Carbon buildup cleaner

Digity

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Any opinions on this cleaner spray option. Looks like folk’s been doing this for years on direct injection. Any clear downsides on our motors?
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SDAlexander8

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Ive been using CRC Intake valve and turbo cleaner every 10k miles. Other than being a bit tricky to not make a mess with it, ive had no issues.

If you’re interested, I can share exactly how I do it now after a bit of trial and error.
 
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Digity

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Yes that would be great.
 

SDAlexander8

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The best way i find to do it is to start the car and take off the short soft piece of the intake just past the MAF sensor. Take it off completely and set it aside. It just gets in the way. I turn the can all the way upside down and stick the straw as far as possible into the hard plastic part. Otherwise it just puddles up and drips back out all over the cat and 02 sensor.

Make sure you’re in a place where nothing foreign can get sucked into the intake. If you have a lot of miles on the car and quite a bit of buildup, it can get kinda scary. You’ll see a lot of white smoke out the exhaust, it’ll have a strong sulfur smell. And when you do actually get to the driving part, you’ll hear chunks clanging in the exhaust, power will be cut and possibly even feel like it’ll stall out. It’ll be okay though.

I find it better to be closer to 2500 RPM than 2000 RPM. Whoever is in the drivers seat keeping the RPMs up, tell them to aim for between 2k and 2.5k.

Slow 3 second bursts and a 3 second pause between seems to work best for me. It seems like it takes forever to kill the can if you just do quick spurts.

There is a different method described on the can that says experienced mechanics only should use a vacuum line like the brake booster line. I tried it once and the check engine light was flashing and the catalytic converter got red hot. I would not recommend. I’ve also heard that all the chemical probably gets sucked into one cylinder doing that as well because it isn’t evenly distributed in the intake manifold.

Important to follow the instructions on the can when in doubt. These are just small adjustments i’ve made to the process that i’ve found to make it easier on our car after doing it 5 or 6 times now. It’ll freak you out the first time you use it for sure. Still makes me nervous, honestly.

I found the CRC cleaner at a Walmart one time and I can’t remember where. Most Walmarts i go to don’t stock it. Generally that stuff is cheaper at a walmart than a stupid auto parts store. But I’ve found that it’s about 14$ anywhere I go.

When I do it every 7.5k to 10k miles now, I really don't get a lot of smoke, audible chunks, or engine stalling. I get some hesitations in power when I go do my drive after the hour long heat soak. I hope this means it’s working and that all that has built up in that time is a thin layer rather than large chunks. Engine is still running great at 77k miles.

Hope this helps some people. If anyone else has some suggestions or mechanical knowledge on how well the stuff works on our cars, feel free to share.
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