Re: Bored surfing yields weird advice...comments?

[Steve Manning <stephenm@ix.netcom.com>]

This topic has been recently discussed on the bmw-digest and
mopar-mailing-list.  Consensus (if there ever is one) seems to be that it
can be useful in cleaning out carbon, although be careful about not putting
in too much & hydrolocking.  Reducing carbon can reduce tendency to knock,
which is crucial to turbo guys & gals.  Dripping water in seems to be
better; using ATF produces huge clouds of smoke.  (Ever ripped apart an
engine that's had coolant leaking into a cylinder?  It's easy to find; it's
the *very clean* one.)  YMMV a lot here........SLM

At 05:17 PM 9/18/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Well, I was absently surfing today and came across a site called 
>www.overboost.com.  It's a webzine published by/for the import (mostly
>Japanese) turbo/performance crowd.  One of the pieces of advice they
>had posted under "No Buck Performance" was a way to clean the intake
>tract/engine by:
>
>1) Getting a bucket of water or ATF
>2) Remove a vacuum line from the motor while keeping it from stalling
>3) With a finger over the line to "regulate" the flow, submerge the end
>    of the line in the bucket.
>4) Rev the motor and let the engine suck the water / ATF into the 
>    intake to clean out the carbon deposits.
>5) Don't let in too much water or you'll destroy the engine
>6) Replace the plugs because you've fouled them if you used ATF.
>
>They also put in italics: "Consult with a mechanic before trying this..."
>
>Now, I have heard through the grapevine that water injection can help
>keep combustion chambers clean and that sounds plausible.  But I've
>never heard anyone advise someone to deliberately introduce water/ATF
>into the engine using a bucket, through a vacuum line, with the engine
>running in order to clean the intake and combustion chambers.  I can
>imagine that this method might dislodge some of the gunk from the intake
>manifold/combusion chambers that would wind up right on the
>turbocharger.  Also, a fine mist is one thing but adding significant amounts
>of water = steam = pressure = blown head gasket?
>
>Does anyone have any comments on this before I get my garden hose?
>;-)  Seriously is there a kernel of good advice here? In one of the archives
>there was a discussion of adding 1 quart of ATF to fresh oil and letting
>the engine run for awhile to de-crud it internally, then draining and
>replacing with fresh oil and filter.  That sounded reasonable.  But ATF into
>the intake?
>
>Best Wishes,
>
>Alex
>'86 5KCSTQ
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Steve Manning:  stephenm@ix.netcom.com
...Physical home: Metro D.C. area, USA
.....Virtual home:  http://www.stationwagon.com