Water Cylinder Decarbonizing... Should I?

Test Subject: 1995 Blazer LT 4.3L CPI Vortec
Status: 125,000miles
Condition: Good, but definitely will have some carbon in the cylinders.

Now, I heard of the water decarboniztion people used to do with carbed vehicles and motorcycles and lately I haven't heard many people doing it. It is said to be the most effective way to clean pistons and combustion chambers.

On fuel injected vehicles, you mist water through a spay bottle into the throttle body or suck water through the PCV line which will atomize the water quite effectively when you hold the throttle to half.

Question is, has anyone done it here?

Should I try it?

And yes I did the combustion chamber cleaner and it did fuck all but foul my plugs.

What do you think?

Like most old ideas, they are based on fact, somewhere. Yes, water mist will decarbon the combustion chamber and piston tops. There is one product out there called SeaFoam that is supposed to do the same thing. The problem comes up: how do you know what is enough? And the only good way to prove it is to disassemble the engine and look. And who wants to do that?
We used to use ATF to do the same thing, it would also foul the plugs. We would pour it down the carburator with the throttle at half or better until about a half quart was gone and then lower the idle until we stalled the engine. Let it sit for 20 to 30 min. and try to start it. Usually had to clean the plugs to get it to start. And oh the smoke (great for the mosquitos).
To answer the question, I don't think it is worth it, since I can't prove what if any good it has done.

BTY, when it rains, don't you get a lot of mist drawn in with the air, anyway?

Not to the concentration of sucking a pint of water in gently through the PCV hose.

I too used Seafoam and it fouled my plugs also.

I want to get away from the oil based cleaners that really do more harm than good. The one way I have been told that you know the engine is better is when the water and steam coming out of the tail pipe is clean and not black anymore.

Your thoughts?

I have heard of a method were an injection system is rigged up using a needle (normally used to inflate basketballs) a length of vacuum line and a bottle of water. If you poke a small hole into the PCV valve hose with an ice pick and insert the needle and let the vacuum do its thing to the water bottle. I was also told that this procedure was used almost constantly.

But just a word of caution, this was done a few years ago on an older vehicle, so let your conscience be your guide!

I just did the water decarbonizing.

More info soon.

*Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk. I will not be held responsible for you doing this wrong and screwing your engine.*

Here is my CPI 4.3L Vortec.

http://www.tweaknews.net/decarbon/cold.JPG

Ok, well, I did it, I poured water through my engine. As mentioned earlier, water decarbonizing is a cheap and effective way to steam clean your cylinders and dissolve any carbon deposits in the combustion chamber.

Warm the truck up completely by taking a 15 minute drive to get it right up to temperature. Do NOT do this on a cold engine PERIOD!!!

How Much?:

http://www.tweaknews.net/decarbon/water.JPG

1.7 Litres (0.45 Gallons)

Through Where?

http://www.tweaknews.net/decarbon/pcv.JPG

PCV Line

Here is a video of the truck running just before I started the water.

http://media.putfile.com/startclean

Method:

1.) Get a short glass like what is pictured above fill it and position it so the PCV line is just above the water line.

2.) Raise the rpms to 2000-2500rpms

3.) Slowly raise the glass so the PCV line is just above the water line. The suction is strong enough that it will start sucking in water. Just keep feeding the water slowly in with the throttle set to 2500rpms. After the water has all been sucked up for one glass, keep the revs up so it keeps on clearing the steam from the system.

DO NOT BE A COMPLETE IMPATIENT IDIOT AND JUST STICK THE HOSE INTO THE WATER AND SUCK IT ALL DOWN FAST! YOU WILL HYDROLOCK YOUR ENGINE AND DESTROY YOUR TRUCK. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

4.) The engine will start to spit and sputter but keep the rpms high until it smooths out. Let it sit for a bit and get another full glass and repeat.

This is what you will see, some small amount of steam coming out of your exhaust.

http://media.putfile.com/smokeclean

I didn't see any carbon or anything coming out the exhaust nor did I see the amount of steam I thought I was going to see, BUT, hold my hand over the exhaust had me feeling the water coming out the exhaust.

Here is a sound of the engine being responsive after the complete treatment.

http://media.putfile.com/revclip

The throttle is much more responsive, no hesitation whatsoever. Remember, this truck has over 125,000 miles on it.

Engine more responsive? Yes!
More Power? Can't tell, I am not a dyno.
Smoother? Bigtime!

Here is a small clip of me at 3/4 throttle. Hear the cold air intake howling!

http://media.putfile.com/floorclean

Let me know what you think.

IS THIS WORTH WHILE? YES!

i tried your idea and slowly put a very small amout of water in.as soon as it started to take the water i keep it at that amount and then stoped when i ran out. i didn't see any water mist behind me and the engine didn't seem to run any different. 72,880 miles. was i just not adding enough water. you could her the engine pitch change when i was adding the water.

I hope after the water was done you didn't immediately stop the engine.

I really hope you didn't do that.

i let it run for about 15 mins and then took it for a drive. still no diff. could it be the engine was clean? i run injector cleaner in it about once a month. i'm hoping it will help save the cpi from going bad as fast.

Impressive!!

Although for some reason my computer claimed that I didn't have a proper program to decompress, I was able to hear the difference.

Sounds like my ol 93 is going to get a drink of water!

Good documenting, I am sure others will gain from what you posted. Pat yourself on the back for me cause I'm too lazy to drive up to Canada. LOL

Hehe,

BTW, I have a Ravin Z55 Exhaust on mine so it is louder.

Just be careful and don't rush the water in.

i let it run for about 15 mins and then took it for a drive. still no diff. could it be the engine was clean? i run injector cleaner in it about once a month. i'm hoping it will help save the cpi from going bad as fast.

You won't see anything is your engine is clean.

Where did you suck it in BTW?

I thought you owned a 1996.

no its a 95. where u siad. the pcv valve line.i disconected it from the rubber boot that was on the valve and i had just the hard plastic line that i was using.i left the pcv valve in the valve cover when i ran it. it had good vacume and pulled the water in very easy. i had the smallest constant stream it would let me have. like i said i do race the truck every now and then and run cleaner in it.

You didn't sink the tube into the water I hope.

Did you keep the engine speed up as you did it?

yea. like i said i had a small stream of water. if i pulled it out any further it wouldn't suck any water in. it was sucking air in while it was pulling water. i had a rock on the gas pedel holding it at about 2,300 rpms.

Next time just grab hold of the throttle linkage in the engine compartment and do it so you can vary the throttle.

I just did this after a spark plug and ingition tune-up on the truck. I guess the engine was pretty clean, just a bit of steam came out with just a few drops of black gunk. I used the PCV breather tube with the rubber boot left on it with a length of very thick aquarium air hose trailing in back through the passenger window. I sat in the shade, comfy and cool, sucking up half a gallon of distilled water from the driver's seat where I could watch the gagues.

Very slight improvement in pedal response - must of blew some junk out of the cat though. Truck sounds a little meaner through the FloPro exhaust and 2.25 pipes. Took it for a little spin down the highway to burn off any water that may have been hiding in there.

Pulled a 12-70 rolling, uphill haul on the entrance ramp returning to town - she got up there in a REAL hurry as compared to before. So it did some good here like it did on my other, older vehicles. Thanks for your help and documentation BlazerLT!

No problem!

Just bumping this up for guys that have a pinging problem and want a possible solution.

I've done this on older carbed cars with lots of miles on them. One guy looked at me like I was nuts when I went ot pouring water into his carb on his 65 mustang. You can actually feel the carbon deposits peppering your hand out the exhaust when a car/truck has straight pipes. Think of it like putting a really cold glass in hot water. It will break!! The carbon will cool quickly and break off the pistons, plugs, and valves. If the engine is leaking compression due to carbon build-up on the valves, this is a possible quick fix.
If you cleaned off the hard carbon, now I would run some type of injector/valve cleaner to get the soft stuff that hasn't been burnt yet off the valves!! Before it's carbon again. If this tricked helped you a lot, you might want to check your valve stem seals. They may be brittle and causing oil to get by them? If it didn't help much. Good!
Just 2 more cents.

Chuck

I think water decarbonizing is a great idea... I'm gonna get off my lazy ass and do it this weekend.

Just for the sake of discussion, LT mentioned that you should ONLY do this on a warm engine. I spoke to a highly experienced mechanic who said you should only do it from cold. Neither he nor LT have provided any reasoning why. Thoughts? Opinions? ...Facts? :P

LT, Right on. Sound just like old school again. Thats how I use to clean out my carbs on my "77" Nova. I forgot all about that. I'm going to have to do that to my Blazers next. Thanks for jarring my memory.

If the engine was cold how would you get the steam? You really want the water to vaporize a bit before it reaches the chamber, thus you need a warmed up intake. I would use bottled water too if you have hard water.
Just don't pour ice water in it!!!!!
Ask your machanic if he can rebuild a carb? If he can, he's old school!!
Chuck

Don't know... I'll have to go ask him why he mentioned it should be done cold. Somehow I don't think it would have any problem vaporizing the water cold though. And no, I wouldn't think of using anything besides distilled.. we have a bad hard water problem here.

He's told me about some of the engines he's rebuilt and he's done some impressive stuff. Doesn't compare to the 3 barrel my friend rebuilt for his Pontiac 400 though. That car is going to be sooooo sexy when it's finished.

I tried the water injection on my 2001 with 139K miles. I was getting some rattling during heavy acceleration. I made an adapter to allow connection of a short piece of a vacum hose to the PCV hose. I stuck an old motorcycle mikuni caburator main jet into the end of the hose. The jet opening is very tiny. I was able to stick to hose directly into the water.

The water was injected at a slow controled rate. It worked quite well. I used about 1 1/2 quarts of distilled water. Most of the pinging is now gone.

i dont feel confortable pouring water in my motor... wouldnt the gunk flush take care of all that?

i dont feel confortable pouring water in my motor... wouldnt the gunk flush take care of all that?

You have to look beyond thinking water...bad......no water....good type of mentality.

Small portions of water in a controlled environment will do no harm and actually will do one hell of a lot of good if done properly.

It is a safe and byproduct free way to decarbonize your cylinders.

Gunk cleans your oil system, not the carbon on your piston head and you valves.

hey blazer lt i was looking at you car domain... your stereo...it clean but it is whats called a theft box.. when assholes goto steal you stereo you made it easier for them and you just bought them alot of time... i own a stereo shop.. i reccommend screwing the amp and capacitor to the back seat flap ill post pics how mt stereo is done... also bolt your bx down.. you car insurance wont cover anything that wasnt bolted or screwed to you car it self

pm me the pics so we can keep this thread on topic

Hey BlazerLT, your post seems to be some what vague in details. Specifically about how to introduce the H20 into your engine.

Are you just pulling the vacuum hose of the PCV valve and sticking it in the water, while leaving the valve in place?
Are you piercing the vacuum hose with a hollow needle attached to another piece of hose which is in water?

Thanks

Remove the PCV valve and hold the hose just above the water line and allow the engine vacuum to slowly suck up a light stream of water.

what are some of the hazzards/risks of doing this procedure?

hydrolock. i heard its bad to do on fuel injection. carbon can pop out though the intake manifold and cause problems. its more known with carbs since it wasn't a problem. you can also use seafoam or some tranny fluid. i don't know how well it would work with the pcv hook up but with a carb its fine.

Carbpn can pop through the intake manifold? What the hell are you talking about.......

Will work completely fine on any type of engine and what you have heard is just a bunch of people that have never done it trying to make up reasons not to do it.

I have done it several times and you have to be a complete fool to do any damage.

The only thing a person can do is put to much water into the engine which is techncally impossible seeing the PCV line cannot suck up enough water to do that to any engine.

Works gret and it is highly recommended.

LT, questions for ya (sry,lol);
- 1.7 Litres (0.45 Gallons); was this the total amount that u used or did u add multiple glasses of water to get to that amount (if so, how many and how much each time);how long should the engine sit in between doses?
- how did u introduce the water while having the pcv catch can installed?
- what kind of water (tap, distilled, spring)?
- does it matter how cold the outside temp is?
- should i pull the egr afterwards(need to anyway but just checking)?

thanks

blazer lt can you make a post with pics and description on how to do this?

LT, questions for ya (sry,lol);
- 1.7 Litres (0.45 Gallons); was this the total amount that u used or did u add multiple glasses of water to get to that amount (if so, how many and how much each time);how long should the engine sit in between doses?

Just use a small glass and fill it up and introduce it slowly into the engine while it is idling at 2000-2500rpms. The small glass is just for ease of handling seeing you will have to modulate the throttle as you are doing this in order to keep the engine rpms up.

Use 0.5 gallons total for the first time. Do it once a week for one month. Just be really slow and allow the pcv line to suck up a constant stream of water. The edge of the hose should be just touching the water , DO NOT JUST STICK THE HOSE INTO THE WATER.

- how did u introduce the water while having the pcv catch can installed?

Yes, just use the hose that goes to the intake, just remove the separator connection.

- what kind of water (tap, distilled, spring)?

I prefer lemon flavored to give my truck a treat......:lol: joke, just tap water will be fine.

- does it matter how cold the outside temp is?

I prefer it to be above freezing when doing this for obvious reasons. After take it for a good run to get all the vapor out of the engine and clear even more carbon.

- should i pull the egr afterwards(need to anyway but just checking)?

thanks

Let the engine tell you whether it needs to be pulled, if it is running fine I doubt you will need to.

Hope this helped.

If your engine is running fine, it is probably inadvisable to decarbonize it.

If you find you are pinging on acceleration when you didn't use to or other signs of having carbon deposits, then it is probably a good idea. Some people drive their trucks on the highway enough to decarbonize their combustion chambers naturally. Not every engine develops enough carbon deposits to cause degradation in performance.

JMHO

Just use a small glass and fill it up and introduce it slowly into the engine while it is idling at 2000-2500rpms. The small glass is just for ease of handling seeing you will have to modulate the throttle as you are doing this in order to keep the engine rpms up.

Use 0.5 gallons total for the first time. Do it once a week for one month. Just be really slow and allow the pcv line to suck up a constant stream of water. The edge of the hose should be just touching the water , DO NOT JUST STICK THE HOSE INTO THE WATER.



Yes, just use the hose that goes to the intake, just remove the separator connection.



I prefer lemon flavored to give my truck a treat......:lol: joke, just tap water will be fine.



I prefer it to be above freezing when doing this for obvious reasons. After take it for a good run to get all the vapor out of the engine and clear even more carbon.



Let the engine tell you whether it needs to be pulled, if it is running fine I doubt you will need to.

Hope this helped.

ya done it again. thanks bro. i'll let ya know how it turns out.

ya done it again. thanks bro. i'll let ya know how it turns out.


Good luck and remember, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.

I just did this to my 2001 Impala (3.4L V6, 140,000 miles).

All I can say is WOW. I'm quite pleasantly surprised by how effective this method is and would recommend it to any DIYer who hates going to national auto repair chains only to be charged an arm and a leg and be pressured to purchase unnecessary items.

However, I performed the water injection a little differently. Instead of leaving the PCV hose wide open, I chose to rig up a makeshift regulator. From Ace Hardware, I obtained two feet of 3/8" plastic tube and a small needle valve for about $6.00. I taped one foot of hose securely to the suction line, and at the other end, connected the valve. I connected the other foot of hose to the opposite end of the valve and placed the remaining open end in perhaps 8 fluid ounces of water.

With the valve fully closed, I cranked the engine and held the revs to what sounded like 2000 rpm with a furled parasol wedged between the front seat and the accelerator. I then proceeded to open the valve just enough so that whilst priming, the water took between one and two seconds to travel from the cup to the valve body. One could possibly admit a larger stream, but I chose to exercise a little more restraint.

It took about ten minutes to empty the cup. Without shutting off the engine, I removed the rig and reconnected the suction line back to the PCV fitting before taking the car for a spin. I then noticed a HUGE difference in performance.

I can imagine one could substitute water for the GM or Mopar brand of engine cleaner.

The reason I performed this procedure in the manner I did was to prevent foreign particles from entering the engine through the suction line and to prevent the mixture from getting too lean.

Yea, it does work wonders.

You would be amazed how many people have emailed me about the technique and how much they likes the results.

Glad it worked out for you.

Next time all for a quicker intake of water for anything to be really cleaned. Too slow and it does relatively nothing. You really have to get the water in there to steam blast the cylinder tops and valves.

You won't ever hydrolock the engine unless you go extremely overboard which is next to impossible.

I was just wondering if this was possible with an injected engine.
Like many others we used to do this on our carb'd engines all the time.

Great thread LT!

It should not matter which type of fuel delivery or fuel type this is done on. I had done this on many different engines in the past and conclude that if done properly you can run a gallon of stuff in just a few miles without hydrolocking and it also doesn't help any on hard carbon. I've used solvents, water, methanol, brake fluid, some stuff I won't name, and none of it will disolve carbon deposits.

We had also run water injection for years and those engines were ALWAYS the worst for baked on carbon that was nearly imposible to remove without a hard buffer or oven. Carbon that's flakey or loose or disolved is pretty easy to disolve or remove .

I haven't done this in over 10 years , but remember taking mutiple buckets of water and alcohol "on the road" with 2 people, it's lots of fun to make smoke screen.

Decarbonizing by water injection has been around since well before WWII, nothing new. Fathers just quit teaching their sons about it I suppose, sad really.

On a side note that's more aftermarket performance oriented, you can still buy water injection kits from places like JC Whitney to improve wide open throttle performance - by reducing detonation and pre-ignition on high hp/high compression carbed engines.

What's acually happening in this application is the water physically cools the valves, heads and pistons and helps reduce combustion chamber temps. Reduce temps of these parts enough and maybe it allows you to run higher compression ratio's with less fear of detonation.

Like everybody else says, don't use too much, too quick or you'll be bending rods, or busting holes through pistons due to hydaulic lock. It needs to be a metered amount and fine tuned to the application through trial and error, hopefully not to much error.

There are better ways to achieve higher performance. I just put this for gee-wiz info

A glass beaded Intake, and an ''Out of Car Injector service'' works better!
The Injectors are micro bathed, blowed out, and the flow rate is tested.

This thread was more related about cleaning than increasing performance.

Yep! decarbonization -

All the Emissions from EGR and PCV systems going into our Intakes.

Plugged Egr ports, bad PCV causing contaminated MAF sensors, heat soak causing injectors blockage.

Lets put something in a bottle, and sell it to Wallst.
Lets contaminate and blow a catalytic converter with a backfire.

Yep! decarbonization -

All the Emissions from EGR and PCV systems going into our Intakes.

Plugged Egr ports, bad PCV causing contaminated MAF sensors, heat soak causing injectors blockage.

Lets put something in a bottle, and sell it to Wallst.
Lets contaminate and blow a catalytic converter with a backfire.

huh?

I tryed a decarbonizaton product called SeaFoam for my Jaguar, it backfired and blew a catalytic converter.

I tryed a decarbonizaton product called SeaFoam for my Jaguar, it backfired and blew a catalytic converter.

Then you dumped in way too fast.

Not true-
The directions = 1/3 tank, 1/3 block, and 1/3 through the vacuum Intake.

I'am not going to dump 1/3 can into my gas tank or block, because there was a new oil Mobel 1 change, and an ''Out of car injector service'' performed on this car.

1/3 of a can was vacuumed up by the intake, a backfire occured and damaged a new cat.

Not true-
The directions = 1/3 tank, 1/3 block, and 1/3 through the vacuum Intake.

I'am not going to dump 1/3 can into my gas tank or block, because there was a new oil Mobel 1 change, and an ''Out of car injector service'' performed on this car.

1/3 of a can was vacuumed up by the intake, a backfire occured and damaged a new cat.

Yes, because you sucked it up too fast and you didn't shut it off and allow it to soak for a while.

My concern would be still contaminating the H02 sensors & catalytic converters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef3HNvxblxQ&NR=1

My concern would be still contaminating the H02 sensors & catalytic converters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef3HNvxblxQ&NR=1

sorry bud, you are just tryting to make excuses for you not using it properly.

You are supposed to allow it to be sucked in slowly and then stall the engine with the last bit and allow the engine to sit for 10 minutes to an hour.

It has been proven not to damage sensors.

I have just read the post on here and decided to try Seafoam on my 95 GMC Safari 4.3l. Well it is running better then it has in years. I had it checked at a garage and was told that it had low compression on the #4 cylinder. Knowing how this thing has had problems with carbon since it was new,so when I read what LT had wrote about water I thought that I would try it. I already had the seafoam so I used it and it has made a HUGE difference. Smooth idel and more pick-up on the road. Thanks Lt for the post it helped me alot.

I solved probably 90% of the problem with an external filter for the PCV system.

Hello fellows;

I own a 1978 Jeep Cj5 with an inline 6 cylinder GM 4.1L motor. This particular engine came from another vehicle, which was made in 1993.

Since i bought the Jeep i've been having problems with cold starts (although the place i live isn't cold at all) and irregular idling. Also, while driving, i always felt that it wasn't giving all the output it should.

I've done many things trying to solve these issues: carburetor overhaul, new plugs and cables, new distributor cap and rotor, new coil... Unfortunately these actions weren't able to fix the mentioned problems.

One day i decided to remove the intake and exhaust manifolds in order to take a look inside - and, as you may expect, i saw a lot of black grease-like material attached to whatever i could see through the ports. It certainly was time for a decarbonization.

Here in my country (Brazil), most mechanics (willing to make money, of course) would immediately recommend to disassemble the engine in order to make a complete clean-up - a very aggressive, expensive and time-consuming procedure. So, i went over Google trying to find a solution that wouldn't require to open the engine to clean it inside. That's when i discovered SeaFoam.

Another issue then came up - eBay SeaFoam sellers told me they couldn't send it here, once it is a flammable material, thus the post office would block it from international postage.

More research over internet finally brought me here, to BlazerLT's AutomotiveForum post on the procedure "Water Cylinder Decarbonizing". Damn - if i got to know that earlier, i'd have much probably solved the problem with the Jeep already!

I read it entirely, trying to understand every small detail, every step, so that i won't mess things up and finish with an totally undesirable hydraulic lock.

I just miss some more details on how to do it for carbureted engines - where exactly may i pour the water inside the engine? Should i use the carburetor mouth/throat, or the PCV valve just like BlazerLT had instructed for more modern fuel injected vehicles? Any additional details on how to do it..?

Thanks in forward for your patience. Best regards!

Just let it suck water through the PCV Valve from a container. Dip the PCV Valve into the water and let it draw it into the engine. Make sure to raise the RPM's to 2000 or more. It will work better that way. You will probably need to repeat the process several times to clear out all the carbon. It can be stubborn. The hotter the engine is the better though, so drive it around and get it up to full temp before you try this. I've done this procedure alot and as long as you don't dump so much water in that it bogs and stalls the engine you won't hydro lock it. It takes alot of water to do the cleaning you are hoping for.