Video showing the carbon build up in the exhaust ports.

Had this car for a year now. 2000 civic ex 5 speed 132k miles. when I bought it the knock sensor was broken so the car was running in limp mode. The car also burns oil, which was not noticeable when i bought, probably because the cat converter was caked too. the gas tank was also rusted. which in turn clogged my injectors, stopping the car from running. all of this abuse led to what I think is some major carbon build up. I sea foamed the car at one point and recently misted some water into the intake to steam clean. The head is oily because the valve cover gasket was leaking. After this video I replaced the valve cover gasket, exhaust gasket, oil pan gasket, and the donut gasket between the cat converter (resonator in my case) and down pipe. No leaks for now from those areas.

So how bad does it look? haha. Those "wet" spots on some of the valves look like the seals are leaking? funny though since those wet spots cleaned the port pretty well. (probably from the MMO I was putting in the oil) This engine is pretty shot. I've got the oil consumption to go down some but its still pretty bad. From what I could see when the oil pan was off the cylinder walls looked good and the rods weren't loose. Seems like the oil control rings are just stuck. The car does smoke a bit on start up and will for awhile during light acceleration until the engine gets hot. then it will just smoke around 4k+ rpms. also having pretty bad breakup and sputtering in those rpms during partial throttle. I will be checking the vtec solenoid and changing my fuel filter (for the 3rd time). There might of been some gunk still left in the fuel lines. I did blow compressed air through them.

Let me know what you guys think.
Thanks.

 

That is quite a bit

If you're going to keep it for awhile, I'd tear it down and see how the bores look. Dingleberry hone it, buy some new piston rings/bearings, take the head apart and replace the valve stem seals, if you have the extra coin then get a valve job done/resurface the head, and put it back together.

Sounds like that engine has had a hard life.

 

Check this **** out. Carbon build up on this burnt valve. All the other valves were just as bad! Tear it down and send it off to a machine shop and have the glass bead blast it.

If you get them blasted they'll look new like these.

 

**** that's bad. Time for a complete strip down, hydro cleaning, and overhaul.

 

A cheap but highly effective product available to yall in the states is Piston Kleen. A non toxic, no DOT restriction product developed for the military that braeks down that burnt on carbon with ease and doesn't change the metal in any fashion.

**** cost more to ship to Canada than the product itself, sux ***** for me as it works really damn well.

 

Thanks for the replies. Would cleaning that build up off the inside of the ports make any noticeable difference in performance? when I had the oil pan off, I also put the stock header back on. The cheap Ebay header I had didn't fit to the resonator correctly and it had a really bad exhaust leak. I had the sputtering problem before, but I fixed it by relocating the upstream O2 sensor to the top bung on the header, away from the leak. When I put the stock header back on I moved the o2 sensor back to its original spot. The sputtering then came back, worse then ever. I'm thinking the stock header might be full of carbon as well. Could that cause the sputtering/bucking? I checked that there weren't any exhaust leaks after changing the doughnut gasket. Also, the sputtering sound comes from the engine bay.

I have a spare D16Y8 from a 96 auto, I'm just trying to make this engine last for a while until I have the funds to finish rebuilding and do the swap. The spare is pretty clean on the inside and I could clearly see the hone on the cylinder walls still, even at 150k miles.

@Trav. Holy crap that burnt valve looks bad! I wonder if I can feel the valves from inside the exhaust ports to see if any of mine are toasted.

@TomCat I'll look into Piston Kleen. I've done a piston soak with MMO (poured in spark plug holes) for a few days and I didn't see much of a difference. Would it be safe to do the same procedure with that product?

Thanks again for the Info.

 

I personally would not do it that way. This cleaner is best suited for when you tear the engine down.

I don't know what it does to oil and I would not want residue getting into my crank case to make things go foul.

Disassemble, soak overnight, rinse and clean up, dry, oil and reassemble.

 

It's probably just oxalic acid, also known as wood bleach. It'll eat through anything but metal. You can get it for cheap as hell on Amazon, if you want to try it Tom. My cams both got an oxalic acid soak to get rid of rust, and it worked beautifully.

 

That does not appear to be correct. Oxalic Acid has a 3 health rating on the MSDS. Highly troublesome to skin, as well as a 1 for flammable, as well as has DOT restrictions:

https://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927379

Piston Kleen on the other hand has no such toxicity and is non flammable etc.

http://www.orisonmarketing.com/SDS%2...on%20Kleen.pdf

 

Could be diluted. Or it could be a completely different chemical that operates in a similar manner. I just know Oxalic acid works beautifully for that, and is cheap and readily available. But yeah, definitely wear gloves. That **** burns like a ************ when it gets on skin.

 

I suspect Piston Kleen is nano particle plant material.

There has been some seriously interesting developments in the nano technology utilizing biodegradable non toxic plant material. Some really cool degreasers that just annihilates thick greasy messes with the greatest of ease.

Much of these new products are being utilized by the oil industry to clean their drilling and pumping equipment etc.

Piston Kleen is by far the cheapest non toxic biodegradable no health hazard carbon cleaner I've found at 15 dollars US a gallon. Cost me almost 40 bucks to ship it up here though lol.

Not gonna lie, stuff works wonders on valves and piston tops and I don't worry about spills or it going down the drain unlike the harsh chemicals normally used in tge automotive industry.