While I love the power that direct injection provides it has one flaw...






My car is an 08 with 42k on the clock. Recently i've noticed decreased performance, slower trap speeds, and lower dyno numbers so I decided to do a compression test. The compression test resulted in a cylinder low in compression which in turn made me do a leak down test. To my suprise air was leaking out of the intake valves on the leak down test.

Today I pulled the intake off just to see how bad the buildup was and boy was I in for a shock. I'm almost positive that the gunk is holding one of my intake valves open causing the low compression. The car was seafoamed at 30k and i've been running meth injection for the last 2k miles but even that wasn't enough

Oh well, I ported my spare intake and throttle body today, installed a new k+n intake with powerstack air filter, and cleaned as much of the valves as possibly could. Hopefully this gives me back the performance I had a year ago

 

That is a huge fail!

 

That makes me worry

 

Seafoam, Seafoam, Seafoam and don;t wait till you got a gazillion miles on a DI motor either.

Someone posted on here with pictures of his valves and at 15k miles he was already starting to get build up.

 

Do you have any blow by?

 

Zero blow by. The car doesn't smoke at all, eat oil, or do anything out of the ordinary besides being down alittle on power. No oil in the air intake, throttle body, intake manifold, or charge piping.

 

I think that throwing a catch can on the pcv line or routing it out the exhaust would help that quite a bit.

 

so seafoam dont work =p

 

It's kinda jacked up that you get this not long after your 3yr/36,000 is up. :/

 

damn!

 

Has anyone tried cleaning their valves with carb cleaner? I would think if you turned the engine over afterwards with plugs pulled and fuel pump fuse pulled you'd lose all chance of detonation of this and the carb cleaner should break down the carbon better than seafoam.

 

ummm.......100k powertrain

 

I would not just spray carb or brake cleaner in there, that will end badly.

+1 for Seafoam. I would have a new set of stock plugs on hand after. It seems to gunk up the plugs pretty good when you do the seafoam treatment thru a vac line. I would also soak the O2 in denatured alcohol after you do the seafoam as well. Just my .02.

 

Any suggestion as to which vaccum line is best to do seafoam through?? I seafoamed mine bout 2 oil changes ago, but i just poured it into the tank and dont think it did much of anything

robk

 

The port on top of the intake manifold works well or the port on the front of the manifold for your brake booster. Don't let it suck it all in at once. Just for prob a second dip the hose in. Do that repeatedly until you use up 1/3 of the container as per seafoam or 2/3 is what I use.

 

My car is at 56k miles, I almost don't want to look in there to see what my valves and ports looks like.

 

I use a clear glass and fill it with 1/3 of the seafoam bottle. Then slowly suck it up a lil at a time, it should take 3-5 mins to do this part. Let it idle for another 30 seconds and shut it off. Wait 10 mins and start the car, drive normal for a few mins and enjoy the show lol

 

Yep, that's why I had all my intake valves replaced at ~38,000KM (note not miles).

 

So then a can of seafoam "should" last you a couple times of this?? Thinking of doing this when i get home afterwork today

robk

 

I seafoamed my old daily at 214,000 miles for the first time ever. I let it soak for about 15 minutes and proceeded to pretty much shut down traffic on the road in front of the house lol.

 

Seeing as i dont have the car today(rode the buell) does anyone know what size of hose i would need for the brake booster port on the manifold?

robk

 

mine are same almost identical 35k miles..

nice pics its hard to get good pics from the Intake Mani of the valves

 

Come on do a how to for us..

Ive never sea foamed anything but Im sure lots of us would like to ..




Watch the show made me crack up... I guess it smokes pretty bad huh ?

 

subd. same thing is happening to my car

 

1/4 in vacuum line, 1-ft in length - it will do the job nicely.