Intake valve build up - Pics Inside

[kennerz]

Here you go Grumpy, They look like crap, standard DI high mileage. The film was not good, the thick carbon gunk was unlike anything I've seen before, can't be good for anything. Truck runs much better now. Those are tyhe middle of the road ones, some a little better, some worse. The Walnut blast and scrape got them about 90% clean. (Hard to get the short side radius of the valve). What you can't see in the photo is the buildup on the tulip of the valve that has to kill low lift flow, it was worse than the picture tells.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by kennerz

[CamGTP]

Yours look wet too. None of mine where wet when I removed my intake, don't have a catch can either.

[kennerz]

I'm running an AFE GT momentum intake too, so all the lines directly to the intake are re-routed. The only line that feeds the intake is the one for tha catch can.  Point is , this buildup is real, the performance impact (which has been well documented on other DI vehicles) is real. And if you plan on keeping your vehicle for any period of time I recommend you somehow clean the intake valves.  I choose walnut blasting which is arguably the best approach. The intake ports looked very clean when I was done, like I mentioned some scraping was still required, and cleaned with CRC intake cleaner and carb cleaner to help break the stuff up some.

 

For the walnut blasting I used a wand from ECM tuning, and ordered a plastic port fitting that attached to a shop vac to collect the walnut shells. through ebay for a L86. Cleaned the manifold while I was at it. Used a harbor freight 20lbs blaster. Using a 6hp craftsman compressor rated at up to 8.5 or so cfm. (this is critical that you have enough flow from the compressor).  Watched a few youtube BMW and mini cooper DI cleaning videos to get an Idea on how to do it, Hardest part was getting the intake cover off. (I cut it off with a cut off wheel and sawzall) it is that much of a pain and the more I researched there is no easy way to remove but your mileage may vary. I say it's around a 4hour job give or take. Hard to get to the back ports too. I may do it again in 10k or so should be much easier with the cover now removed. Maybe less than 3 hours. Oh, and if you can get the cover off easily - good for you.

Edited April 6, 2021 by kennerz

[kennerz]

On 4/4/2021 at 9:13 PM, Grumpy Bear said:

So if build up in ALL GDI motors results in a loss of both power AND economy somebody explain to me why Pepper at 134,000 miles it still gaining in lifetime fuel efficiency and getting better numbers now than it did at 50,000 miles? This I gotta hear. 

 

 

Probably leaning out to match the restriction in airflow over time. I have a L86 so maybe this does not effect you. All I know that if you pull your intake and look at the valves I would bet they don't look so hot. Also if they were properly cleaned I would bet that you would see a measurable difference.

[kennerz]

16 hours ago, truckguy82 said:

Where are the pics?

 

also odd that you running a catch can have build up problems and everybody that doesn’t run one, who has posted pictures on high mileage engines, has no problems. Weird

I'm just sharing information. My experience, some people may find it valuable. So don't have to pee on the thread. Maybe proves the can doesn't work? or even contributes? I've seen worse than my truck on here and that one 104K pic does not look that great to me. I've seen high mileage tuned ports and LS1's that are not a fraction of that dirty, so no those are not "good looking " ports to me. Clean motors run better, sorry if you guys disagree with that, it's OK. There could be other factors, who knows. Running mostly amsoil. Truck was running absolutely fine, I did it because I'm aware of the problem and wanted to follow up on my old statements in this tread to hopefully support the community here, that's it. More of general maintenance. I still plan on keeping the truck. 

Edited April 6, 2021 by kennerz

[kennerz]

A couple more, sorry for the GIF format, new phone.... The stems had a buildup a few millimeters thick. Wish I would have taken after pics, was getting tired. The after cleaning results were dramatically cleaner, like new bare ports in some places. Only thing is you would need some type of angled pick to use to get at the short side radius. Everything else looked near pristine.

Edited April 6, 2021 by kennerz

[Grumpy Bear]

8 hours ago, kennerz said:

A couple more, sorry for the GIF format, new phone.... The stems had a buildup a few millimeters thick. Wish I would have taken after pics, was getting tired. The after cleaning results were dramatically cleaner, like new bare ports in some places. Only thing is you would need some type of angled pick to use to get at the short side radius. Everything else looked near pristine.

 

GIF is fine. Serves the purpose. Contributions are always welcome. Everyone's seen a clean port so....

 

It really is a case by case basis. We did look inside mine when mileage was about half what it is now. I should look again perhaps but at roughly 60K I had less than Cameron's motor so I expect now it is no worse than his is now and if it looked like yours I'd keep chugging a good while yet.

 

What I see in your motor is some weeping valve seals. Not uncommon. Backs of the valves look pretty good.  Here's the wife's motor after the rings collapsed at roughly 80K and overwhelmed the PCV system of her 2.4 I4. That's a case for a can. Note the difference in the backs of the valves?  Can won't fix seal issues. Seals will.  

 

Also a case for not running DEXOS1Gen2 for 7,500 miles. 

 

[don67]

43 minutes ago, Grumpy Bear said:

What I see in your motor is some weeping valve seals

...  Can won't fix seal issues. Seals will.  

If valve seals ever hope to separate young men from their money as effectively as catch cans do, they're gonna need some Youtube videos depicting the horrors of a spoonful of nasty black motor oil.   It's a visual thing.  

[wingsaa]

Here's my input from a few months ago. Bought the truck new (2016) and have been running a "popular" catch can from around 2/300 miles in with AFM disabled from the day I got it home.

 

 

[Grumpy Bear]

2 hours ago, wingsaa said:

Here's my input from a few months ago. Bought the truck new (2016) and have been running a "popular" catch can from around 2/300 miles in with AFM disabled from the day I got it home.

 

 

From your thread with can left.                                                                 From Cameron's post NO can right. 

 

 

Tell ya what,  I'm not seeing several hundred $$$$$ worth of difference here. 

[wingsaa]

From your thread with can left.                                                                 From Cameron's post NO can right. 

 

 

Tell ya what,  I'm not seeing several hundred $$$$$ worth of difference here. 

 

 

Pretty much right. [emoji4]

 

 

[kennerz]

There you go, mine were similar but worse than Wingsaa's with 33k additional miles on the clock. My AFM was disabled as well at around 30K.  We probably don't have a large enough sample to say anything for sure, but I believe they need semi regular cleaning to be maintained at their highest potential. I also run 0~40w euro blend oil. either amsoil or carstrol syntec. Could be heavier vapor. 

 

Would think the only way to stop this would be to re-route anything that flows from the crankcase to the intake and stick a filter on it. TO me DI is a little bit of a problem maintenance wise. As wingsaa mentioned the contortion act around the engine bay was not very comfortable while cleaning. I think the walnut shells is a great way to do it, just a pain prob. had about $160 or so in tools/materials to do it. But I hear normally shops charge $400+ then you need a good shop to take it to (I am my own good shop). 

 

But, I will agree that I can't say exactly how effective the catch can was, or was not. It does prevent some amount of vapor that you have to catch and dump. I can't see how you would want the factory set up pulling directly  into the intake, would have to think that makes it worse, but cannot prove that. Catch can proves inconclusive to me. Really hard to say it does anything positive, just I've dumped a couple of quarts out over the years, usually just a few ounces each oil change. Truck does not really loose or burn any noticeable amount of oil.

 

Would also think that there are a ton of these truck that are high mileage that are impacted. I did not "feel" the effect of the problem until I cleaned it, meaning it drove fine, was a little down on power and mileage suffered a little, it's just so gradual you don't hardly notice. But once clean your like OH, much better. Depend how sensitive your butt meter is too. If your keeping your vehicle for whatever reason, I would plan on doing this sometime soon, anything over 50K miles.

[kennerz]

The guys that sold catch cans on here already made there money, too bad. I was in their camp/made sense, but after seeing the results it would have to be a thumbs down to the catch can (don't care who's you have, or for how much). Just put this up in hopes of somebody on the fence in the future won't spend the money.

 

Conceptually they are fantastic, in real world execution & observation over time  they don't make enough of a difference to justify IMHO./They don't stop the problem at all... Validated results.

Edited April 7, 2021 by kennerz

[HoosierZ]

Over the weekend, I ran a can of CRC GDI valve cleaner thru my intake and it most definitely made the engine more responsive. I’ve had a catch can on my 2016 5.3L since around 5k mi and it just turned over 60k. I sprayed the cleaner through the line between the catch can and intake so the cleaner would take the same route as the PCV vapors do. 

[Grumpy Bear]

1 hour ago, kennerz said:

But, I will agree that I can't say exactly how effective the catch can was, or was not. It does prevent some amount of vapor that you have to catch and dump. I can't see how you would want the factory set up pulling directly  into the intake, would have to think that makes it worse, but cannot prove that. Catch can proves inconclusive to me. Really hard to say it does anything positive, just I've dumped a couple of quarts out over the years, usually just a few ounces each oil change. Truck does not really loose or burn any noticeable amount of oil.

Here's my take on a can for whatever it is worth. My truck uses no measurable amount of oil between 5K OCI's and I use a lube with a NOACK under 6%. A can doesn't really make sense in this case. 

 

My wife's SUV uses a quart in 10K or about 8 ounces between 2,500 mile OCI's. That's how often I have to change it to keep the rings free.  

 

This one I would put a can on IF it had an external PCV system...which it does not. 2.4 Ecotec I4 is internal and uses a sized orifice instead of a valve. Really dumb design but point is...it uses enough oil to be a problem as I showed in an earlier post photo. And it consumes it via the intake manifold as that photo shows.

 

One of these days I might just plug that orifice and tap the cam cover and manifold for an external system I can trap. 

 

That can would also be much larger that any commercial can I've seen to date. Most efficient ones I've seen are fabricated for race car systems and are about a 2 liters in size minimum. Some cans over a gallon.