TeamSwift

So I found a couple of videos on youtube in which people sprayed water in the intake with the engine running in order to remove carbon deposits. I performed this routine in my Gti as follows:
-warmed the engine until the cooling fan kicked in.
-placed a piece of folded paper between the throttle lever and stop-screw, thick enough to keep the engine running at 2000rpm.
-unpluged the little vacuum-hose from the fuel rail
-sprayed water through the hose several times, paying attention not to spray too much and stall the engine
-then I drove around for a while to remove any water that would still be in the system

After this procedure, I removed the sparkplugs and noticed that they were really clean... Cleaner than I could have made them myself. Looking into the combustion chamber with a flashlight revealed that the pistons were a lot cleaner than normal, as no black soot was present. I can only assume that the same could be said for the valves and remaining parts of the combustion chamber.

I don't know how I never heard of this before, but it sure seems to have worked really well. This was performed to my daily, which runs pretty good, so I couldn't tell if it made the engine run smoother or not... If I would, it could be a placebo effect. However it seems like a good idea for regular maintenance and maybe an alternative to seafoam? I know I would never pour that stuff in my engine anyway.
The best part is that it's just water, which is super cheap!

Anyway has anyone done this to their swifts before? What are your thoughts about this?

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MK2/3 PARTS FOR SALE - EVERYTHING MUST GO!

1993 Swift Gti

I have done it before on older cars. It does seem to work. I was told that it is basically steam cleaning the combustion chamber.

Intresting. I think I might try this.

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1991-GTi: JE 75mm 11:1 pistons,Ported head, Single UD pulley (OCC),Sandros chip,Aluminium flywheel,3tech 222/365 cams, Cultus headers,Cultus IM,50mm tb,Crane cams adjustable cam gears,Apex suspension, 4.39fd GB.
1989-GTi: 3Tech 210/340 Cams,Cultus IM, B&G springs, TD04L turbo, Apexi SAFC, Suzukird UD pulley, Circuitse7en dual boost controller, AEM wideband, AEM water / meth injection kit, HKS bov.
2001-Altezza AS200: Stock.-sold
2003-EVO7 GT-A
Aruba "one happy island".

It's been decades since I used this procedure. I can't really say whether it's something that will "extend" the life of a motor or not but It does appear to remove carbon deposits. One thing I would be concerned about is carbon "chunks" getting caught in the exhaust valve when it closes and getting a deposit build up trapped on the mating surface. This would prevent an exhaust valve from fully closing. So I guess it's a hit and miss thing unless you do it over a long period of time and the engine is running fine at idle when you are done.

When I have done this, I have had control of the pedal and my RPM is up fairly high while I'm injecting water. So far, so good (fingers firmly crossed).

Again, I haven't done this since I was driving $75 beaters ($750 in todays market. Just for you coasterII. Oh, BTW coasterII, I played in a working rock band for 30 years, You'll never get the variety of skank I've had. Keep dreaming that you're the man ). You may be younger but that will fade. My weight, ya, it caught up to me because of life altering injuries but I can diet and can probably bench press more than you. You can't fix stupid. I'm still waiting for you to prove me wrong about you by actually fixing something.

with the engine up to operating temp the cool water hits the hot carbon and it shatters. it spalls off in tiny chunks.

hold the throttle butterfly open and slowly pour a metered amount of water down through the thottle body without letting the rpm fall. if you pour too much too fast it will hydro-lock the engine.

like top down@-40, i have used that redneck tuning aid for 40 years.

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1991 Blue Geo Metro Convertible highly modified 1.0L Turbo3 5 spd. - 1991 Red Geo Metro Convertible customized with a Twincam 5 spd.

My Turbo3 Project
My Cardomain Page -Ol' Blue
My YouTube Channel
My Photo Gallery
SAAB Sonett II

Anyone attempting this needs to be extremely careful..

Water is NOT compress-able, so if you get TOO much into a cylinder at once, kiss your engine bye bye.

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"Don't argue with stupid people. They just bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

I was afraid of that too, that's why I sprayed the water and took my time. Although you'll probably need to pour a lot of water to hydro-lock the engine. As a reference, there's a video in YouTube where the guy used a garden waterhose and even that didn't seem to be enough to damage the engine. I'm still playing it safe with the spray-bottle, but there seems to be a lot of room for mistakes as long as you have common sense.

_________________
MK2/3 PARTS FOR SALE - EVERYTHING MUST GO!

1993 Swift Gti

No, it doesn't take much actually.

I don't know anything about a guy on Youtube using a garden hose; but with our engines I would only recommend using a spray bottle that sprays a very fine mist and spraying it occasionally. Water can easily pool in the intake and then all of a sudden flow into one of the ports and you can play catch the connecting rod after wards.

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"Don't argue with stupid people. They just bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

This trick has been around since the engine was invented. If you like me and live at the wet coast you don't have to worry as we have enough water in the air it natural does this. But in dry areas it can build up. Unless you drive your car. Running your car to red line a lot will also keep it clean.at least that's what I tell the wife. But like most people say be very careful. What you see in a video is not always right. And there is a big difference to doing this on a 454 big block compared to our 1.0L and 1.3L engines. The bigger the engine the more water it can handle. So a big block 454 can Handel almost 8 times more water then a 1.0L. 25 ml of water can blow our engines up easily.

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92 geo metro 1.0L 5 spd. 2 dr Soon to be my turbo swap car. (Dragonfly) sold
91 pontiac firefly, 1.0L 2dr auto. stock. (The crap can) sold
91 chevy sprint. 1.0L 5 spd. My first turbo swap. (Red rocket) now the purple nurple
95 geo metro. 1.3L auto parts car. (Scrap)
91 chevy sprint turbo, blueboy keeping it "stock"