Here is my car today.. 50, 000 km's and tuned for 20,000. I drive very hard on the car and never lug it so it's not that bad, regardless my idle was very very poor and plugs where fine. I cleaned these valves today(6 hours) and the car purs like it did from the factory. Looking at it again, walnut blasting does a more effective job, but this cost me $40 for gm top end cleaner and a gun barrel cleaning kit. Just a lil elbow grease too

 

That's the before? Where is the after?

 

Other things are more important than taking more pictures

Clean your own and see how awesome your car become again!

 

I really need to see how bad my intake valves are, is a boreoscope the easiest? Or just pull the IM?

 

A boroscope is easiest. If you have one. Taking the intake off isn't too difficult though.

 

I tried a borescope in my throttle body, hard to do, didn't see anything. Is there somewhere else we can go in or do u have to remove im?

 

does the borescope fit through the purge valve hole?

 

Vacuum line for the brakes. It's right in front and more than large enough.

 

Oh yeah forgot about that. And it's a good angle to at least see a couple valves.

 

One is all it takes. The rest will all be exactly the same.

 

Did you Seafoam it through the vacuum line? There seems to be confusion in this thread when people say they "Seafoamed their car." Some people assume that means they added it to the vacuum line, others think they added it to the gas (which would do nothing for the coked up intake problem).

I have an 08 with 53k and I've seafoamed it through the vacuum tube twice since getting cold start misfires that I suspected had to do with this valve gunk problem. I just did it this weekend for the second time and replaced the plugs, so we'll see if that helps...
One thing I've learned from this thread is that I need to run my rpms higher on a normal basis. I guess I've been driving to nicely...

 

Yes and as we have discussed elsewhere, you don't have to rev the **** out of it, just keep the revs up.

So when running around 60mph you should probably be in 4th instead of 5th.

 

Could you use corn cob media? I have a ton for my reloading tumbler.

 

Yea, I just used to deliver meds for a few pharmacies as an in-between jobs kind of thing, and I felt bad for my car while doing that so I'd be a little too gentle...4th gear going 35mph-grandma driving - kind of thing. Now that I don't have that job anymore and I know not to be so eager to shift during normal driving, I will drive accordingly. It's more fun anyway.

 

Yes I could see that being an option.

 

i just pulled my IM today because I had to replace my injector seals and figured I'd post up pictures of my valves and what I've used in terms of maintenance for reference for others

Bought the car with 40k on it and unknown previous maintenance records
Mobil1 synthetic changed every 3000 miles
seafoamed every 6000 miles
I drive the car like a raped ape most of the time, so its never really babied around except while cruising on the hwy
ran on stock tune from 40-50k miles. HPtuned on 93 from 50-58k miles, HPtuned on E47 from 58k-current 61k miles




from cylinders 1-4









overall, after seeing some of the posts in here I was expecting to see much worse.. that said, I still know mine arent great. Regardless, I just needed the car running so I didnt do anything to them for now. I will be cleaning them this fall once the car has a bit of downtime where I can just take my time with it and clean them right.

 

I have a lot of gunk built up on mine.... after talking with powell seems that my pcv isnt working well. I have a aftermarket turbo and the line from the passenger side of the valvecover is too far from the turbo to generate any vaccum... can a fitting be put into the rubber part of my coupler? couldnt find any info about it. the metal part of my intake would start about 4 inches away from the turbo inlet about 2inches closer to where it is now.... any info or advice is greatly appreciated

 

there are issues with no vacuum for sure, understand that as far as GM are concerned the system is designed with the stock K04 to maintain vacuum levels even under boost in the neighborhood of -2 03 -3 kPa. which is .5 to .8 in hg.

Two things are clear to me. #1 the stock K04 with GMst1 or better on the race track is under boost so much, that there is no vacuum under boost. I have not measured this, but based on the oil backing up the oil drain return, its happening. Keep in mind that in a 2 minute lap at a typical road race track you are at least 1 minute 20 seconds under boost.. at least.

#2 with the way the aftermarket turbos are configured, thare is little chance of the pcv system pulling a vacuum under boost.

SO. Diesel engines dont typically have vacuum in the crank case, so oil drain lines from the seperator need a check valve. OUt folks tracking their cars with a K04 need a check valve. Folks with aftermarket whatever s256/ZFR/ et al need this as well.

I am working on it. The Fabi is away in Syracuse at a big hot rod meet, ,Ronnie my gear cutting machinist is due to go out on holiday, and I am having a hard time locating a mann hummel check valve ( MH recommend this for diesel oil return seperator systems)

This is where I am at; contact via email is best, and I am trying as hard as I can to get it all done as we find out more. Normal non track folks pretty much have no issues at all.

PS the powdercoaterr did a hatchet job on his finger with a hedge trimmer and his 2 i/c is on holiday this week so those folks waiting patiently ( or not) for sway bars my apologies, we are late with hardcore and triple X bars. Also the humidity is so high the moment you blast metal it rusts in about an hour just sitting. wow.

I expect Tuesday all the bar orders will be shipped and for the PCV upgrades, i should have the check valve system figured out next week ; again , email me if you are in that club- Sox fan is for sure....also Kevin J and his ZFR also.....

and they said this would be easy lol

 

ill be need this as well. thanks

 

^^^PM john@powellraceparts.com cheers

 

subd

 

lol I have waiting on a response... ill send it again

 

text message sent :P

 

I havent seen this thread in months. So now powell in making a check valve for the stock system? Or for his current PCV upgrade system?

 

the stock system has check valves in the inlet manifold and the fresh air intake for the PCV. It has no drain back.
My drain back upgrade has no issues on the street.

For reference, Wangspeed on the street fills a non drain back seperator in a month or so. It takes 20 laps on the track to fill 500 ml capacity.

thats the issue. crankcase blowby in extreme race track conditions. I hope I have explained it clearly and correctly.