DIY LLT Intake valve cleaning... Pics (A LOT) and results

[terry_b]

Sorry it took me this long but I'm finally posting up my... interesting experience with my intake valve cleaning. First of all, big thanks to 911medic and intensify and Can't_C_Me. These guys have some really good threads up that helped me a lot.

I followed a thread posted by 911medic ( http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=296960 ) who has an LFX. Mine is an LLT but all the principles are the same. I haven't seen an LFX in person but it looks like the valves might be easier to get to than on my LLT. I'm not going to try for a DIY so much as 911medic did a pretty good job there, but I'll chime in with my lessons learned. I'll post my failure first...

I started out with the idea that I could do a walnut shell blasting, which was also discussed in this thread by intensifi: http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=288997 There were some concerns raised and my experience fell way short of my hopes. The bimmer guys have had awesome luck with this procedure, but they do have a purpose built machine and tool. 911medic linked a couple of really good threads from the BMW world on that topic, definitely check those out.

What I'll say about the walnut shell blasting... Here is what I bought, about $80 all told.



I was really hopeful it would be a magic fix. It certainly was not, unfortunately. For one thing, in my case the valves had a good bit of wet "gunk" and the intake tract was oily. The end result was that I blasted a bunch of walnut shell into the intake (after I visually confirmed the valves were closed) and all they did was stick. Problem #2 - the bimmer valves aren't quite as deep in as mine, and they have a purpose built tool http://www.ecstuning.com/ES2165972/ to help vacuuming the shells out. I found it quite hard to get the shells out, even with a neat little hose attachment. In the end, I ended up just doing the manual cleaning like 911medic did. The LFX might be a bit easier to try to walnut blast, but in any case, a seafoam treatment BEFOREHAND would probably go a long way in getting some of the sticky out.

[terry_b]

Now for the successful part!

I started down this path when I bought a Vmax Throttle body and the Ice-olator from Phil at Tampa Tuning. I figured if I was going to take it all apart I may as well clean it up. Here is my throttle body and intake plenum. I don't remember for sure, but I think I got the catch can on sometime between 10k and 20k miles... Not very exact I know. It seems like I am getting a LOT of oil in the intake, but right now it's impossible to tell if it's new or residual. I welcome any input.









I basically just sprayed the intake down with seafoam and wiped it all off really well. Next spring I intend to paint it, so I wasn't terribly concerned with it for now. I actually might end up using my new blaster to clean it off really well

Now for the valves, I went out and got a gun cleaning kit from wally world - the only really useful piece is the biggest brass brush and the rods. I also picked up a set of really stiff nylon brushes with the flexible 9" wire handle. I had to grab a set of craftsman scribe/picks as well. The only problem with these was the handle wasn't long enough, but luckily they were a 1/4" hex and fit right into a screwdriver handle I picked up some seafoam and some AC Delco Top Engine Cleaner. I think the top engine cleaner was actually a bit better at cleaning than the seafoam was, but that's just me. I turned the crank over a couple times while watching the valves I intended to work on to see when they closed and stopped moving. If you watch closely, you can actually get a couple sets of valves soaking while you work on the first set.

I started with the valves I had chucked a bunch of walnuts into and started scrubbing both walnut shells and carbon out. I did just like 911 _medic and used the gun brush to scrub what I could reach and then I bent the flexible ones in a nearly 90 angle to try to hit the back of the valve. I did some scrubbing, some spraying and then I had cut up a bunch of small T-shirts and used them to wipe out loose carbon (and walnut shells) and the excess cleaner. I had to repeat a couple of times and finally was left with only the hard carbon deposits. At this point I probably could have tried the walnut shells again, but I didn't want to deal with the set-up and clean up. I used the scribes, a bent right angle tipped and a weird bent tip (anybody with these in their toolbox knows which ones I'm talking about, I'll try to grab some pics of these) to gently scrape the hard carbon loose. Then I sprayed and wiped again. Using the cleaning rods you can get the T-shirt scraps down on top of the valve and then work them around the valve, back and forth and finally back out of the intake all dirty.

Now, for the good stuff! I tried to get both before and after pics of each set of valves, but my camera was having difficulty focusing where I needed. The pics I'm posting represent the valves, they were all about the same - bad! The only thing that keeps nagging at me are the backside of the valves - I had a couple places where the scribes and ends of the brushes marred up the wall of the intake tract. The valve seating surface is pristine, so it's purely cosmetic, but it gnaws at me a bit.

Before:





In progress:





And clean!!!!










All told, I have about 10 hours of work in on these valves. I was alone, and of course, experimenting with the walnut shells set me back a little bit. The valves might have benefited from another hit of walnut shell, but I was so worn out after basically lying down on top of the engine (not comfortable) and scrubbing each valve. The Top Engine Cleaner sprays in kind of foamy, so after finishing the last valve I sprayed each one down and let them sit overnight. The next morning I threw everything back together and rolled the car out of the garage for the seafoam treatment. My reasoning was that the loose carbon left around the valve seating surface would best be cleaned out with the seafoam rather than just running normally. I used the write-up from Can't_C_Me ( http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=286229 ) for the seafoam. Even with all the research I did and youtube videos... this scared the hell out of me! I kept feeling like I was kicking my favorite puppy, the way the engine was reacting. I thought I broke something the way the car felt when I took it for a drive, but once I got it all out, WOW! In the interest of science, I did NOT install the Iceolator yet. The difference alone from the cleaning was well worth the time and effort. I can't wait to see how the Iceolator feels. I also wanted to see how the intake looked after a few miles on it. I'm hoping all the oil was residual, but we'll see!

Here is my engine bay:



See the oil fill cap? I had some issues with the oily breather cap, so I sent RX an email. I talked to Mike and he said they would buy back the breather cap at cost if I bought the 1LE style separator. Looks nice! hopefully it functions as well as it looks. The one downside is that it requires much larger tubing, and the hose barb on the intake is made for smaller hose... That 1/4" threaded to 1/2" hose barb fitting is tough to track down, so for now a hose clamp and a nearly kinked hose is "good enough". Here's my old breather:

[terry_b]

Reserved

[RubyCamaro]

Very interesting. Nice looking engine bay. I'm sure you feel good having cleaned all that gunk out.

[Apex Motorsports]

Great post. Thanks for sharing. How many miles do you have on your car right now?

[Sikoriko]

Looks like all that hard work paid off, looks good

[ChadG]

Great job . . . my valves look EXACTLY like yours so it gives me hope I can get them cleaned up. You really did an amazing job, can you post pictures of the tools/scribes you used to help me visualize a plan of attack?

How long did doing all 6 take you?

[KMPrenger]

This is very cool. I too am curious how many miles you had on your car when you performed this procedure??

Also, I second the post above and seeing all the tools you used in the process.

Sounds like your saying the car is performing really well after your valve cleaning....can you elaborate on that at all?

Final question. Do you think the seafoam treatment you did at the end was really needed, or was it just a final measure you wanted to take?


Thanks for posting this. I'm not sure if it is something I'd try or not, but then again it could be a winter project sometime and may break the project out over 2 or 3 weeks cleaning a couple valves at a time maybe it wouldn't be so horrible? lol

[simt3k]

So your catch can was absolutely useless?

[terry_b]

Originally Posted by RubyCamaro

Very interesting. Nice looking engine bay. I'm sure you feel good having cleaned all that gunk out.

I feel awesome having done this!

Originally Posted by Apex Chase

Great post. Thanks for sharing. How many miles do you have on your car right now?

I'm sitting at 58,000. I'm guessing somewhere around 20,000 of that was before the catch can. Maybe more, maybe less.

Originally Posted by ChadG

Great job . . . my valves look EXACTLY like yours so it gives me hope I can get them cleaned up. You really did an amazing job, can you post pictures of the tools/scribes you used to help me visualize a plan of attack?

Thanks! I'm glad I'm helping at least a few of you! I'll get some pics of all my tools either tomorrow, or maybe I'll post up some amazon links just for show. That's actually where I bought the stiff nylon brushes and GM Top Engine Cleaner.

How long did doing all 6 take you?

It took, all told, maybe 12 hours over the course of 2 days. Part of it was prepping/cleaning up the walnuts, some was waiting on the chemicals to soak and cutting up rags. By far the most difficult part was positioning myself over the car in such a way to see the valves and work inside the intake easily.

Originally Posted by KMPrenger

Sounds like your saying the car is performing really well after your valve cleaning....can you elaborate on that at all?

Idle seems much smoother, more pedal response. I had put the VMax throttle body on right before the cleaning. Now it seems that I feel a bit more of those gains in particular. Like I said, I haven't installed the spacer yet, so I am interested to see those effects as well.

Final question. Do you think the seafoam treatment you did at the end was really needed, or was it just a final measure you wanted to take?

I would actually suggest a before and an after seafoam. Doing it before I started scrubbing might have gotten rid of a lot of the "gunky", oily, stickiness as well as some loose carbon. The after treatment was do get rid of whatever loose carbon I scrubbed off but was unable to actually get out of the intake tract. My fear was that the loose stuff could possibly become reattached to the valves when it started heating up if I didn't flush it completely out of the system. I chose NOT to put the half can of seafoam in the crank case mostly because I am only 1,000 miles into the last oil change, although I will still be changing the oil soon anyway, due to the fact that some seafoam did get into the oil by way of the intake I'm sure. Or maybe it did mostly burn off? Not sure, but I don't want to take any chances with the health of my oil in this engine.

Thanks for posting this. I'm not sure if it is something I'd try or not, but then again it could be a winter project sometime and may break the project out over 2 or 3 weeks cleaning a couple valves at a time maybe it wouldn't be so horrible? lol

Originally Posted by simt3k

So your catch can was absolutely useless?

I'd say absolutely NECESSARY! Far from useless. I wish I would have gotten the catch can on sooner than I did. If I had the mess wouldn't have been nearly as bad. One thing to remember though, the catch can is there to eliminate or at least reduce the amount of oil introduced by the dirty side PCV system. I've also now got the cleanside separator on there, as it's been found at WOT the cleanside of the PCV also introduces some oil.

I'm a bit bothered by how oily my intake was, but for now, I can't say whether all that oil got there in the time I ran without a catch can and has just been hanging out or if it's new. I'll take it back apart soon and see what everything looks like. If it's oily, I may have a problem with the catch can. I know it is working though, at least most of the time, due to what I drain out of it on a regular basis.

As to the valves themselves - it's a direct injected engine so there are absolutely NO cleaning agents, fuel or otherwise, inserted to the top side of the valves. Unlike a regular fuel injected engine, which gets fuel + whatever cleaners and fuel treatments sprayed in. We're bound to get some "coking" or carbon build-up on the valves due to this fact.

[MBS]

Man , I can only imagine how mine look , but she seems to run great still , 10 hours is alot of work , any quicker way ?

[intensifi]

Great job!

Thanks for posting all the before/after pics.

When I finished I was so tired I didn't want to do anything but put it back together.

I'm now running with an Elite Can and a 1LE separator. I retired the breather as well.

I posted a DIY on the 1LE breather on LFX that shows how to deal with the air tube size changes without having to go to a lot of effort. That air tube part will apply to your LLT. I'll see if I can find it for you later.

I'm thinking the valve cleaning will be an annual event for those of us who want to keep the cars for a long time and/or performing at a high level.

[Evil-Bee-NH]

Mine looked similar to yours i had my catch can put on around 22k wish i had done it earlier. Your best bet is to check everything in another 10k to see if there's anymore build-up and i hope to god you didn't get one of those defective useless RX cans that a few people have recieved.

[terry_b]

As promised, here are some amazon links to what I used for cleaning. Unfortunately, it seems the brushes got tossed when I threw away the huge pile of carbon and cleaner soaked wrags, but they did work quite well.

I can't believe I didn't have one of these yet!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Brushes:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cleaner - If you can get it from your dealer it might be a bit more expensive but shipping took a good week for me:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the scribe set I used:
http://www.sears.com/craftsman-4-pc-...4&blockType=G4

Those turned out to be too short, but the handles are actually 1/4" hex and fit right int my craftsman 1/4" screwdriver handle just like a regular bit. A bit of nuclear grade red tape and it was rock solid and I had the reach I needed. This would probably be better suited to the task:
http://www.sears.com/ullman-6-pc-ind...&blockType=G40

Just remember to be gentle while scraping the carbon deposits. You probably won't hurt the valves themselves, but the block is aluminum and much softer than the hardened tips on the picks. I used the brass rods from the gun cleaning kit to push the rags around after I noticed I had gotten a bit over-zealous with the picks and left some marks in the back of the intake tract, right behind the valve. Shouldn't be anything more than cosmetic, but it bugs me all the same. Also, be careful around the valve seat for the same reason.

I really hope it doesn't turn into an annual thing, but I guess I'll see after I take it back apart. And I don't think my catch can is defective, it has definitely been trapping a lot of oil. I have had a pretty good experience with RX so far, so if I find excess oil still being drawn in I'll bring it to their attention. For the 1LE hose, I actually found the correct hose fitting after browsing 20 pages of fittings on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

As an aside - I LOVE Amazon Prime!