Engine Cleaning

Hey guys I just cleaned my engine out. After you clean your engine and start it up, is it normal for the RPMs to be kind of high (around 1100) and then drop gradually back to normal around the course of a few minutes?

I hope you didn't get your plugs wet when you cleaned it. I did that and ended up having to get new wires. Make sure you didn't get water in the cylinder.

Originally posted by Stogie82
I hope you didn't get your plugs wet when you cleaned it. I did that and ended up having to get new wires. Make sure you didn't get water in the cylinder.

Had to get new wires just because the outside of your plugs were wet? I have a hard time believing that. And the only way that water would get in the cylinder is if the spark plug was loose enough to fall out. I don't think i'd be too concerned about that happening.

I'd be more worried about getting water under the rotor cap. When you clean your engine in the future, make sure you keep the water spray away from any electronic components. And you might consider spraying a shot of WD-40 inside the rotor cap. This will keep the water from causing the spark arc between cylinders. I doubt that's what caused your RPM change, but it's something to think about.

Regardless, i doubt you did any harm to your car. Just be more careful with the high pressure in the future.

I actually didn't get the ignition wires wet at all because I covered them up really good. I followed the instructions on the Se-R.net site. Doesn't seem like I did any damage either because now RPM drops down to normal really quick. What is this "rotor cap" you are talking about?

Originally posted by frogg
I actually didn't get the ignition wires wet at all because I covered them up really good. I followed the instructions on the Se-R.net site. Doesn't seem like I did any damage either because now RPM drops down to normal really quick. What is this "rotor cap" you are talking about?

The rotor cap is the cylindrical shaped piece of plastic that all the spark plug wires plug into. Now that i look more closely, the SR20 cap seems to be fairly water tight. So, you probably don't need to worry about that after all. I'm just used to working on old-school V8's which have rotor caps that are very susceptible to moisture. Old habits die hard, i guess. :thinkerg:

Originally posted by Cue-Ball


The rotor cap is the cylindrical shaped piece of plastic that all the spark plug wires plug into.

also called the distributor cap, hence, its where the distributor is.:D

Originally posted by AznVirus


also called the distributor cap, hence, its where the distributor is.:D

Same difference. Listen to what i mean, not what i say. :huh:

Perhaps I am stating the obvious here, but is it not simply the auto choke. Was the car left for a while when you cleaned it? If it was, it probably just cooled down enough to need choke! No wires, water in distributer or cylnders!

Had to get new wires just because the outside of your plugs were wet? I have a hard time believing that. And the only way that water would get in the cylinder is if the spark plug was loose enough to fall out. I don't think i'd be too concerned about that happening.

I had a lot of water around the top of the plugs where the plug and the wire meet. Anyways i drove around for a while like this and then realized something was wrong cause i got a funny idle and no power when trying to accelerate. When I took it to the shop to get the clutch replaced I had them look at the wires too and see if there was something wrong with them or the plugs and they told me that the wires were bad. So I went and bought new wires and plugs and now everything works fine. Since it all happened to go wrong after i washed my engine and got water all over it I figured that was the problem.