cloud of smoke. Took it back to the shop and pulled the motor out and tore it down, and the top of the pistons were perfectly clean. That sold me on ring free, and the motor was a old high mileage oil burner.

 

[North by Northwest]

GDI valve problems is nothing new , unfortunately most people do not realize until to late that fuel additive have no effect within maintaining clean valves in these systems due to a lack of adequate fuel wash . I have seen where Berrymans 2611 concentrated spray cleaner has worked very well along with liqi-moly or the old favorite Seafoam introduced within the air intake downstream of the mass airflow sensor at the throttle body . Actually more effective is to install a closed loop catch oil canister system within the pcv piping circuit , that prevents the recirc injection of hot gas & oil vapours from the crankcase into the intake & valve surfaces which bakes on the combustion byproducts even further . The canister has a baffle which knocks down the vaporized oil vapours before they hit the valve surface . The canister can be emptied as required . Otherwise religious spray cleaning is the only other alternative that I am aware of currently ! P.S. Ensure any spray is safe to use within your specific engine components design perimeters e.g.. do not spray directly within your maf sensor unit it will destroy the sensor element .

 

[sean donato]

Making me real glad my gasser are not gdl, and my diesel doesn't have any such bs on it.

 

[angelo c]

Berryman b12 is one of the best decarbon-ator I've used so far. I just soak the piston top in a few mm of the stuff then brass brush it some. Rinse repeat and you get a clean piston pretty quickly

 

[bwalker]

Berryman b12 is one of the best decarbon-ator I've used so far. I just soak the piston top in a few mm of the stuff then brass brush it some. Rinse repeat and you get a clean piston pretty quickly

I keep B12 spray on hand as that's all I use for spray solvent. I actually tried that first on this particular engine and it didn't phase the deposits.

 

[bwalker]

GDI valve problems is nothing new , unfortunately most people do not realize until to late that fuel additive have no effect within maintaining clean valves in these systems due to a lack of adequate fuel wash . I have seen where Berrymans 2611 concentrated spray cleaner has worked very well along with liquid moly or the old favorite Seafoam introduced within the air intake downstream of the mass airflow sensor at the throttle body . Actually more effective is to install a closed loop catch oil canister system within the pcv piping circuit , that prevents the recirc injection of hot gas & oil vapours from the crankcase into the intake & valve surfaces which bakes on the combustion byproducts even further . The canister has a baffle which knocks down the vaporized oil vapours before they hit the valve surface . The canister can be emptied as required . Otherwise religious spray cleaning is the only other alternative that I am aware of currently ! P.S. Ensure any spray is safe to use within your specific engine components design perimeters e.g.. do not spray directly within your maf sensor unit it will destroy the sensor element .

If I was going to keep this particular car it would have a catch can or a hose running right to the ground.
I've tried seafoam multiple times over the years and never noticed it did a damn thing. Seafoam has a GDI cleaner as well, but the consensus is its garbage and doesn't work. This was from the auto parts store guy who suggested the CRC product which is actually cheaper than the Seafoam GDI cleaner.

 

[North by Northwest]

If I was going to keep this particular car it would have a catch can or a hose running right to the ground.
I've tried seafoam multiple times over the years and never noticed it did a damn thing. Seafoam has a GDI cleaner as well, but the consensus is its garbage and doesn't work. This was from the auto parts store guy who suggested the CRC product which is actually cheaper than the Seafoam GDI cleaner.

Yes , the Seafoam GDI spray is what to use on this application . It is what we used in the Diesel Applications where this form of heavy fouling was an issue back in trade the 70's . I have since used Berrymans & liqu -moly on my Cummin's . Seafoam is the least concentrated of any of the products & is best for symtomatic ongoing repeat treatment . I routinely use the liquid formula as a pre-oil change desludging practice I add 4 ounces to my oil a week before the oil change . Also actually any of the mentioned GDI sprays should be used before a scheduled oil change , since it could contaminate your fresh oil afterwards . The open loop or line to atmosphere is the most effective Ben . I did so on my Harley Rocker box cover to crankcase system . I just added a small 2 ounce pleated air filter to the end of the hose hiden within the lower frame tubes . Either open loop or closed with catch canister is likely illegal within most States or Provinces , but that's another matter . The CRC sounds like a valid product option for your Honda brother !

 

[angelo c]

I keep B12 spray on hand as that's all I use for spray solvent. I actually tried that first on this particular engine and it didn't phase the deposits.

maybe because Im "soaking" the pistons and ultrasonic-ing the carbs ? stuff works better than the Stihl stuff they recommend...probaly different applications.... But im game to try new "ointments"

 

[North by Northwest]

Making me real glad my gasser are not gdl, and my diesel doesn't have any such bs on it.

Unfortunately , its called more efficient brother . It is what it is & we have to deal with it . Yeah my 5.9 Cummin's with Rotella T , just keeps on ticking along . I think the pro electric flag wavers are gathering more numbers lol.

 

[sean donato]

Unfortunately , its called more efficient brother . It is what it is & we have to deal with it . Yeah my 5.9 Cummin's with Rotella T , just keeps on ticking along . I think the pro electric flag wavers are gathering more numbers lol.

Yeah I understand that, but at what cost? Just another maintenance item to worry about that the average person knows nothing about. Heck most people didn't even notice when trans dip sticks wernt under the hood anymore.
Really with the millage we got in the older efi isn't that far off a lot of this new stuff. I'm all for new tech but there has to be a real benefit from it, and it shouldn't have a crap design flaw, that adds more work...

 

[North by Northwest]

Yeah I understand that, but at what cost? Just another maintenance item to worry about that the average person knows nothing about. Heck most people didn't even notice when trans dip sticks wernt under the hood anymore.
Really with the millage we got in the older efi isn't that far off a lot of this new stuff. I'm all for new tech but there has to be a real benefit from it, and it shouldn't have a crap design flaw, that adds more work...

I agree Sean , you know your preaching to the choir bro . I remember when I was back in Daytona during bike week with a buddy who was a GP bike mechanic of some notoriety , mostly good lol. Well we got into a session with a Nascar technician buddy of his as to the advancement of the then thought to be modern internal combustion engine . My Cycle buddy mechanic was speaking engine compression , timing , dwell & piston & port design & exhaust flow dynamics , things that defined world class cycle racing of that period . Well the NASCAR tech starts off with fuel injection as the thing of the future , throttle body stuff . That was going to refine tuning & performance & better distribution & flow characteristics ...yada. yada .( More efficient) My cycle buddy responds & how's all that going to effect the cost of a gallon of milk & a loaf of bread . Well pardner were now just finding out how much more $ that efficiency is going to cost as we move from the actual rather simplistic & somewhat more efficient throttle body technology to today multiport batch on to sequential injection to the more modern direct injected fuel management systems . Try counting the number of sensors & actuators there are on a modern engine that talk directly or indirectly to micro processor or computer , its staggering . Anyhow were off topic again , the important part is to remember the green theme that generated all this efficiency in the 70's mostly politically driven. Brother . P.S. Yeah I remember my 1st CVT car , just an automobile version of my Snowmobile drive & driven clutch component system . Must admit they have held up for me within 2 cars with zero maintenance , mind boggling that is . I guess eventually the engineers have to get some thing right ! " Only thing worse than an Engineer with total autonomy , is a Mortician with a smile on his face ! "

 

[SteveSr]

That's what I did. I had the manifold off to replace the plugs. I soaked the closed valves in cleaner for a few hours and then attached with wood barbecue skewers. Sucked up the crap with a shop vac with small nozzle adapter. I then ran the engine at 2500 rpm in neutral while I sprayed the cleaner into the manifold via the pvc breather hole.

So you have to take the manifold off to change the spark plugs? What overpaid engineer figured this out? Same issue with what appears to be a required valve cleaning maintenance.

 

[bwalker]

So you have to take the manifold off to change the spark plugs? What overpaid engineer figured this out? Same issue with what appears to be a required valve cleaning maintenance.

Yes... and a few other components as well.
The problem with the intake valves Carboned up can be chalked up to the tree huggers. Instead of venting crank case vapours to atmosphere they route it into the air box where it fouls up the entire intake.

 

[sean donato]

Yes... and a few other components as well.
The problem with the intake valves Carboned up can be chalked up to the tree huggers. Instead of venting crank case vapours to atmosphere they route it into the air box where it fouls up the entire intake.

When modern diesels started having to capture crankcase "emissions" we had a lot of issues with turbo seals, and oil cooking on the impeller wheels. Then they started using oil mist separators. Some were good for life some needed changed out every so often. They helped a decent amount. Heck the newer cummins even had a sensor built into then to tell you when they need changed. The simple solution was to run a catch can and block off the port to the manifold. No more issues after that.
I wonder if that would be something that could be done and not fowl up the ecm...