Water Cylinder Decarbonizing... Should I?

[BlazerLT]

Remove the PCV valve and hold the hose just above the water line and allow the engine vacuum to slowly suck up a light stream of water.

[ZL1power69]

what are some of the hazzards/risks of doing this procedure?

[metallica21156]

hydrolock. i heard its bad to do on fuel injection. carbon can pop out though the intake manifold and cause problems. its more known with carbs since it wasn't a problem. you can also use seafoam or some tranny fluid. i don't know how well it would work with the pcv hook up but with a carb its fine.

[BlazerLT]

Carbpn can pop through the intake manifold? What the hell are you talking about.......

Will work completely fine on any type of engine and what you have heard is just a bunch of people that have never done it trying to make up reasons not to do it.

I have done it several times and you have to be a complete fool to do any damage.

The only thing a person can do is put to much water into the engine which is techncally impossible seeing the PCV line cannot suck up enough water to do that to any engine.

Works gret and it is highly recommended.

[ZL1power69]

LT, questions for ya (sry,lol);
- 1.7 Litres (0.45 Gallons); was this the total amount that u used or did u add multiple glasses of water to get to that amount (if so, how many and how much each time);how long should the engine sit in between doses?
- how did u introduce the water while having the pcv catch can installed?
- what kind of water (tap, distilled, spring)?
- does it matter how cold the outside temp is?
- should i pull the egr afterwards(need to anyway but just checking)?

thanks

[cleanshavenrsx]

blazer lt can you make a post with pics and description on how to do this?

[BlazerLT]

Originally Posted by ZL1power69

LT, questions for ya (sry,lol);
- 1.7 Litres (0.45 Gallons); was this the total amount that u used or did u add multiple glasses of water to get to that amount (if so, how many and how much each time);how long should the engine sit in between doses?

Just use a small glass and fill it up and introduce it slowly into the engine while it is idling at 2000-2500rpms. The small glass is just for ease of handling seeing you will have to modulate the throttle as you are doing this in order to keep the engine rpms up.

Use 0.5 gallons total for the first time. Do it once a week for one month. Just be really slow and allow the pcv line to suck up a constant stream of water. The edge of the hose should be just touching the water , DO NOT JUST STICK THE HOSE INTO THE WATER.

Originally Posted by ZL1power69

- how did u introduce the water while having the pcv catch can installed?

Yes, just use the hose that goes to the intake, just remove the separator connection.

Originally Posted by ZL1power69

- what kind of water (tap, distilled, spring)?

I prefer lemon flavored to give my truck a treat...... joke, just tap water will be fine.

Originally Posted by ZL1power69

- does it matter how cold the outside temp is?

I prefer it to be above freezing when doing this for obvious reasons. After take it for a good run to get all the vapor out of the engine and clear even more carbon.

Originally Posted by ZL1power69

- should i pull the egr afterwards(need to anyway but just checking)?

thanks

Let the engine tell you whether it needs to be pulled, if it is running fine I doubt you will need to.

Hope this helped.

[Brian R.]

If your engine is running fine, it is probably inadvisable to decarbonize it.

If you find you are pinging on acceleration when you didn't use to or other signs of having carbon deposits, then it is probably a good idea. Some people drive their trucks on the highway enough to decarbonize their combustion chambers naturally. Not every engine develops enough carbon deposits to cause degradation in performance.

JMHO

[ZL1power69]

Originally Posted by BlazerLT

Just use a small glass and fill it up and introduce it slowly into the engine while it is idling at 2000-2500rpms. The small glass is just for ease of handling seeing you will have to modulate the throttle as you are doing this in order to keep the engine rpms up.

Use 0.5 gallons total for the first time. Do it once a week for one month. Just be really slow and allow the pcv line to suck up a constant stream of water. The edge of the hose should be just touching the water , DO NOT JUST STICK THE HOSE INTO THE WATER.



Yes, just use the hose that goes to the intake, just remove the separator connection.



I prefer lemon flavored to give my truck a treat...... joke, just tap water will be fine.



I prefer it to be above freezing when doing this for obvious reasons. After take it for a good run to get all the vapor out of the engine and clear even more carbon.



Let the engine tell you whether it needs to be pulled, if it is running fine I doubt you will need to.

Hope this helped.

ya done it again. thanks bro. i'll let ya know how it turns out.

[BlazerLT]

Originally Posted by ZL1power69

ya done it again. thanks bro. i'll let ya know how it turns out.

Good luck and remember, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.

[Fashiontrance]

I just did this to my 2001 Impala (3.4L V6, 140,000 miles).

All I can say is WOW. I'm quite pleasantly surprised by how effective this method is and would recommend it to any DIYer who hates going to national auto repair chains only to be charged an arm and a leg and be pressured to purchase unnecessary items.

However, I performed the water injection a little differently. Instead of leaving the PCV hose wide open, I chose to rig up a makeshift regulator. From Ace Hardware, I obtained two feet of 3/8" plastic tube and a small needle valve for about $6.00. I taped one foot of hose securely to the suction line, and at the other end, connected the valve. I connected the other foot of hose to the opposite end of the valve and placed the remaining open end in perhaps 8 fluid ounces of water.

With the valve fully closed, I cranked the engine and held the revs to what sounded like 2000 rpm with a furled parasol wedged between the front seat and the accelerator. I then proceeded to open the valve just enough so that whilst priming, the water took between one and two seconds to travel from the cup to the valve body. One could possibly admit a larger stream, but I chose to exercise a little more restraint.

It took about ten minutes to empty the cup. Without shutting off the engine, I removed the rig and reconnected the suction line back to the PCV fitting before taking the car for a spin. I then noticed a HUGE difference in performance.

I can imagine one could substitute water for the GM or Mopar brand of engine cleaner.

The reason I performed this procedure in the manner I did was to prevent foreign particles from entering the engine through the suction line and to prevent the mixture from getting too lean.

[BlazerLT]

Yea, it does work wonders.

You would be amazed how many people have emailed me about the technique and how much they likes the results.

Glad it worked out for you.

Next time all for a quicker intake of water for anything to be really cleaned. Too slow and it does relatively nothing. You really have to get the water in there to steam blast the cylinder tops and valves.

You won't ever hydrolock the engine unless you go extremely overboard which is next to impossible.

[JoulesWinfield]

I was just wondering if this was possible with an injected engine.
Like many others we used to do this on our carb'd engines all the time.

Great thread LT!

[534BC]

It should not matter which type of fuel delivery or fuel type this is done on. I had done this on many different engines in the past and conclude that if done properly you can run a gallon of stuff in just a few miles without hydrolocking and it also doesn't help any on hard carbon. I've used solvents, water, methanol, brake fluid, some stuff I won't name, and none of it will disolve carbon deposits.

We had also run water injection for years and those engines were ALWAYS the worst for baked on carbon that was nearly imposible to remove without a hard buffer or oven. Carbon that's flakey or loose or disolved is pretty easy to disolve or remove .

I haven't done this in over 10 years , but remember taking mutiple buckets of water and alcohol "on the road" with 2 people, it's lots of fun to make smoke screen.

[K5Calamity]

Decarbonizing by water injection has been around since well before WWII, nothing new. Fathers just quit teaching their sons about it I suppose, sad really.

On a side note that's more aftermarket performance oriented, you can still buy water injection kits from places like JC Whitney to improve wide open throttle performance - by reducing detonation and pre-ignition on high hp/high compression carbed engines.

What's acually happening in this application is the water physically cools the valves, heads and pistons and helps reduce combustion chamber temps. Reduce temps of these parts enough and maybe it allows you to run higher compression ratio's with less fear of detonation.

Like everybody else says, don't use too much, too quick or you'll be bending rods, or busting holes through pistons due to hydaulic lock. It needs to be a metered amount and fine tuned to the application through trial and error, hopefully not to much error.

There are better ways to achieve higher performance. I just put this for gee-wiz info