Dalilean

While changing my spark plugs (cause of my misfiring problem) I found that my pistons where jet black. Most people her frown the use of aditive and "mechs in a can". I want to at least clean up a bit those pistons without opening up the engine block. What can I use?

Peckster

Since you've already made up your mind this is a good idea I'm sure any autoparts shop will be glad to take your money. Let us know which one cleans the top of your pistons best!

joseph mitro

hmm....a little pessimistic.

how about putting a can of techroline in on a regular basis?

Dalilean

The PO ran the car for some time on the wrong sparks. This caused the mix to burn incorrectly. The Car is running fine. It's not misfireing or anything. There is just a lot of carbon acumulation inside the engine. I can choose to do 3 things:
1) Nothing till something clogs up.
2) Dismantel the engine, something that takes up a lot of $time! Just to clean up something that's not broken.
3) Constantly rev up the engine till the pistons are clean or I break something.
3) Use a good injector cleaner or the likes.

If it does not work, no Harm. If it does work, good.
Something is better than nothing!

Peckster

If you've fixed the rich rnning problem, the carbon will priobably go away by itself. It's not something to worry about anyway.

And something is definitely not better than nothing.

Joseph, how does Techroline make the tops of your pistons look? How long did it take to work?

aeronautica86

Throw a little fuel addative in there, then rev 'er up and burn out the carbon. Can't hurt it too bad...

tifosiman

Bingo!

I went thru this a few weeks back. Due to my own stupidity (long story), I put the timing belt on my daily driver one tooth off on the left bank of valves. The pistons on that side were black as night after only driving it one day like that. I re-installed the timing belt properly, and then checked the pistons a week later. They were nice and clean again.

Geo

Carbon will build up on the pistons regardless of what you do except possibly rebuilding the engine every month. The only problem associated with carbon build-up would be detonation due to compression in crease or any hot spots created. It's really no big deal.

But, if you're dead set on doing something about it w/o tearing the engine down, injector/carb cleaners and the like will do nothing about it. STP makes an additive that is designed to reduce carbon build-up. It's about $12 a bottle. I'd be more concerned about carbon build-up on the valves myself.

Sam Lin

SeaFoam and GM Top Engine Cleaner are designed to remove internal carbon deposits.

Sam