Italian Tune Up

jro909 · July 16, 2011

Anybody heard of this term? from what i gathered on the interweb its essentially running your car pedal to the floor for awhile to clean out the valves and such...i was chit chatting with a fellow co worker and hes convinced it works..i'm skeptical

tanked_darren · July 16, 2011

Ive been giving Italian tune ups on everything I've driven.

I have heard its good to open it up in awhile though.

yukon25008.1 · July 16, 2011

I remember my father doing it when i was a kid, it was almost like a seafoam treatment. he would hold it to the floor as long as he could on the highway and the carbon/buildup would find its way out the exhaust

Doug_Scott · July 16, 2011

Either people drive differently now, or it is not the issue it used to be. It was pretty common place when I was lots younger to end up behind the guy that would "open her up" as he was getting on the highway. Lots of grey/black/tan coloured smoke out of the exhaust as he floored it. Don't see it anywhere near as often these days. What I do get now is the rotten stink of exhaust, but no smoke/junk coming out the exhaust.

Shaners · July 16, 2011

You can't do it in neutral or park because there is a much lower rev limiter on the engine when it is not under load. At work they used to take the older diesel fork trucks outside and put a brick on the pedal and let them sit and scream. It cleaned alot of soot out of them.

cparks555 · July 16, 2011

My grandfather used to do this every few months, I thought he was crazy.

06_GMC · July 16, 2011

sometimes I do it just for the hell of romping on the pedal for a moment and hearing the magnaflow scream. But besides that I think "carbon buildup" isn't as common nowadays with how "clean" the government requires these motors to be.

tyhuck · July 16, 2011

Regardless of whether or not it actually cleans anything, I think its important to do it every so often, just to give it a good workout and make sure it still can. Plus its fun.

KMGZ400 · July 16, 2011

i floor it quite often in all of my trucks and all of my trucks now have over 95,000 miles, one with 160,000 and they dont tick or knock or anything and perform good as new so maybe it helps.

tranny is a diffrent story though

Mckenzie · July 16, 2011

i floor it quite often in all of my trucks and all of my trucks now have over 95,000 miles, one with 160,000 and they dont tick or knock or anything and perform good as new so maybe it helps.

tranny is a diffrent story though

Amen to that 196,000 miles and it still shits and gets when i floor it

Doug_Scott · July 17, 2011

i floor it quite often in all of my trucks and all of my trucks now have over 95,000 miles, one with 160,000 and they dont tick or knock or anything and perform good as new so maybe it helps.

tranny is a diffrent story though

I guess you have never had a piece of carbon break off and stick to the top of piston or to the combustion chamber in the head. It wil scare the crap out of you the first time it does that, sounds like a rod knock, but no "double-tap" like rod bearing does.

TexasAl · July 17, 2011

When I was a college student, I worked with the recycling department of the University. We had an old Dodge truck we would drive back and forth from the University to the city recycling center. Our boss suggested that we take the old Dodge (1970's model) out to the farm road, and floor it a few times. When he told me this, I thought to myself, he's got to be kidding. Well, he wasn't, so a coworker and I went out and floored that sucker, and a bunch of black smoke came out. We then stopped after about a mile, and turned around. We proceeded to do it again, when the trucks engine oil light/alarm came on, and the truck stalled and backfired. We tried to get it started, but it was dead. We had to get towed back to town. The mechanics at the shop refused to look at it since the truck was so old, and no longer needed. Needless to say, the truck never ran again.

gregrocks89 · July 18, 2011

well its a dodge to start lol.

tyhuck · July 18, 2011

Question.

Exactly what part of this process is Italian?

jro909 · July 18, 2011

Question.

Exactly what part of this process is Italian?

is slang...derived from the fact that italians pioneered high end sports cars and super cars...read it online that they would take their old carbed "super cars" out on the track and just hammer on them to clean them out....i was just curious if this theory even applied to the more efficient engines of today