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De-carbon pistons/valves with water

  • Thread starter Thread starter Matchless
  • Start date Start date
M

Matchless

Guest
Has anyone used the water method to decarbon an engine yet?
Apparently this can be done by spraying water into the air intakes while the engine is running. Carbon will then break loose and be ejected via the exhaust and the water leaves as steam. The method is old school and apparently gives better and quicker results than any of the add-in chemicals. Also does not cause so much smoke as other methods.
Obviously great care must be taken here as too much water will hydraulically lock the engine with major damage.
 
You can't pour in enough water to hydro lock it while it is running. Too much water puts the fire out, it just dies. I have done it on cars but didn't take a look inside to see if it worked. Have also heard of and tried pouring diesel oil into the intake, haven't looked inside on that one either. Once I hooked up a gallon jug and a hose, let engine vacuum pull it in while driving. Ran a few gallons through, but again never took it apart to look. If you do it take a before/after look in the plug holes to see how it worked, and show us the pics!

I have seen engines disassembled after a cylinder head gasket leaked water into the combustion chamber, the pistons and valves in the leaking cylinder looked brand new, absolutely spotless.
 
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This is an interesting topic as there is more to be gained from water injection than just decarbonizing the cylinders. Can you say more power!

Good article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_(engines)

I've been thinking about this myself. Anybody have any real world experience?

Interested in learning more.

Cheers all,
Spyug.
 
There are some articles on the Internet where outboard engines are cleaned like this. Someone also gave quite a detailed explanation on doing a car engine like this. They claim to get more carbon out than with Seafoam and with no smoke and much quicker.
I would like to try this as my GS shows quite a bit of carbon through the plug holes, but would like to know if someone else has tried this before?

This comes from a forum:
Couple of things. First when gas mixes with oxygen it makes water and carbon dioxide. Your engine is already dealing with copious amounts of water vapor.

Second, when water phase changes from a liquid to a vapor it expands about 1500 its original size. This expansion is push on the piston.

Third, it isn't the explosion itself that makes power in the combustion chamber, it is the heat generated by the burning of the fuel expanding the nitrogen in the charge. As this nitrogen expands it pushes on the piston. For every BTU of thermal energy added to water vapor, it expands at a rate 12 times that of nitrogen, so it is pushing 12 times harder on the piston than the nitrogen in the air it draws in.

Fourth, the water acts to steam clean the engine. When the liquid water comes in contact with the hot carbon deposits on the valves and pistons etc, it explodes into a vapor and literally blasts the carbon off. Over time, the engine becomes much cleaner inside.

All of these things combined offer a 5-15% boost in fuel economy on a stock engine, and more if the engine and accessories are tuned for the water injection.
 
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Here in Mercedes land we used to have 2 old school real live German mechanics. They would add a pint of dexron thru the fuel system after a tune up on the 70's and 80's models, keeping the engine at about 10% below redline. Man! would that smoke up the lot! But they claimed it worked to decarbonize the combustion chambers. Nowadays, both BMW and Mercedes use the ground walnut shell method. Wonder if any of this would work in a bike?
 
If you rig a hose going into the vacuum port for carb synching, you can adjust the flow to a very low rate, also do it on one cylinder at a time. Compare it to the others to see if it's doing any good. Throw a milk jug full of water in a backpack or tied to the seat and go for a ride with the hose connected and running...
Sounds like good fun.
 
So you could take one of those Platypus hydration packs and remove the bite valve and connect it to the tubing! Man, what a concept. Lookout for the traffic behind you. You could probably do the same with some light oil and have a 007 smoke screen!
 
Water injection works. I blew a head gasket on a race motor during the practice run on a hill climb. No spare head gasket or time to do a change. I continued to run the car during the competion runs and found no loss in power once the engine was running above 2500rpm. Half way through the last run the engine dropped power big time with a huge cloud of steam coming from the exhaust.
Upon removing the head, I found the superheated stream had gouged a channel in the aluminium between two chambers. The chamber that had water being forced into it was smooth as, with no carbon deposits on the valves or the exhaust port.
Surprisingly, the water had compensated for the loss in compression on that pot to a point where I was still competitive on the earlier runs.
 
I am no expert but as I read the info on this, water injection is really only useable at or close to full open throttle position. If you were to rig up something there would need to be some sort of throttle position sensor/ solenoid switch gizmo with a pump to squirt the water from the reservoir.
I don't think hanging a water bottle from the handlebars like an I/V is going to do it.8-[

I was thinking that maybe a NOX system could some how be "bodged up" as the Limeys say.

It would be interesting to see if this could be done. Anyone interested in spearheading this project?

I look forward to hearing from all the experts.

Cheers all,
Spyug
 
hrmm while ive no experience with this, i have a very difficult time wrapping my head around the concept of throwing at best luke warm water on scalding hot valves and pistonheads. I've seen what water on a hot cast iron grill will do, and its not pretty, and while aluminium is not cast iron, its still suceptable to warp. I may be way off base with this, but it seems to me that water's in comparison low boiling point could wreek havock in a motor like that.
 
A lot of import guys have used water injection on turbo and nitrous motors for a while. While it doesn't really provide a huge gain in horsepower, it acts kind of in the same way additional octane does: it gives you a much larger margin of safety.

Want a cheap water injection system? Take a windshield wiper nozzle system. Plumb it up so spray into the intake charge. Wire the power through a relay that is triggered by a standard WOT microswitch mounted to a carb's throttle. Voila! The wiper fluid reservoir is small, plastic, and holds plenty for most applications, the pump and lines are good, but the nozzles are less-than-efficient, but work decently in the larger car motors. A motorcycle motor might want something that atomizes the water a bit more.
 
I take it you have to have a running engine before you attempt anything like this? Obviously, no? Unfortunately, I got to the carbonizing a wee bit too late, the compression had been compromised to 30#,25#,35#,120# in my 1979 GS750, after running it without rejetting for altitude in Co Springs. With oil in the jugs, comps jumped to 130# on all 4. It would try to start with starting fluid (ether) but stall immediately. Upon removal of the head and the jugs, carbon was built up to fill the combustion chamber, and had restricted the rings from making contact with the cylinder walls, and after the application of WD40, MMO and PBlaster, the carbon slid out of the combustion chamber when the head was off, the rings popped the carbon off when they were tapped.

So now, the bike is COMPLETELY apart, getting PC for the frame, polishing for the mill, rechroming the bits that warrant and so forth. Has been apart since 1997.
 
TheCafeKid said:
hrmm while ive no experience with this, i have a very difficult time wrapping my head around the concept of throwing at best luke warm water on scalding hot valves and pistonheads. I've seen what water on a hot cast iron grill will do, and its not pretty, and while aluminium is not cast iron, its still suceptable to warp. I may be way off base with this, but it seems to me that water's in comparison low boiling point could wreek havock in a motor like that.
Click to expand...

There are two trains of thought on this one. Firstly to add a bit of water, seems like about half a liter slowly over 20 minutes per carburettor at about 3000rpm to get the carbon out without removing the head. This can be done by spraying clean water into the inlet of each carb or using a small restricted pipe from the vacuum measuring tap to suck up water carefully.
Some posts say that it comes out very clean and you can even see the bits of carbon if you hang a sheet behind the exhaust.
The improvements mentioned are noticeable cleaner idling.
No detonation (pinking)
Noticeably smoother running motor


The second is to add water to improve the combustion process while driving and this one is a science on its own.
 
I was taught the water-down-the-carb-throat in an Associates Degree technical program, back in the '70s. Bad fuel, air-pumps, EGR seemed to conspire to create carbon buildup. Anyone remember their car running for 3 minutes after they turned off the ignition? Back then, the worst offenders seemed to be the 302/351 Windsor Fords...hard hot-start(starter damage/slow cranking), and lots of after-running. About 1 quart of water, slowly poured down carb throats, while keeping rpm's in the 2500 to 3000 range. It was surprising to see all the "junk" on the shop floor, under the tail-pipe exit. I remember some fairly dramatic results/improvement. Back then, my instructors recommended doing this before proceeding with other troubleshooting/tune-up service.
 
It is used in the turbo busa's (and others) when they are not intercooled by air to air or water to air IC's.
I am setting mine up this winter to run water with 12lbs of boost minimum.
Yes a benefit is cleaner chamber, piston deck, and valves.
Main reason is as an antiknock / pre-detonation deterrent, etc etc etc.

Try using Methanol for the Injection now we're kickin!\

\\:D/
 
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