Water decarbonization, does it work?

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: asand1
I would use a garden sprayer to spray a fine mist. Even better would be methanol washer fluid sprayed while under load. I have often thought about buying a wrecking yard washer bottle/pump and irrigation misting nozzle to do a hard install for cleaning/antiknock.


Yes, exactly this.

There are nooks and crannies between my throttle body and intake valves, though, that water might accumulate in. I get a funky knock on the "road test" afterwards but no permanent damage. It's enough to worry about, but not enough to stop me.

If you have a plastic accordion intake for example there are lots of pockets water could sit in.

 

[Yup]

I've done the funnel and slowly pour water/seafoam before. Jam a small funnel into the brake booster line (or whatever feeds all cylinders on your car) and SLOWLY pour. Like trickle it. While someone (or you set the idle high) keeps the idle at about 2k RPMS. I'm not a believer that the "smoke" means anything like some people think, but the idle improved drastically after doing. Also, a friend had an old Dodge with a 360 (it wasn't the 318, whatever the bigger famous Dodge was) and we did the water method on his quite often. CHUNKS of carbon would come out the exhaust. But this was land before all the emissions stuff. Today it'd probably all just clog the converter. But anyway, below his exhaust the ground had black, carbony chunks. We thought this was bad so pulled the engine apart. We were in HS so cars were for fun, not getting to work. Anyway, we used brushes, wires, etc. to remove the carbon. The thing was CAKED with chunks. Every nook and cranny was a thick, thick, thick, layer of carbon. After shining stuff up and dropping in some kerosene with the oil we drove around in L for about an hour just screaming the engine. Dropped the oil, and oil pan, and more chunks of stuff came out. So we repeated the process. After a couple of days of flush, scrape, refill, the thing ran like it was factory new. Ahhh, engines before FI and computers. Always gunked up!

 

[FCD]

my exhaust is pretty black and sooty on the inside, but it burns some oil and smokes on startup so that is likely it, and yeah an italian tune-up works great i do it every once in a while and the engine runs so much smoother and feels more responsive after that

 

[DoubleWasp]

Modern engines leave the black mess too. I did a Taurus one time that literally left a small mound of crud on the ground.

 

[FCD]

i had my engine bay power-washed a few months ago and the engine did seem to run a little better after that, could it be the water?

 

[rideahorse]

I had a small block in a 63 chevy that was getting tired. I would put cardboard in front of the radiator and go drive it till I had the water temp up to hot and then I would run the motor up to about 4 or 5 thousand rpm's and actually run the garden hose into the carb till it about killed the motor. I would do this about 4 times a year. I ran for years that way. It burned a lot of oil.

 

[FCD]

Originally Posted By: rideahorse
I had a small block in a 63 chevy that was getting tired. I would put cardboard in front of the radiator and go drive it till I had the water temp up to hot and then I would run the motor up to about 4 or 5 thousand rpm's and actually run the garden hose into the carb till it about killed the motor. I would do this about 4 times a year. I ran for years that way. It burned a lot of oil.

Holy [censored], i would have exxpected it to bend a rod

 

[CT8]

Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
i had my engine bay power-washed a few months ago and the engine did seem to run a little better after that, could it be the water?
Not on the outside of the engine.

 

[FCD]

Well i know for sure some got in the air filter housing

 

[Vikas]

You could disconnect the tube going to your windshield nozzle and re-direct it to the intake manifold. Then remove the wiper motor fuse and now you have on-demand decarbonizer at zero cost.

 

[Robenstein]

Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
Well i know for sure some got in the air filter housing


It take a LOT more than that. I used about a quart of water at a time.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: Ducked
Seems to introduce a vacuum leak?


When done with 1/4" hose and an air stone it seems negligible, the fuel trims don't change much at all.
It could be a fun Bitog project for those who like to tinker.

 

[FCD]

True

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: Ducked
Seems to introduce a vacuum leak?


When done with 1/4" hose and an air stone it seems negligible, the fuel trims don't change much at all.
It could be a fun Bitog project for those who like to tinker.


I've considered doing the hippy hookah thing, but I'm having enough trouble with the carb (vacuum leaks and??) as is, and I'd have no data on fuel trims for reassurance.

If I get around to a fixed installation (I've only done temporary lash-ups before) I'm probably more likely to just go via the air intake rather than using manifold vacuum. I might use the washer-pump as suggested above, or steam generated by exhaust heat. The latter would get around the need for distilled water, though I think if you've got aircon condensate that's probably good enough.

 

[Ducked]

If into tinkering, I'm thinking it might be an idea to add a water bath pre-filter (as used on early Fordson tractors) to your air intake.

As far as I can tell (havn't seen any detailed descriptions or diagrams) these were similar to an oil-bath air filter, but they wouldn't contaminate your intake with oil, and presumably some water (as either vapour or mist) would get drawn into the engine, so it'd be dual-purpose.

I've seen it claimed (for water injection systems) that drawing a small amount of water mist through a paper filter is not harmful to it, but that's for a finely atomised spray, so it'd need to be confirmed for a filter installation.

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_110369/article.html