The process for doing this. It seems so bizarre that it may work. Water down the carb but in what quantity over what time and at what rpm?

 

Oh, it works quite well. I use 12 oz in a plastic bottle. Rev & hold the engine at 1500-1800 rpm and start trickling it in. You will notice the rpm start to decrease. Pour as fast as you can without the engine stalling. Just adjust the rate if rpms start going low. After the bottle is empty wait a few seconds until the rpm pick up, then rev to 3000 for a few seconds. You wil lprobably see smoke coming out the tailpipes after you let it come to an idle, but it will clear up after a few minutes. On dirty engine this can produce quite a smoke show, so don't do it next to any open windows. :)

 

Thanks Markus. I will give it a try this week. Any known problems associated with the cat con with this procedure?

 

also..... I've heard its not good to do it with cats on. It could clog them.

EDIT... wow we just posted at the same time.... I did it with my caprice, with the cat on. I didnt get any black smoke out of the exhaust, I think the cat was soaking most of it up. Id unbolt em..


[Modified by Blues77, 5:10 PM 8/11/2002]

 

That is my concern: the cat con can get fouled.

 

havent done this with my 79 yet. did do my 96 lumina. aspirated water thru the pvc vacuum intake as opposed to a carb. ive had no problem with clogging the cat. has smoothed out my idle and seem i have better throttle responce too. i did this with the engine up to temp. it is similar to steam cleaning. the water vaporized easier in the hot engine.


[Modified by Got79Fever, 12:53 AM 8/12/2002]

 

So through the PCV intake hose to the base of the carb?

*Edit*-That will not work. Your Lumina has fuel injection. But still I am thinking it can done that way. I will try to find a pic of the PCV hose.

OK, that's the large one going into the base of the carb/front.




[Modified by paul79, 8:02 PM 8/11/2002]


[Modified by paul79, 8:13 PM 8/11/2002]

 

You can do it through the PCV hose, but why would you? Just pour it down the carb. The reason you use the PCV on new cars is that they have forward facing throttle bodies.

 

:eek:

 

That's not a very informative reply! I hope others can do better.

 

I'm kinda doing this too Paul :eek:

Water + engine in the same sentence REALLY got my attention. This is nothing I've ever heard of before. I'm interested in seeing what people have to say. So far Markus has had good luck doing it. That's one trusted source. (Assuming we should trust you, Markus :D )

Silly question, but has anyone seen the before & after effects of doing it to see how much it cleans out? While being contrary to what you would normally think, it does make sense.

Dave

 

Paul,
I have seen this procedure done several years ago. Seems to work.
This was done on a car without a cat con.
I would have some concerns about doing on a cat car.

GM have a product "Cleans" (something like that).
It is a Combustion Chamber Cleaner. I have used it several times over the years. It's been around, that I know of, for 35+ years.
It is Cat safe and Oxygen sensor safe.
It does a good job.

Barry

 

Cars that use water injection maintain absolutely new looking combustion chambers, valves, and piston tops. Too much water, like hitting a big puddle of water with a low front air intake, and you can water lock an engine, possibly destroying/cracking the block, heads, or pistons.

Chuck

 

I havent seen the water trick in years, But I have seen the effects on splashing through the puddles to fast on my neighbors dodge.....blew a hole in 2 pistons

 

Ive used this trick many times without any problems. zwede explains the procedure very well. The water has a steem cleaning effect when mixed with the gasses burning in the combustion chamber.

 

Paul,
I took the heads off of a Saab fitted with water injection 2 years back. The car is a '79 model & had never been apart. The chambers were really, really clean.
When de-carbonising alloy heads I soak them in the kitchen sink overnight as it softens up the coke (a lot just falls off in the sink) making it much easier to clean off. BUT if you are poring water through a running engine be VERY VERY careful not to pour too much in in one go. I've seen an engine bend a rod due to too much water in the chamber (OK, it would take a lot of water to cause a hydraulic lock in a SB, but you only need to sneeze/cough/slip/spill your beer & splash a lot in by accident :( ).
There is another downside (although very unlikely, but if your luck is anything like mine.....). If the coke/carbon has been there for a long time then you can get rock hard lumps, especially around the valve cutaways in the piston crown. I've taken an engine apart to find a small score mark down the bore which lined up perfectly with a piece of hard coke that had fallen off the crown & wedged itself in the side of the piston just above the top ring. So if you soften up the old coke with water & all the lumps start falling off, are you convinced that they'll all be blown out the exhaust? Highly likely that it will, but would you drop small pieces of coke into your intake with the engine running??
The water trick does actually work. Water injection keeps an engine clean, but there is probably never enough coke build-up for large lumps to form. I'm just playing devils advocate here as I've seen plenty of engines sucking water spray in with no adverse effects.
However, is coke build up really a problem?? When we had leaded petrol (happy days!) I used to see a lot of coke build up in certain engines. Now we're running unleaded (which burns hotter and, we're told, is cleaner) I'm seeing nothing like the amount of coke build up that I used to in the same type of engines.
:cheers:

 

I wonder if sustained shots from a Windex bottle down the carb might be "not too much."

 

Very good idea. I can't imagine squirting enough water through a spray bottle or a small orifice squeeze bottle to cause any problems to a running Chevy V8. Some of the squeeze bottles I have used for other projects tend to blow off the cap and gush at exactly the wrong moment. Spilling 1/2 a cup because of a sneeze as so eloquently stated earlier could be another matter.

Big chunks of carbon (coke) could be a problem, but they could break off anytime anyway. Better done at idle than while going through the gears full throttle at high rpm (Italian tuneup). Personally, I prefer the Italian tuneup method as it is much more fun!

Chuck

 

Sorry dude. I was shocked!! I have never herd of anyone dumping water down the carb..It just sounded freakin crazy. You cought me by suprise with that one. Good luck I hope it works, but im very skeptical...
Joe

 

it actually works very well i started doing it about 18 years ago,first time was on a jeep cj that had a bad carbon problem,revved it to 2500 and started puring it down the carb....sounded like a bunch of marbles in there then it smoked like crazy and then cleared right up and ran great.i ran water injection for many years on one of my motors too.