Maintenance Questions

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Yup

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I drive a Honda with about 200K on it. It's the K20A3 motor. I have time to spare and was just interested in seeing what everyone does to "tune up" or "clean their engines out" when they get older. Fuel system cleaner (brand)? Seafoam or some brake booster vacuum concoction? Cleaning specific sensors? Seafoam or cleaner in crankcase? Italian tuneups (do they do anything on newer models)? Any other "tricks"?

I'm not having issues, I just thought a fun discussion, and possibly a small flame war, would make these forums light up a bit on a Thursday night. But really, just curious if people have "grandaddy's remedy" they use at XXX,XXX miles that "works wonders".
 
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Take the throttle body off and clean it.

S90-THROTTLE-BODY.jpg


Take the oxygen sensors off and wire brush the carbon out of the inlet holes.

oxygen-sensor.png
 
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Take the throttle body off and clean it.

Take the oxygen sensors off and wire brush the carbon out of the inlet holes.

oxygen-sensor.png



I like these two ideas! I did the plugs, valve adjustment, etc a couple months ago. Much quieter now but still has a bit more of a shake at idle than I like. Nothing major, but you can tell it's idling instead of not knowing your car is running. I won't have time for a while but it'd be interesting to check the intake valves, too. See how much carbon is caked on things.
 
Originally Posted By: CT8
I am not sure what Sea Foam actually does.


Nor am I but I do know that when you use it as prescribed for the intake/valve cleaning it makes a lot of smoke and makes you feel as if you must've cleaned something out or done some kind of goood. I'm not sure that it's really worth messing with.

There is a Youtube Video where a guy demonstrates how it successfully can clean carbon deposits from the top of a piston on a lawn mower engine. He does use a pretty large quantity and pours it directly into the spark plug hole then shows the results after a couple 'cycles' of it with a bore camera. I don't believe that it would really work this well applied to a multi-cylinder car engine through the prescribed method of sucking it through a vacuum hose.

In short, I'm in agreement, I don't think it's worth the cost.
 
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The only time I would remove an O2 sensor is to replace it. Never heard of anyone wire brushing it to clean it. I never had carbon build up on any of mine after 100k+ miles on the old ones I replaced. Good recipe to ruin it. If you have carbon blocking the holes, there are bigger issues wrong causing that.
 
Originally Posted By: Andy636
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.


Agree. It wouldn't hurt to spray the proper cleaner to clean the throttle body out but I wouldn't waste the time removing the throttle body.
 
Depends on the car. Saturn S-series have mechanical throttle bodies and removing them gets better, longer-term results. Getting the back of the blade clean helps keep the goo from running down and getting in the way shortly thereafter.

Stick shift cars with mechanical throttles feel much smoother after a decrudding and idle speed circuit cleaning. Since many PCMs try to maintain idle when the clutch is half out, the driver feels they handle the stick better when everything's 100%.
 
Originally Posted By: artbuc
If you go to the trouble of removing the O2 (A/F?) sensors, replace them with new OEM or Denso.



+1 I wouldn't clean an O2 sensor, replace it with OEM or leave it alone if you're not having any problems with it.
 
No problems, no "clean up" necessary, and might even create a problem. I'm at 300k on my civic with 5k conventional oil changes, uses 1/2 quart between changes. If you "feel" the idle, I strongly suspect motor mounts, a weak spot on many Hondas.
 
Originally Posted By: Andy636
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.


Agreed. My 2005 2.4l is 226k in and doing just fine without cleaning anything.
 
I'd clean the throttle body in place with a rag and TBI cleaner spray and clean the MAF with MAF cleaner spray.
 
Originally Posted By: Leo99
I'd clean the throttle body in place with a rag and TBI cleaner spray and clean the MAF with MAF cleaner spray.


I did this for the first time on my then 18 year old 1996 Contour with the 2.0L Zetec and it made a nice difference in the idle smoothness and acceleration from stopped. This was without changing the plugs or wires or anything else.

Whimsey
 
Originally Posted By: bvance554
If its shaking at idle maybe you need to check the engine mounts.


It's barely a rough idle. Just not the "is it still running?" like you'd wonder when new. Engine mounts were fine, checked them a couple months ago. But that is a common reason for rough idle...
 
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