My Dirty, Dirty Intake (Pic Heavy)
 

UPDATED 06/22/2013: See the bottom of this post.

So, I bought my car used with ~26,000 miles on it a couple of months ago. Since then, I've put about 3000 miles on it. I just recently installed an RX catch can and breather, so the car went about 28,375 miles without one.

As an aside: Big shout out to Tracy/SC2150 from RevXtreme. I bought my cc/breather used from a C5 member. It came with an older bracket that was first used on the LLTs, and didn't fit my LFX application. Tracy sent me a new bracket, free of charge, and took the time to give me some advice on cleaning the used items prior to install. He did all this for a customer that wasn't even buying from him, and from whom he didn't make a dime. Many thanks!! :respekt:

OK, back to my dirty story.

Before installing my catch can and breather, I pulled my intake air tube and throttle body off to try to snake a cheap borescope I bought into the IM and hopefully get a look at my intake valves without pulling the whole manifold off. I wasn't able to get the scope to twist into the intake runners and see the valves, but I did find oil in my intake tube (coming from the "clean side" connection), and some oil in the reservoir that's molded into the IM right behind the throttle body:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-r...419_144434.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U...419_150247.jpg

You can see in the second pic above how the inside of the IM is coated with a shiny film of oil. The borescope also showed congealed globs of oily gunk in the manifold, too. Yuck.

I also found my throttle body to be dirty, too:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-m...419_151122.jpg

So after that I installed the CC/breather, and yesterday I followed Intensifi's excellent DIY on pulling the IM for cleaning, and pulled off my TB and IM to finally clean them and get a good look at how dirty and carboned up the intake valves have become, and here's what I saw:

Dirty throttle body (still, never cleaned it):

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7...520_144604.jpg

Oily underside of IM:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Z...520_150943.jpg

Oily/gritty intake runner openings:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-B...520_151047.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...520_151055.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u...520_151124.jpg

And, finally, my intake valves:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Y...520_151404.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-j...520_151414.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-J...520_151425.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-a...520_151445.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-I...520_151508.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5...520_151526.jpg

Except for that one cylinder, they're not horrible...but that one is pretty dang bad.

So, my plan is an experiment. I have been doing some data logging of my "dirty" engine, and now I've confirmed just how dirty it really is. Step 2 will be to do a Seafoam treatment of the engine. Then I plan to pull the IM again and see just how effective it was at cleaning the valves. If it's still dirty, I will do the manual cleaning as described in Intensifi's DIY, then do some follow-up data logging and see if there are any significant changes.

UPDATE #1: Did a Seafoam treatment, described in this post.

UPDATE #2: Rechecked the intake/valves after Seafoam, and manually cleaned them. See this post.

:pop2:

Please post with results this may be possible "sticky" potential imo

Will do. You'll have to be patient, though, as my spare time to work on this stuff is very limited, especially this time of year with three boys playing baseball at the same time (in different locations). :doh:

And this is why boys and girls you need a catch can! :)

Welcome to the "dark" side.

You'll have it all "clean" in no time!

P.S. thanks for the kind words!

Just wow!

This is going to be good.

http://apex-speed.com/images/emoticons/popcorn_anim.gif

Exactly.

Wow.... that is alot of crap on that one valve!!!

Best Emoticon ever!!!! Beats the heck out of this little guy: :popcorn:

june update for us?

Sorry, haven't had time to seafoam/pull it apart again. Maybe in a week or so. Super busy with work/family/projects.

It's still in the works, though. Haven't forgotten about it.

Hello !

that carbon suit is NOT coming completely from the burned OIL ... ALL DFI engines have that Problem !

1) from the EVAP System there is always a Little bit of oil and condensate transfered into the engines combustion area .... BUT the intake valves were the cold parts of the engines valvetrain so the oil and condensate CAN PHYSICLY NEVER burn to ashes at the cold intake valves ! !

2) the DFI process is creating lots of carbon suit during the combustion and during the nessesary valve overlap .. were INTAKE and EXHAUST valves BOTH open and covered with the carbon suit ... BUT the exhaust valves get HOT enough to burn the carbon suit ... so at all DFI engines you see dirty intake valves and not so dirty exhaust valves !

3) all old style intake manifold injection engines clean the INTAKE valves automaticly by the fuel spray into the cylinder ... old Technology .. but cleaner Intake valves !

Good examples you find around the world in all Forums about DFI engines ... here a 98kmiles driven Golf TFSI :

http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/r...valvedirt3.jpg

and Porsche Cayenne DFI V8

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...offman_001.jpg

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...offman_003.jpg

So Google yourself and you will find many examples from ALL worldwide DFI engine manifactures !

Greets ASH@IPF-TUNING