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Thanks for the pics. Any chance you have a lit of parts that you purchased? I’m about to do mine too and might as well put some new parts on after the SAI port operation.
Preparing to do it this week. Is it required to take the rear wheels off to take off the ARB? I have ramps that I can back up to that should elevate the car enough but want to make sure I won’t need to take off the rear wheels for any reason.
I'm going to be trying the SAI cleanout next week and will be following these steps. One thing I will be trying differently is that I bought a 50" aerocan straw that I'm going to try and push up the SAI port to try to spray some carb cleaner as far up as I could. I also have the bike cable ready if it doesn't work
Edwin
Recommend different lengths of bicycle cable, plenty of spray, ping pong *****, . Also, something I discovered helped me get way up in the SAI ports was different lengths of striped romex wire sleeve. IIRC, I had 12 gauge . All you do is connect the sleeve to the small hose that comes with the spray and slowly snake it up the passages. Best of luck!
i just got mine to unclog
1. SAI valve tool - pelican has a great kit - from yellow garage etc. my SAI valve was very corroded, hard to get off, and good to do on the regular
2. Filled the system with carb cleaner - some holes were open and had 2 clogged ones
3. i stuffed rubber gloves with papertowels and stuffed into the exhaust ports and had pressure through the system
4. spent a good hour using bike brake cable in the sleeve attached to a drill until carb cleaner fluid flowed out - you just need to keep working it until it lets go - now they all have airflow
Was a PIA and wasnt sure if it was working until fluid started flowing - so just keep working it.
i just got mine to unclog
1. SAI valve tool - pelican has a great kit - from yellow garage etc. my SAI valve was very corroded, hard to get off, and good to do on the regular
2. Filled the system with carb cleaner - some holes were open and had 2 clogged ones
3. i stuffed rubber gloves with papertowels and stuffed into the exhaust ports and had pressure through the system
4. spent a good hour using bike brake cable in the sleeve attached to a drill until carb cleaner fluid flowed out - you just need to keep working it until it lets go - now they all have airflow
Was a PIA and wasnt sure if it was working until fluid started flowing - so just keep working it.
phil.
THanks Phil. Did have to take off the rear wheels or can they stay on (ie. can I back up the car on ramps for access?)
You need to remove the exhaust - think you can take out the cans and heat exchangers with the wheels on. I have the car in the air on stands to do valve cover gaskets, oil, this and reg run through of the car.
You need to remove the exhaust - think you can take out the cans and heat exchangers with the wheels on.
Whatever you do, don't break/snap-off an exhaust stud. If you do, you'll be in a world of hurt trying to repair it in-car. Looking at the pic above, I can see a few exhaust studs removed; lets hope they came out with the nut (replace them and use new nuts/studs). These cars are 25 years old. Just over 5 years ago, I had to take the heat exchangers off a 964 and since the engine was out, I advised my friend to remove the nuts and replace with new ones and anti-seize. My oxy-acetylene torch had its share of work, but all nuts came off; some squeaking as they did. I ran an adjustable die over the studs by hand to clean up the corrosion on the threads.
I recently completed both the SAI valve replacement and a cleaning/flushing of the SAI ports. As has been mentioned, Pelican Parts offers a kit, but I decided to make my own tools and thought the following might be of interest to others who might consider doing the same. I purchased all the basic parts through Amazon, Home Depot or my local auto parts store. I've included links for the parts on Amazon if you are unable to find them locally.
27mm and 1 1/16" are essentially identical (1.06299" vs. 1.0625"). The crowfoot is thicker than the required 7mm. I used an angle grinder to remove the majority of the material. I have a medium sized milling machine and used it to clean the crowfoot up to final dimension, but you could do it all with the angle grinder.
The Dorman drain plug is a transmission plug and is solid. You have to drill and tap it to accept the Milton air hose and fluid hose plugs. The Dorman plug is made of relatively "soft" steel and so is easy to drill as long as you start small and step up in drill size. A drill press is best, but you can do it with a hand held drill. Tapping is straight forward.
Flushing Bottle
In one of the many threads on SAI flushing I saw the idea for some sort of container to hold fluid and then force it into the SAI valve port. My solution was to use a wide mouth jar (apple sauce jar in my case) and mount another set of the Milton air hose and fluid plugs on the lid. I used a small piece of scrap aluminum block, drilled and tapped and then used JB Weld epoxy to attach the block to the jar lid. Remember to sand off any coating or paint on the top of the lid to ensure a good bonding surface for the epoxy. I purchase a couple of pieces of tubing to fit the fluid plug inside the jar (1/4" OD) and outside (3/8" ID). Use teflon tape as needed to ensure leak proof fits. I dialed my compressor down to 20 psi. There are some seals in the SAI manifold that you can burst if the pressure is too high. Replacing those would not be fun. The 20 psi was more than enough to force fluid and air through my ports.
Cylinder Exhaust Port Seals
For the flushing, I wanted a way to seal off each cylinder's exhaust port so I could allow the fluid to work on dissolving the carbon build up. I used Berryman B-12 Chemtool Carburetor Cleaner. In another thread it had been suggest ping pong ***** fit well in the exhaust ports. They do and I decided to try them with my first attempt at flushing the system. Unfortunately, after about 15 to 20 minutes I noted the ping pong ***** were being dissolved by the B-12 Chemtool and turning into the consistency of the remains of a marshmallow as you pull it off a stick after roasting it on a fire. Therefore, I would not recommend using ping pong *****, at least with B-12 Chemtool. My solution was to build a set of 1/2" thick wooden caps that mounted over the exhaust studs and were held in place with the exhaust manifold nuts. I drilled a hole in the middle of each cap and inserted a wooden dowel plug. This allowed me to individually open each cylinder to blow air or fluid through it. The wooden caps worked relatively well and gave me a feel for how much carbon was flushed out by the amount left on the wood after the B-12 evaporated. I should note, I did use the bike cable method described in this thread for "drilling" out my ports before flushing.
Pictures of everything follows.
Finished crowfoot and drilled and tapped Dorman plug with air and fluid fittings.
Fluid container and SAI value adapter plug in use.
Remains of ping pong ball after 15 - 20 minutes of exposure to the B-12 Chemtool.
Fluid container and internal tubing.
Wooden caps on exhaust ports. It's obvious by the leaking/staining that fluid was getting to all the cylinders.
Question: Own a ‘96 993 C4. Has 46k on it. No CEL. What ‘s the impact of plugged SAI? Does it decrease performance, (burn oil, impact valve guides) from above? Just wondering if this is something that should be done preemptively?
Thx,
LR
Originally Posted by PRSWILL
SAI clean-out should last years- if you're not burning a bunch of oil and your valve guides are good.
Question: Own a ‘96 993 C4. Has 46k on it. No CEL. What ‘s the impact of plugged SAI? Does it decrease performance, (burn oil, impact valve guides) from above? Just wondering if this is something that should be done preemptively?
Thx,
LR
No performance impact. SAI issues will not cause the car to burn more oil or affect the valve guides at all. No CEL means all is well. If you feel it necessary, you can swap the valve out as you like. I just did mine at 110k and I'm certain it was original with how difficult it was to remove. I did not have any CEL but since I had the intake assembly out anyway, felt it a good time to replace. If I were you, I'd be more concerned about the wiring to the SAI pump, as nearly all these cars have failing insulation on those leads.
Ok Thx. Sounds like I should leave well enough alone… I did clean out the Idle Stabilization Valve recently. I needed baby hands to get it done easily, but got it done. Was seized, Now moves freely. Didn’t improve the idle smoothness as much as I thought it would. Are there videos of a perfectly tuned engine out there?
Engine doesn’t “hunt” but bobbles a lot at idle, that translates more to vibrations with RS engine mounts installed by PO. My 997.1 GT3 bobbles too, so just want to make sure that the less than perfectly smooth idle is normal on older NA cars…
07-27-2020 | 12:35 AM
