Carbon build - up its everyone’s problem.

[chris_s]

My catch can is getting a bit of oil. It's an ultimate catch can. It comes with a great internal filter to stop oil from going down the tube
http://store.42draftdesigns.com/Ultimat ... p_288.html
There's a supplier in Queensland that was very helpful

[Froggy]

I had the manifolds cleaned under warranty at 107000ks then fitted a pro vent 200.
At 120 I had the tappets adjusted. At this time the manifold had a light coating of dry soot.
I'd say there are others with longer trial periods.
Fact is it will stop the build up, however the carbon being sucked through the motor could very well cause other issues in the long run.

[odie602r]

Fact is it will stop the build up, however the carbon being sucked through the motor could very well cause other issues in the long run.

Gotcha.

[simonb]

Hi,
I have looked down the inlet to see nice lot of carbon. My car has the old design manifold, egr blank and catch can. Unfortunately the car is out of warranty, and I can't afford to buy new manifolds.

Question is if I get the manifolds cleaned at next service, will this be an ongoing issue because of the design fault of the manifold?

[mad992]

hi simon
no this will not be ongoing you have a blank and can so u will be right mate
how much are they goin to sting you for this

[simonb]

Hi Mad,
I have a local mechanical in Gympie I use, however I will get a few quotes I think.

Is it only the inlet manifold I have to worry about or do I have to get the exhaust done as well?

[viking shippy]

There is two inlets an upper and lower that need cleaning and exhaust is fine

[coopslander]

put my catch can in and touch would no problems for me ever

[SecondEye]

While the auto electrician was looking at my zero throttle problem he decided the manifold needed a clean ($650 worth). How that is part of the no throttle response i will never know as long as my car works after he does his magic. He did nearly fall over when he saw how choked up it was at 200,000kms. Down to about 50% in the cross section.

[Blue]

While the auto electrician was looking at my zero throttle problem he decided the manifold needed a clean ($650 worth). How that is part of the no throttle response i will never know as long as my car works after he does his magic. He did nearly fall over when he saw how choked up it was at 200,000kms. Down to about 50% in the cross section.

My first manifold was down to an average 10mm aperture, they didn't know how the car was still running... Had the donk replaced and just had the manifold replaced (after ~40,000) on this one with an average 8mm aperture... I hopefully have a permanent fix in place by way of chip, EGR blank etc...

[mad992]

Hi Mad,
I have a local mechanical in Gympie I use, however I will get a few quotes I think.

Is it only the inlet manifold I have to worry about or do I have to get the exhaust done as well?

hey simon,
inlet only mate its worthwhile going to action auto group gympie northside and ask for a price to clean or exchange your manifold
the guys know there stuff and hopefully should look after you tell em your on this site then if all else fails give lee a pm he really sounds like a genuine bloke and wont rip you off let us all know how u get on , cause we will all be out of warranty at some point:!:

[Blue]

It's around the $800 - $1,000 for a new manifold... Given the history of these things sooting up manifolds, I really believe this should be a warranted repair regardless of your warranty status...

[snowman]

someone at Mitsubishi recommended they are not cleaned. That said i could not be bothered arguing with my dealer (i did not have any symptoms at that point but new it would be blocking - i was right) and had West End diesel take mine off and clean it. i cant remember the cost (it was done with tappets and 60k service) BUT it did spend two full days in the wash bath.

i dont see any real problem in getting them cleaned.

went an EGR plate straight away (again - i tookk it out for MRT tune) so i wont have to go through it ever again.

i dont think they will ever be changed out of warranty (ok some people might get lucky) so any new owner MIGHT get it done for 10 years (and ? klms) but a second owner is limited to 5 years.

you either blank or budget for cleaning them.

[Tony]

Talk about manifolds sooting, I accidentally destroyed a manifold last week. I tossed it in this industrial solvent "blitz" that can be a little tough on alloy , it didn't initially respond as I wanted, so I left it for a soak........ Only I forgot about it for a few days.

Shit, that bloody manifold!...........Flew back to retrieve it and it had partially dissolved.

Lucky it was an older vehicle, off to the wreckers and found a replacement then tossed it in the blitz to clean it up.

I have yet to find an easy way to clean these things, other than an acid bath. I leave that to the head specialist as way too dangerous to around my workshop.

Its just a fact of owning a diesel car if doing shorter trips or not driven like its been stolen. As our warranty periods start to expire, its something we will have to factor into the running/service cost.
I tend to pull the manifolds off whilst doing the tappet adjustments at either 30, 60 or 90k . Saves time as your half way in there. So for most, every 30k or 60k depending how bad it is.

Those that have banks and/or provents fitted can enjoy a slightly longer carbon free run.

If they ever bring emission testing in, gone are the blanks.

[snowman]

Tony,

I mentioned the word 'acid bath' to west End and they promptly told me it was not an acid. More a hot wash tank. Not sure whether it was a PH neutral etc. but it was probably why it also took two full days in the bath. (they had my car for almost three days). But i think acid was the reason you have mentioned why it was not recommended by Mits due to the alloy's susceptibility to breaking down. i was pretty confident in West End's abilities in that regard

i don't see how they can bring in emission testing because, blanks aside, most cars deteriorate whether it be plugs, leads, rings, etc. it would be a nightmare. and political suicide. That said we probably thought the same thing about the carbon tax. damn it would be funny if not so serious.

The best thing is to encourage new car purchasing. i constantly hear people talk about 'how well we must be doing' for all these new cars, but it is a great thing because almost without exception newer cars have better emissions. if we were all still driving around in Belmonts, Geminis, XB falcons and the like imagine what the total fuel use would be!!!!!!!

We get much more powerful donks now, for much less fuel consumption and emissions. Yet people see new cars as a bad thing.

oh and is it wrong i laughed at an image of you placing a full manifold in and coming back to pulling something out looking like a 20 cent piece.

[Blue]

http://youtu.be/oet4qWeZuYA

[Blue]

The best thing is to encourage new car purchasing. i constantly hear people talk about 'how well we must be doing' for all these new cars, but it is a great thing because almost without exception newer cars have better emissions. if we were all still driving around in Belmonts, Geminis, XB falcons and the like imagine what the total fuel use would be!!!!!!!

I don't know if it was on here or another forum, some time back anyway - someone pulled the fuel figures for a variety of cars from the 60's, 70's, 80's, etc... Power aside, there was stuff all difference in fuel consumption and in some cases the modern equivalent was thirstier...

[Longranger1]

There are alloy specific cleaners which are ok for cleaning. I forget the chemical formulation that this stuff uses, but it does work well in a hot cleaning bath that has good circulation. Edit: One chemical is Dipropylene Glycol Methyl Ester. I can't see cleaning being a problem unless caustic, alkali solutions are used - a big no-no with aluminium alloy - unless you are quick as Tony found out . It will discolour alloy badly as it eats the crap out of it.
The stuff used for removing carbon build-up in rifle barrels should work well if you can source the raw chemical.

I have an ultrasonic cleaner of 12 l capacity (250W) that I've used the clean carbon gunk off parts and it works a treat, bit small for a lot of manifolds though. A large ultrasonic cleaner can drive you mad with the noise though . Not that hard to make either, I'm thinking of building a 1000 watt job running at about 25-30kHz. I wonder what the neighbourhood dogs will think....

Prevention is probably the best option and there are ways of dealing with any fault codes that arise from running a blank as well as keeping fuel economy etc. You can have the best of both worlds albeit against ADR rulings. The price we pay I guess, it is arguable that the efficiency losses from a gunked up intake manifold would be more than offset by keeping it clean with a blank and associated mod's. Nox emissions are the only casualty, but I'm betting that a low compression diesel at low or no boost would be pretty good anyway at suburban speeds as far as Nox goes.

[sierra]

As I mentioned before, I used to work with aircraft. I would look for a local company that overhauls aircraft piston engines, usually at the domestic airport or light aircraft airfield. They clean all the engine components in various baths and can't make mistakes so they will take one look at the manifold and know which bath and how long.

The EGR emissions would have to be tested on the road as it's working at drive by conditions. They couldn't shove a sniffer up it's back pipe and give it a rev as they do in California but that would show the lack of a catalytic converter.

[simonb]

I have found what i believe is a good industrial quality check valve. Cracking pressure 0.7 PSI, I can suck it and the seal breaks. It can handle high pressure as well. It is a SMC model AK2000 (1/4" BSP female inlet and outlet port). I will fit it this weekend.

[simonb]

Thanks mad992 for your advice!!

[Froggy]

I have found what i believe is a good industrial quality check valve. Cracking pressure 0.7 PSI, I can suck it and the seal breaks. It can handle high pressure as well. It is a SMC model AK2000 (1/4" BSP female inlet and outlet port). I will fit it this weekend.

Sounds perfect!
Where can I get one?

[simonb]

SMC is a company who sells pneumatic equipment for industry. They might sell direct to the public, however if they don't they will give you a name of a local distributor.

[Cowboy Dave]

There's a tonne of them on ebay if you search.

[curepipe]

Best solution i found to clean manifold is
Paint thinner or Subaru upper engine cleaner