Water Treatment.

I was turned onto this by a member here and ran through the procedure outlined by RotaryResurrection here. As mentioned at the end of the article I conversed with Rob at Pineapple about the treatment and "Ideally, I would clean the motor at oil changes. Do the cleaning just before the oil change." - rob

The basics of this procedure are generally the same as that of a seafoam type of engine treatment. You are injecting the water into the combustion chambers of a running motor. The internal temperatues will work to vaporize the water and the steam will actually work to clean the carbon out of the motor.

I used the vacuum line from the brake booster to the top of the intake manifold as my injection point. With the motor running I unclipped the vacuum line from the brake booster . At this point the car almost immediately died. I have never seen a car so dependant on vacuum. The others i have done the seafoam treatment would run - with a poor idle - when this same line was detached. Next I attached a rubber hose from the vacuum line and cap off the other end and restarted the car. I then uncapped and dropped the rubber line into the water which was sittin on a stool next to the car. Before I could get into the open door and hit the throttle the car again died. It had sucked around 2-3" out of the gallon jug I was using.

After I got a longer rubber hose so I could put the gallon of water on the floor of the car I went back and finished the job. Capped off the hose and started the motor, uncapped and dropped in the water WHILE HOLDING THE REV'S AT ~3000. This time the the motor did not die. There was some struggle to keep the motor running and it sounded ill. Holding the throttle down kept the motor running. It took around 3-5mins to inject the entire jug of water.

Once the water had fully cleared the line the engine began to run very smooth at 3-4000RPM and idle perfectly. There was indeed quite a bit of white steam and blue smoke out of the exhaust. There was - and still is the next day - a pretty terrible sulfer, carbon odor.

Also worth mentioning:
After completion of the water injection almost the entire exhaust was so hot from manifold back to resonator was glowing red-orange. ~80*F ambient temp.

The hot exhaust heated the center console enough to crack the LCD display on my ipod.

There was noticable oil dillution after the treatment. Milky foamy oil was observed on the dipstick, in the filler neck and in the oil drained from the sump.

Upon completing the full gallon, and changing the oil the car runs flawlessly. There is no hesitation, no noises, rattling or anything abnormal what-so-ever.

A big thanks goes out to RotaryResurrection and Rob at Pineapple for the write up and the information.

 

You sucked water into your car's vacuum system? Is that what i'm reading?

 

100% correct. Water treatment is an old school trick for cleaning out the carbon.

 

Yes, correct. Follow the link to RotaryResurrection's site and there is a more detailed write up of exactly what the procedure does.

 

I did this too, didn't seem to help the car much, but maybe my car runs cleanly

MM said he found better results using the ATF method than water injection.

 

SQL - how many miles were on your car when you did it? Do you continue to do it at oil changes?

I've got ~16,500 miles currently so I didn't expect there to be much of a driveability difference in the car or smoothness of the motor etc. Just hoping that making this a regular routine at oil changes - as advised - will keep the status quo. As noted in the original post I did notice a heavy carbon and sulfer smell afterwards.

 

I have heard people swear by this but I won't do it. At least not a gallon! I also wouldn't use a vacuum line the size of the brake booster line. You are supposed to use the tiny vacuum nipples on the manifold. If you do it properly, your car won't run any different and you won't need to hold it at 3000 rpm to keep it running. Anything that causes your exhaust system to get so hot that it can damage an ipod in the car and make the exhaust glow red is definitely not going to be very friendly on your cat.

 

[QUOTE=mysql101;1968649]I did this too, didn't seem to help the car much, but maybe my car runs cleanly

MM said he found better results using the ATF method than water injection.[/QUOTE]

How would the results be measured? The only way that comes to mind is through the course of performing both procedures on numerous engines over a long period of time. Then upon tear down inspecting both.

In other words, whatever floats your boat, and doesn't hurt the engine probably isn't a bad idea, imo.

 

Thats the line that I have always used before. There aren't that many to choose from that are easily accessible. Can you suggest a better alternative?

 

well - I won't be doing this to my car...I 'might' let somebody smart though.

 

VFAD line.

 

The water method had a bit of crap come out the exhaust. Doing the ATF method afterwards had a lot more come out.

Sounds like a good way to measure the results.

 

I gotta say I'm more than a little scared of a procedure with all of those characteristics! A persistent sulfur odor, combined with the unusual heat you noticed, make me worry about the Cat. Or, maybe that was just the effect of "liberating" so much carbon at once? Hmm... don't know if that's good or bad. I wonder about clogging or overheating the cat.

Milky oil (water/oil emulsion) is likewise pretty scary. We're not talking about the odd bit of goo on the dipstick; your crankcase was full of this stuff. A simple oil change isn't going to remove it all, but I guess it'll boil off on its own. I'd worry about lubrication for those 30-60 minutes it'll take. Also I'd strongly recommend distilled water, otherwise you'll be leaving behind mineral residue. But this all points to probably an excessive amount of water going through in a short time. Not only milky oil, but I'd really worry about hydro-lock although maybe I'm off base here -- no real idea if it's possible to suck in that much water through vacuum, but you were using the Mother of all vacuum lines .

[QUOTEThats the line that I have always used before. There aren't that many to choose from that are easily accessible. Can you suggest a better alternative?[/QUOTE]

If I were to do this I'd use the fittings on the manifold right before it goes into the engine. Those are the lines used to deliver oil during flood-recover operation. Normally, they're covered with rubber nipples. Not too hard to get to. Either way, I'd probably fit a petcock to the water-end of the hose so you have some control of the flow rate.

I find the steam-cleaning idea intriguing but I'd like hear more from some folks with experience who maybe could allay all these worries I have.

 

ATF is essentially refined mineral oil. I'm not sure pumping a significant quantity through the engine would be good for the Cat, which would then be trying to oxidise all that unburned oil -- lots of heat!. Gobs of Carbon. Maybe this is the source of the extra "crap" that came out. Not carbon from the engine, but from burning all that ATF? How much was consumed, and in how much time?

 

you need to figure out how to steam clean all the crap out of your own heads

 

search MM's posts, you don't do a gallon of ATF through a vacuum hose. You also have to let it soak in the engine for a while.

 

This procedure comes straight from Rob at Pineapple Racing. I am just the messanger and relaying my results. I talked directly with him about it after reading the writeup on RotaryResurrections site. As per directions I used a vacuum line that was BEFORE any of the splits in the intake manifold so that the water was delivered EVENLY to the front and rear rotors. I don't know of a more reliable source to get the information from.


As far as the oil goes it looked just like the odd bit of goo on the dipstick. Maybe I should have been a bit more clear on this. The entire oil was not turned to this gooey substance. There was just milky water soaked bits of oil present. Same as pulling the dipstick and draining the oil in the middle of the winter.

 

i forgot to mention i DID use distilled water.

 

How do you know that the "lot more" wasn't simply the burning ATF? Was there a differentiation in the color/smell of what was coming out between the ATF and water, and how does that relate to burning ATF on its own?

I've seen write-ups for years about using ATF on carbon locked engines...just trying to weigh one vs. the other as best as can be done over the internet. (probably an exercise in futility)

 

ATF as in automatic transmission fluid? Just looking for a clarification.

 

Yep.

 

You sucked a whole gallon of water through your engine? That's nuts. I could understand maybe a half pint over the course of 30 minutes or so. That much water hitting hot engine parts can cause cracking.

That sulfur smell is probably because most of the cat is in your driveway.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

 

I don't think the issue is really that it was a gallon but rather how fast a gallon went through. 3-5 minutes to go through an entire gallon at 3000 rpm is FAR more water than fuel being used!!! Some of the serious water injection guys run a max of about 20% water to fuel. A few will go higher. This wasn't a water to fuel ratio it was a fuel to water ratio. He was using a vacuum line that is way too large. A small nipple on the lower manifold would have been a better choice. He's not steam cleaning a gasoline engine. With the proportions used, he's running gasoline through his steam engine! It's amazing that it still ran.

 

You don't run the motor with the ATF. You blow it out the spark plug holes after it has been soaking.
It comes out black.

 

It should probably be noted I went through ~3gallons of gas in this time as well.


talk to rob. give it a try. post results.