Decarbonizing an Engine with Water?

NVCRD · **Posted:** Sat Feb 21, 2015 3:30 pm

I have seen a few videos lately on decarbonizing an engine with water. I understand that you can't trust everything that you see online, but the theory behind it seems interesting. Take your air intake hose off on the engine side of the MAF sensor and (while your engine is at temperature! holding 2000-3000 rpm) spray clean water into the intake hose in short bursts. This in theory should steam clean your engine. I would normally say that I would never spray water into an engine, but when your head gasket fails, the coolant that gets into your cylinder area tends to clean things up quite nicely (shiny piston and valve heads). What is the general consensus on this?

NVCRD · **Posted:** Sat Feb 21, 2015 3:36 pm

Forgot to include... I know small amounts of water should steam before entering the exhaust manifold, but could this screw with the turbo?

diesel_guy86 · **Posted:** Sat Feb 21, 2015 7:08 pm

At 2-3,000 rpms your turbo will be spinning quite fast. Those droplets of water might as well be grains of sand hitting the compressor wheel. If you do it, I'd take the hose off the driver side of the intercooler and spray in there.

Water/meth injection works this way and gives a tremendous boost in performance.

I've ran a mix of 50/50 gas/diesel in old Briggs and Stratton engines and it completely de-gummed the entire top of the motor, as well as the top of the piston.

KC-CRD · **Joined:** Wed Jan 28, 2015 2:20 pm **Posts:** 47

I would say the risk/benefit equation really favors destroying a motor with the method you describe. One big problem is compression. Where a gasoline engine like the 3.7 is running at 9.6:1, your CRD is 17.5:1. If you get too much water into any compression stroke you could cause hydrostatic lock. The result could be stretched head bolts, a blown head gasket, or a broken connecting rod. When the motor can't compress the fuel/air (and now water) mix the necessary amount, the inertia has to go somewhere.

If you must do something like this you'd want to spray a water mist. The redneck method might be to use a spray bottle to inject a fog through the air filter. There are commercial water/methanol systems available as power adders. I don't know if there is anything available for diesels this size.

The safest method is probably biodiesel. It's the least likely to cause you problems. I'm not sure how you'd check, but if biodiesel doesn't get the necessary results then I'd recommend simply pulling the head and attacking it directly. That would also allow you to clean the intake, which is more likely to cause problems than carbon in the cylinders.

BTW, when your head gasket fails you would likely force any hydrostatic problems out through the same path it used getting in the cylinder and into the cooling system. One of the indicators of a blown head gasket on diesels is air bubbles in the radiator.

diesel_guy86 · **Posted:** Sat Feb 21, 2015 8:31 pm

Also want to add, carbonization is not a problem on these motors. The problem is a really thick tarry, gummy substance created from the egr cooking the oil vapors while also mixing in soot from the exhaust. It took 3 or 4 hot tank sessions along with manual prodding to get my intake system 100% clean. No amount of water sprayed into the intake will clean that out, and if it did I'm not sure I'd want that crap going through my motor.

Quote:

There are commercial water/methanol systems available as power adders. I don't know if there is anything available for diesels this size.

There are systems supporting vw 1.9 diesels, to 2,000+ hp engines. on the high hp engines they actually use more water than diesel. If the water is misted in, it actually flashes to steam before combustion, creating a super dense and cooler charge that really brings on the power.

Bottom line is this, if you want to do it, do it AFTER the turbo. Water even misted will erode the compressor wheel. Mist the water in, not "pour a bottle" in or a garden hose. Let us know how/if it works, I'm not expecting it to do much knowing what all it took to get mine clean.

gmctd · **Posted:** Sun Feb 22, 2015 1:20 am

Best way to "carbonize" , or soot-up, a turbocharged Diesel engine is with many low-rpm short-trips, lots of low-rpm driving, and never, ever, get it up on the hiway at hiway speeds for about 10-15miles..............

NVCRD · **Posted:** Sun Feb 22, 2015 2:35 am

Thanks everybody. I had seen people doing this to 1.9 tdi's. I own two as well as my CRD. I installed the Sasquatch Intake Elbow and cleaned all the sensors, I have an appointment to get my timing belt replaced, I have one of Jeff's hybrid Hemi thermostats ordered and as soon as I get the money I will be doing a GDE tune. I am preparing to take the same steps with my tdi's. I guess I can give them some loving too. I seem to be facing the same soot issues with these VWs.

flman · **Posted:** Sun Feb 22, 2015 9:06 am

I am not worried about carbon, I little carbon will just raise the compression.

thermorex · **Posted:** Sun Feb 22, 2015 2:05 pm

I think diesel guy and kc Crd have it right. Decarbonizing is more a gasoline engine issue. I believe that the "redneck" method with a spray bottle may work fine if it's just a bit of water mist. But I am curious if it will help the Crd, please keep us posted.

Rocky05 · **Joined:** Fri May 17, 2013 11:38 pm **Posts:** 44

diesel_guy86 wrote:

At 2-3,000 rpms your turbo will be spinning quite fast. Those droplets of water might as well be grains of sand hitting the compressor wheel. If you do it, I'd take the hose off the driver side of the intercooler and spray in there.

Water/meth injection works this way and gives a tremendous boost in performance.

A fine mist of distilled water through the turbo won't cause any problems. If you pull the after turbo/intake side of the hose and run it at 2-3K RPMs you're just asking for trouble.

Some of the larger marine diesels that I work on use distilled water injection on the intake and crushed walnut shells for the exhaust side.

rancherman · **Posted:** Mon Feb 23, 2015 1:35 pm

to answer your original question.. yes. it works quite well as a decarbonizer... in the combustion chamber and everything downstream.. It's been done for decades on non turboed engines.
the water erosion is nothing compared to what is guaranteed to happen; I'll add one that most forgot! The Turbine. The amount of carbon from the exhaust valve and downstream is quite considerable.. and it's the last thing you want to drop off en-masse in a 120k rpm spinner.. Believe me, crap comes out by the bushel! It's not a very tender 'cleaning action'..
Don't do it.

Guys with water and meth injection are doing it to new builds.. and clean systems from the get go.

NVCRD · **Posted:** Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:21 am

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all of the info. All of my vehicles have turbos, so I think I'll be waiting to try this one later. I got the parts in to remove and clean the intake and EGR valve on my 2003 Jetta that just went over 100k. I can't believe this thing even ran! My EGR valve had a grape sized port through it, the plate couldn't even pilot and 4inches down stream in the intake plenum it necked down to a pea sized hole! I have seen some bad ones online, but man I think this on sets a record! My CRD's EGR setup looked a lot better when I removed it. I'll try to get some pictures posted.

NVCRD · **Posted:** Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:47 am

2003 Jetta TDI EGR Valve

NVCRD · **Posted:** Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:49 am

flman · **Posted:** Tue Feb 24, 2015 7:43 am

Look how clean I got my intake back in the day before I started using the epsilon device.

jws84_02 · **Posted:** Tue Feb 24, 2015 8:01 pm

You guys shouldn't have to do that. Just send me your tdi's and I'll take care of it. Haha

Decarbonizing an Engine with Water?

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