hillbillycivic

changed my spark plugs today and noticed the pistons had a layer of carbon on top of them.

what is the best way to clean this. i read on one sight if you use a spray bottle on mist to spray water into the throttle body wile the car is running it will steam clean the tops of the pistons. does this work and is it safe?

what other options are there?

steveeb

Don't clean them, you risk getting junk down around the rings and causing bigger problems.

Orangevirus1

Distilled water or BLUE windshielf fluid.

Start the car, hold the rev's about 3k / 3500 rpm

take a vacuum line and suck in some water or blue windshield washer fluid. your pistons will look brand new after doing that for about 1/4 gallon

B_Swapped93

im assuming d-series ? I just took the head off and used brake clean and wiped the head down also.

nealnanoHX

There is a cleaner that you can run threw the intake system and it will clean the intake, valves and tops of the pistons. Sea Foam is one, Gum Out makes it as does Valvoline and I feel Valvoline is the best of them all. Oh and GM also makes a pretty good top engine cleaner.

Marvin1985

iTrader: (5)

Use shell gasoline and it'll clean itself

nealnanoHX

LOL that is total sales marketing BS just like Chevron fuel cleans your engine and those bottles of injector clean really work too . Any time you burn gasoline you create carbon as a by product no matter who's gas you run. I have seen the insides of motors that only saw Chevron gas and I have seen many more that run whatever gas is around and there is no major difference. Still carbon on the backs of the valves and on the pistons. A good top engine de-carb is the best and really the only effective way to clean the inside of the motor.

Orangevirus1

use ******* water and be done with it.

water has proven results.

nealnanoHX

But water will not clean the backs of the valves or the oily sludge in the intake, top engine cleaner will.

Shmallow

the layer of carbon helps to insulate the pistons from combustion heat which can help the thermal efficiency of the motor overall. get them spotless and they'll probably be black again by the next oil change.

gunk in the ports and on the valves is nice to clean off. there are many products that claim to do this, but i'm pretty skeptical of them without first hand data to back up the claim. i don't count the big plumes of smoke after running seafoam as proof...

B_Swapped93

FFS if you really want it clean pull the head, take the valves out and clean them along with the rest of the head. not hard and can easily be done in a day as a beginner.

and be careful with seafoam have heard enough negatives to not recommend it.

JuggerNaut-CTR

Truth

nealnanoHX

It all in how you use it. It needs so go into the intake slowly, many people put the brake booster line into the bottle and suck it all up very quickly. 1 it will not clean very well and 2 you can hydro lock the motor. It will not do much if you put in your fuel tank. And putting it in the motor oil to "clean" the inside of the engine is just a bad bad idea, nothing like a strong solvent mixed with oil to ruin your rings and bearings.
I am a mechanic and use top engine clean all the time. I do it to my Ls Vtec every 6-8 months to keep thing nice and clean, dirty valves effect performance so I like my motor to be clean. I will also run it before I pull a head to be sent to the machine shop and they guys there love it when I do because the valves and combustion chamber are so clean it make their work easier. Run a top engine cleaner, the pull the intake and look at the valves they will be nice and clean. Now if your motor has 150K+ and has never been cleaned and the valves have really thick carbon build up it does not remove that, only way to do that is pull the head, remove the valves and clean them with a wire bench grinder wheel. All the white smoke you the exhaust is the carbon and oil sludge from the intake and valves being burned in the motor and cleaned out.

jbpnoman

Time out, stop. Are we really worried about a little bit of carbon deposit building up on top of the pistons? Even if you physically remove them and have them hydrosonically cleaned (basically as perfectly clean as you can get) they'll still be black after two tanks of gas again.

Stop worrying about something that isn't a problem.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

Marvin1985

iTrader: (5)

I've pulled a motor apart @ 180k that I've only ran 93 she'll gas through and the motor was virtually spotless. I've also used a lil bit of seafoam in the booster line and it didn't do anything. No smoke nothing. Never put it in oil or gas tank.

Some may think its just marketing but she'll gas has always given me better mpg's and I never have a dirty motor internally. Oil changed every 2.5-3k castrol with oem H filter.

My personal experience. Just keeping maintained.

nealnanoHX

Very true. The pistons will get dirty almost right away. The top engine cleaning is more about cleaning the backs of the valves and the intake. Carbon'd up valves effect performance and can keep the fuel from atomizing properly and can effect the mixing of air and fuel. Carbon build up on the valves can also cause the valves not to seat fully in extreme cases.

gzes

Honda guys... Complaining if a lol but if black on pistons... It happens. I in sea foam sometimes and gotta foam the sol bet its never been de gunked