GDI intake valve cleaning

17956 Views 13 Replies 6 Participants Last post by arathol, Sep 5, 2018

Tonyride

Discussion Starter · Jun 24, 2018

Since our engines are the Gas Direct Injection type has anyone done a cleaning of the intake valves? I'm in the process of doing it now using CRC GDI iVD Intake Valve and Turbo Cleaner. I'm at the 1-hour heat soak point right now so I though I'd take a break to make this post. If it all works well then I'll post my procedure and it is pretty simple and straight forward so fingers crossed. Wish me luck.

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M3Nitro

· #2 · Jun 24, 2018

Water injection or water/meth systems work very well (see Snow Performance kits) to cure and prevent intake valve deposits.
You can also perform a *direct application of water into the intake that can do a great job to reduce and clean the intake valves and also combustion chambers exhaust and top of pistons.

The only true way to determine if any cleaning process is useful or effective is by scoping the intake before and after the service.
Harbor Freight Digital Inspection Camera Cen-Tech®- Item#62359

* this has been a long performed service to remove carbon deposits and other contaminants over decades on both direct port F/I engines as well carburetor engines. It does require a little understanding and experience to be successful.

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M3Nitro

· #3 · Jun 24, 2018

Tonyride said:
Since our engines are the Gas Direct Injection type has anyone done a cleaning of the intake valves? I'm in the process of doing it now using CRC GDI iVD Intake Valve and Turbo Cleaner. I'm at the 1-hour heat soak point right now so I though I'd take a break to make this post. If it all works well then I'll post my procedure and it is pretty simple and straight forward so fingers crossed. Wish me luck.

:grin2:

:thumbup 1:

:Racing 1:

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arathol

· #4 · Jun 24, 2018

Is there any particular reason you are doing this? Was there an issue or just because?

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Tonyride

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jun 24, 2018

arathol said:
Is there any particular reason you are doing this? Was there an issue or just because?

I did it just because I want to get ahead of it before the build up gets too bad on the valves. With GDI engines it is inevitable.

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arathol

· #6 · Jun 24, 2018

I was actually just wondering if there was any actual evidence of build up such as bore scope pics or any sort of symptoms such as rough idle, power loss etc. There has been much discussion on the merits of Mazdas approach to preventing buildup. It seems to work for some, not so much for others. It would be interesting to see what sort of build up there was and the results of the cleaning process.

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Tonyride

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jun 24, 2018

arathol said:
There has been much discussion on the merits of Mazdas approach to preventing buildup...

What is Mazda's approach?

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arathol

· #8 · Jun 24, 2018

Mazdas idea is to design the coolant passages in the head in such a way that the intake valves stay real hot, above 400°C, the point where they say deposits aren't supposed to form. There are a bunch of SkyActiv cars now with a lot of miles on them and reports of problems don't seem to be too common, not like BMW or Hyundai anyhow where every car seems to have issues.

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minsanity

· #9 · Jun 25, 2018

arathol said:
Mazdas idea is to design the coolant passages in the head in such a way that the intake valves stay real hot, above 400°C, the point where they say deposits aren't supposed to form. There are a bunch of SkyActiv cars now with a lot of miles on them and reports of problems don't seem to be too common, not like BMW or Hyundai anyhow where every car seems to have issues.

True...Bimmer heads are notorious carbon magnets. Skyactivs seem to be holding it off.
We're in the process of milling Skyactiv intake adapters for walnut blasting. Better to stay ahead.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

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M3Nitro

· #10 · Jun 25, 2018

minsanity said:
True...Bimmer heads are notorious carbon magnets. Skyactivs seem to be holding it off.
We're in the process of milling Skyactiv intake adapters for walnut blasting. Better to stay ahead.

It is truly much easier to jet use a water/meth system but then you wouldn't make any money with the adapter.
We have a bakers dozen of various adapters in the shop to do that "DIRTY" job of walnut blasting. Not me, I just say it not in my job description. LOL

As for the MAZDA engines I have personalty scoped a couple of SKYACTIVE engines and have seen the same build up starting or have formed. It is one thing I knew before getting my NEW 2018 M3 I would be installing the SNOW system on it and blow the w/m through my own throttle body adapter.

Just because you dont read about something on the internet does not mean it does not happen in the real world. :laugh2:

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arathol

· #11 · Jun 25, 2018

There is a ton of info on this if you actually cared to look. Certain cars have certain issues that are well known among owners groups, this is reflected on their respective owners forums. BMWs are notorious for this problem, as are VWs and Hyundais and its been discussed to death. There seems to be on the other hand very few complaints from actual Mazda owners on this even after 6 years of SA production. In fact its just the opposite for the most part with many cars at 100k miles or more and no issues. The few pictures I have seen do show some buildup but not enough to be relevant. Some (most) of it can be shown to be to related to driving the car short distances with insufficient time to get the temps up to where the carbon shedding can occur.
There is a particular vendor that claims to show how much oil gets through the PCV system using a catch can, oil that has been said to cause deposits on the intake valves. However, those pictures when closely examined show that the captured "oil" is mostly moisture with a tiny bit of oil on top....
So, just because you read something on the internet doesn't mean its real either.

As to any cleaning using water to dislodge the carbon, I would consider asking Mazda first. If the intake valves are indeed kept at 700°F or more when the engine is at proper operating temperature, hitting them with water might cause some stress issues. Bending, twisting and fracturing valves could get expensive fast.

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hpmax

· #12 · Sep 3, 2018

I just found out about this issue and was thinking of spraying my intake with the CRC GDI Intake Cleaner every 10-15000 miles. I do have an inspection camera so I can try looking and/or taking a picture first.

One thing I heard suggested was a catch can. I ordered one of these Chinesium/Al units off Amazon for 25 dollars. Quality really wasn't bad although all the threads on it sound kinda "scrapyard" and the dipstick is lacking an o-ring.

Question is... where to mount it? I can only find three halfway decent spots, none of which I like.

1) Against the plastic lip of the rain tray in the dead center. It gives very easy access, but it means you are mounting to plastic and it's directly over the exhaust.

2) Right shock tower. This seems like a good place. But do I want to drill through the shock tower and how exactly would I attach it. There's a little vertical bracket with two holes that's screwed into it. It's possible I could remove the bracket, drill through shock tower and then just use screws from inside the shock tower into the threaded holes used to hold the bracket.

3) Just behind the left headlight. Probably the ideal location but I can't figure out how to actually attach it. Pretty much everything there is plastic and it's cramped.

Thoughts?

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gregersonke

· #13 · Sep 4, 2018

Seriously, I have 153k on mine, no issues with buildup as far as I can tell.

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arathol

· #14 · Sep 5, 2018

hpmax said:
I just found out about this issue and was thinking of spraying my intake with the CRC GDI Intake Cleaner every 10-15000 miles. I do have an inspection camera so I can try looking and/or taking a picture first.

One thing I heard suggested was a catch can. I ordered one of these Chinesium/Al units off Amazon for 25 dollars. Quality really wasn't bad although all the threads on it sound kinda "scrapyard" and the dipstick is lacking an o-ring.

Question is... where to mount it? I can only find three halfway decent spots, none of which I like.

1) Against the plastic lip of the rain tray in the dead center. It gives very easy access, but it means you are mounting to plastic and it's directly over the exhaust.

2) Right shock tower. This seems like a good place. But do I want to drill through the shock tower and how exactly would I attach it. There's a little vertical bracket with two holes that's screwed into it. It's possible I could remove the bracket, drill through shock tower and then just use screws from inside the shock tower into the threaded holes used to hold the bracket.

3) Just behind the left headlight. Probably the ideal location but I can't figure out how to actually attach it. Pretty much everything there is plastic and it's cramped.

Thoughts?

What issue? There is no real issue here and the catch can is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.

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