I was like a child again after I did this to my 1999 Chevy Prizm with all the jumping up and down I did as I told my neighbor, and then my wife, and then the internet. I had
just taken care of my fuel injectors - at least one was very leaky, but
that cylinder was still 5-7 degrees hotter than the other cylinders. For
a bit I was thinking and growling, did I spend too little? I actually
diagnosed that the fuel injector was bad, right? Of course I did!
I
watched a bunch of YouTube videos about different engine clean up
chemicals while I considered removing my engine's cylinder
head. I read a lot of MSDS on those cleaners and found which ones did
more cleaning by their ingredients. (Note: Ericthecarguy's review on
Gumout Regane? Had more PEA or what actually does the cleaning, about
2-3 times as much as The Scotty Kilmer review on Gumout Multi-System
fuel cleaner...though that also protects you from Ethanol. It turns out
that some cleaners have quite approximate values for the cleaner with a
range of percentage.)
I digress. I tried a spray water bottle.
Knowing how I fried my MAF not waiting to run it for long enough after
cleaning it with MAF cleaner, I didn't want to spray the water in pre-maf.
I also
didn't want a CEL over my MAF not being involved. So I finally opted to
use a tube that takes blow by gases to my intake right before the
throttle. (For more about MAF go to Schrodingers Box MAF diagnosis reaction blog)
For 10-15 minutes I sprayed water in there (engine was already warmed up to a normal operating temperature), when the
engine started to struggle a little, I kept the RPM up a bit until it
cleared.
When I was done, the temperature on all the cylinders were the same! No more super carbon on one from the leaky injector!
Sure
it wasn't a dyno, but I used my Torque App - which calculates
everything accurately if you have give it the right values (weight of
the car plus me for example). I went from 109 to 114 wheel horse power!
The
engine was so SMOOTH. I checked my oil after this, it was due, for my
car at 5,500 miles, but I had to change it 500 miles early because of
all the crap I knocked out of the engine. So I recommend doing this
before an oil change because of the filth and because there was probably
some water in the oil after this.
My water bottle was filled
just above the 21 oz. fill line and afterward I couldn't even tell how
much water I had used because it looked like it was in about the same
spot.
After the test drive, I rechecked the cylinder temperatures
(or as close as I could get to them on my metal intake*) and all the
cylinders were still the same temperature.
My car didn't
complain about any knock that I know of, but that cylinder was hot
enough that it may have been getting ignition a little early so my
timing was retarded, or possibly I just stopped that cylinder from
putting out extra power over the other cylinders.
Final
consequence: I could hear my engine wasn't quite even in spark. I
rechecked the gap on my iridium spark plugs and steamy water had changed their
gap. This may not always happen, it only threw one spark plug gap
off.
I've made my own video now too!
Check out my latest article about fuel injector cleaners and another YouTube channel that's really putting it to the test! Does Techron Concentrate Plus really work? Or another upgrade entirely that really smoothed out my engine: grounding wire upgrades.
*my metal intake has air in between each tube so I didn't feel the need to take off my exhaust shield and check engine temperatures there
by AutoBravado
