water treatment for valves???

[BIKERTUCKER]

Per my stepdad, who was a mechanic for the U.S. Airforce from 1950 till early 60's spraying water into the intake of Radial engine's on aircraft was routine maint. Said the first time he preformed task it scared him. Carbon shot out the exhaust so hard it would impact the plywood mounted on the back wall of the shop like bullets. He said carbon build up on valves could also cause valve train to become noisy. Not sure if newer composit metals would respond poorly to same treatment. Just thought I'd throw in his story that Uncle Sam at one time taught it to their mechanic's who in turn preformed it as routine maintenance.

Tim

 

[Nessism]

.... just another useless piece of info floating around my brain .... but at this point in my 64 years .... nostalgia is entertaining ...

Well ... 70 out there today ... time to go riding .... ain't retirement GREAT!!!!

Later
Dom

Enjoy your retirement Dom, and don't let your mind wonder too much while blasting along those Tennessee two laners.

 

[gggGary]

We want data! Wish I had tried this on my recent 11E purchase before I tore it down, the only thing really wrong with her was carbon build up. Ideally someone will do 2 out of 4 cylinders on a high mile motor and then tear it down and compare to see what it did. Anyone going to tear one down anyhow?

 

[teddux]

Your engine wasn't designed for water injection.
Called WEP on WWII Aircraft.

"All WEP methods result in greater-than-usual stresses on the engine, and correspond to a reduced engine lifetime. For some airplanes, such as the P-51, use of WEP required the plane to be grounded after landing and the engine torn down and inspected for damage before returning to the air."

You can also run your bike on water and fuel fumes...@ your expense, of course.

 

[chuckycheese]

Agua

Agua

I tried it several years ago. I don't think it hurt anything but I also don't think it did any good. Could have been my technique!!

 

[Guest]

I've never seen an engineering/thermodynamics analysis of water injection, but without one I would not intentionally inject or squirt water into an engine.

If an engine is adjusted and tuned, valves should never have that kind of carbon build up.

Water in an engine doesn't release oxygen.

The energy required to vaporize water only takes power away from the engine. It cools the gases in the engine, so they don't occupy as much volume at the same pressure. Therefore, more fuel must be burned, which requires more air. More fuel, more air, yes, higher compression ratio. But if it gives more power, it won't give a huge increase in power.

Tune the engine properly and skip water.

 

[BIKERTUCKER]

I thought the question was the use of a spray of water mist to clean valves as a form of maint. Not constant injection of water as a means to increase hp.

 

[chuck hahn]

it was trucker..an old coot told me they used to do the mist in the carb thing to be sure all the carbon was off the valves before they did the shimming and adjusting.. said it made sure the valves were seating all the way so you could get the best possible readings when checking the valve clearances..just a few good mists into each carb ..

 

[rustybronco]

Do you want a sure fire way of removing excess carbon in the combustion chamber?

start up an engine and advance the throttle while retarding the timing. you'll see the glowing embers of carbon exiting the exhaust.

It worked well on lift trucks but I would NOT recommend doing it on an air cooled motor

 

[jimfj]

I don't want to make a recomendation on this but I'll give up some personal expirience.

I had a 1976 Glastron runabout with a straight six chevy blocked motor. Great running old girl and fun on the water. One day as I was doing some pre M and this started with changing some old plugs. I had noticed some hesitation and was just trying to establish a baseline. I did a compression test on the motor with all the plugs out of the block. As I turned the motor over I noticed some liquid (water) misting into one of the cylinders. I stuck my trusty led bendable flashlight into the said cylinder and found it to be spotlessly clean. Carbon in every other and a little build up on the piston crowns. This one had nothing, again spotless.
Time to change the headgasket. Once that was done it looked like all the others and the plug was the same color. Hesitation gone.

Moral of the story. IMHE water will clean the carbon out of a cylinder, very well. Like anything we do thats not procedure in the manual, you run a risk. I'm also wondering if the people who told you this weren't going back to the two-stroke days when carbon really was a huge problem and you had to de-carbon things all the time.

my .02

 

[tkent02]

I don't want to make a recomendation on this but I'll give up some personal expirience.

I had a 1976 Glastron runabout with a straight six chevy blocked motor. Great running old girl and fun on the water. One day as I was doing some pre M and this started with changing some old plugs. I had noticed some hesitation and was just trying to establish a baseline. I did a compression test on the motor with all the plugs out of the block. As I turned the motor over I noticed some liquid (water) misting into one of the cylinders. I stuck my trusty led bendable flashlight into the said cylinder and found it to be spotlessly clean. Carbon in every other and a little build up on the piston crowns. This one had nothing, again spotless.
Time to change the headgasket. Once that was done it looked like all the others and the plug was the same color. Hesitation gone.

Moral of the story. IMHE water will clean the carbon out of a cylinder, very well. Like anything we do thats not procedure in the manual, you run a risk. I'm also wondering if the people who told you this weren't going back to the two-stroke days when carbon really was a huge problem and you had to de-carbon things all the time.

my .02

Suzuki Water Buffalo, BMW M30 car engine, couple others I have seen with a small leak of water into the combustion chamber, that cylinder was spotless, looked brand new. Since then I have let a quart or two of water suck into the port where you hook manometers to a bike engine while driving down the road to clean out the pistons, it does clean them. I just do this before a teardowm to make cleaning pistons and heads easier, or to fix an engine which has problems with detonation, which can be caused by carbon buildup. You can't hydrolock it as only a few droplets are going through the cylinder at once, the engine is already running and up to operating temperature before I turn on the water. I don't think it reduces the piston temps much, certainly not enough to damage anything, IMHO.

It seems to work fine, I have seen no damage from it.

 

[Guest]

Water injection works very poorly in a naturally aspirated engine.

However in a turbo diesel, turbo or supercharged gas engine, it has a very beneficial effect, allowing you to boost HP/lower charge pressures.

Water injection works because of the evaporative cooling effect of the water as it sprays into the intake tract. When sprayed into hot boosted air, it has the same effect as an intercooler, only more so. You can col the air to below the ambient air temperature. When the air is cooled, it becomes more dense, allowing you to create more power for a given boost pressure, or alternately lowering your boost pressure for the same amount of power.

In my previous life I sold spray nozzles, and one of our customers was Devils Own Injection, where they sell it for diesel engines.

 

[BIKERTUCKER]

tkent02: I had a 650 Silverwing that let me know I had a head gasket problem by the right side spark plug looking better than new. You got me to wondering how you carried water and container while riding?? I was thinking old peanut butter jar with hose in saddle bag.

 

[don]

I can vouch for the following with extenceive experience:

yes it works

yes it fractures the carbon off due to the high temp differance

yes a large chunck can get smashed in the cylinder

yes a large chunck can get smashed by a closeing valve in the seat (then leak and burn the valve and/or the seat)

But,

If you are only looking to get a " clean resting valve" for accurate measurement, the same tecnique is still used today at dealerships all over. They don't use water though, they use what essentially is kerosene. We used to use water, kero, Marvel mystery oil, thinned out motor oil with gasoline. The gist is to flood the hot valve bowls with an oily solvent. Kind of like they do at engine shops that do hot chemical bioling on engine blocks etc.

Long wind short......yes it works and if there is significant buildup yes it can be real bad.