I just found this as I was scanning through the site recently. It sounds simple enough and pretty cheap to. Has anyone ever tried it?


***Every week someone asks how to do the ATF trick. Here it is.

The theory behind the "ATF trick" is to loosen up/dissolve the carbon deposits that are left inside engines. These deposits are particularly bad in a rotary engine, as when they form on the apex seal, they can cause it to get stuck. This can produce a lack of compression, and, therefore power. ATF acts as a detergent to help loosen these deposits up.

First, you need to buy some ATF. ATF is automatic transmission fluid. Any ole' ATF will work, but I prefer "Marvel's Mystery Oil" (MMO), as it was originally designed to be burned. It can be purchased at any walmart or auto parts store. 8 or 16 oz will do fine. You will also want to get 4 new spark plugs, as this procedure will foul them. Many people keep a set of old or bad plugs around just for this. Also helpful is a bit of hose (2 or 3 feet), and a little pump or a funnel.

You'll want to schedule this so as to leave the ATF sitting for as long as possible. At least 24 hours is necessary to get the best results.

Ok..on to the procedure. Remove your trailing (LOWER) spark plugs. The goal now is to get some ATF directly into the combustion chamber. This can be accomplished via pumping it thru the hose, into the chamber, or using the funnel, or a turkey baster, or whatever. Squirt an ounce or two in the front housing, then into the rear housing.

Now, since our engies have three combustion faces on each rotor, we want to repeat this for each face. To expose the next face, you need to rotate your engine one full e-shaft cycle. NOTE: Remove the hose from the plug hole before doing this, or you WILL chop the hose off inside the chamber. To rotate the engine, you can take a wrench to the alternator pulley, and turn it. If the belt is tight enough, the main pulley should turn. You want to get exactly one full turn of this pully. The direction you turn doesn't really matter. After one turn, squirt more into the front and rear housings. Then, turn again, and squirt to do the third and final combustion face.

Now, we wait. Every 8 hours or so, (timing really isn't important..just let it sit as long as you can), go turn the engine another cycle. Turn it forwards and backwards a little, to sort of work the apex seals.

Ok..it's been in there for at least 24 hours.. Pull your EGI fuse (second from the engine end of the fuse box). Pull out a spark plug from each housing (you may have left them out initially--that's fine). You will probably want to put some paper towels down on the driver's side wheelwell, where the ATF is about to spray out. Crank the engine for a couple seconds--the ATF will spray out in liquid form, as well as some white smoke. Perfectly normal. The more ATF you get out now, the less will come out the exhaust in a minute.

Put the spark plugs back in, put the plug wires on. Put the EGI fuse back in. Move your car out of your garage! Actually, you may want to do this at night. You can now start your car, but beware--the largest cloud of white smoke you have ever seen will come out of the tailpipes. Not good if you have pesky neighbors.. Drive the car around, letting it warm up properly (read: slowly). Once it's warmed up, beat the hell out of it. Hit redline a few times. It will continue to smoke for 10-20 minutes, depending on how much ATF you got out earlier. You may notice a large improvement in performance--I did. This is a nice time to go get your new spark plugs.

After the car cools back down, put your new plugs in. Keep your old ones for the next time you do the ATF trick. You're done!

As a side note, ATF isn't exactly "good" for your cataletic converters, nor the o2 sensor. Doing it once or twice won't DESTROY them, but will shorten their life. I have heard of people keeping a spare o2 sensor to use for this, but that's probably overkill.


I make no claims as to the accuracy of this. It worked for me, it may not work for you. Don't sue me.***

 

Ya people have been doing it forever. Its been found to be "a last option" usually. Most people do it for engines that are locked up or old "junkers" they want to try to get running.

If you search you will find lots of info. I inquired about it a while back.

 

LOWER is the LEADING. TOP is TRAILING. See how it works...L/L T/T...

 

Instructions for destroying your engine: see first post.

Will people get this through their heads: ATF IS BAD. Only to be used in conditions of serious flooding.

 

What is a good safe method for internal engine cleaning?

 

Disassembly! LOL!!

 

i personally would not do it i know 3 people who have blown their motor doing it.

 

I knew someone would say that. I would just like to know an alternative, if there is one, instead of "just don't do it".

 

Water mist cleaning is somewhat helpful. BUT you need to know WTF you are doing first.

The only real way to clean is to disassemble !

 

I haven't heard or seen any rotaries destroyed by the ATF treatment. ATF is oil. It has detergents to help eliminate varnish buildup in ATs. Most people who try the ATF already have engine problems. This is why I won't believe the "ATF blew my engine". It was already blown and you were trying to find a 25 cent fix. Not gonna happen. Blame yourself and not the fluid.

IMO, MMO works better and quicker. Feel free to borrow some carbon coated components and soak in MMO ATF FI cleaner.....whatever. You'll see why the ATF needs 24-48 hours to work. I used clogged pcv valves. ATF isn't as quick as MMO or anything else. The MMO allowed the carbon to slough off.
Since most engine seals are gas/oil/antifreeze proof, I can't see why ATF could cause engine damage.
If you must 'ATF', stay away from ATF bottles with "leak stop" or "stops slipping" on the bottle. Seal conditioners could cause excessive seal growth. Maybe this was a problem with some people. I dunno.

Steam is an excellent cleaner. Hydrolock is not an issue if you use a small vacuum line feeding the engine. Problem is, which vacuum line feeds both rotors equally. You could even use the same vacuum line to feed FI cleaner. Or, just pay the local repair shop to "motorvac" or decarbon your engine. This will remove carbon.

There is no perfect way to remove carbon from the inside of an engine without a rebuild. But, there are ways to prevent it. Change your oil frequently. Keep the engine in tiptop shape or tuned regularly. Run a bottle of FI cleaner every now and then. Never shut it of cold. Don't baby it. There are numerous engines with 150,000+ miles on them with this type of treatment and still run strong. There are enough lower mileage engines that have failed, and no $5 fix can save them.

 

What ways are there to check for carbon build up?
I have a pretty high milage engine but it has been very well maintained. My oil is always as clear as it went in and my plugs never have any black buildup, thats about all you can check without a tear down right?

BTW, I am not having any problems I just want to make sure I am doing all I can to keep this sucker goin as good as it is.

 

this question goes out to all of you. I just got a jspec engine installed, and the rear rotor is a little low on compression (65psi on all three sides, with my do it at home test). This is probably the cause of all of my hesitation with really light throttle. Would ATF put my engine in any worse condition than it's already in?

 

I am currently looking at buying a 1990 RX-7, only 160000km's on it (not sure how many miles that is), the engine currently does not run at all. They tested all the electrical systems and claim those are all working fine. The previous owner was driving the car one day and it just stopped running, they got it towed home and took it off the road. Then in winter it started running again but all they did was start it up every once in a while at their house. Then it completely stopped working and has not run since then (this happened in winter of 01/02). They claim they had compression tested by a mechanic that does not know anything about Rotary engines and it came up as 0, but not sure if he did it the right way or not or had the proper tester or not. Just wondering if anyone knows what I should do if I buy the car or if this ATF trick will work and get it running or not?

 

i've done the atf trick number of times, works for me, white smoke everywhere buts it goes away.

 

ATF is good ****. I don't see how ATF can hurt anything. Unless you are the techie type that has to get scientific about things you read and wear gloves and full face protection just to remove battery terminals.

 

Is MMO much less harmful than the atf? Like as far as being as corrosive as atf? Or is it just as bad, BUt a better process?

 

I think the general consensus with the ATF trick is not to do it unless you have massive carbon deposits left in your engine or your engine is on its way out. ATF is pretty corrosive and may damage a good engine. If its not broken dont fix it.

Also not sure if many people have read the archive post in the general rotary tech forum about using water vs. ATF or a combination of both. Pretty interesting stuff. That thread is pretty old but I assume it still applies.

Here is the link
https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...threadid=33778

 

Why is so much stuff coming back from the dead today?

 

I bought my car for $150 and he said it didn't run. We put some ATF in it and it cranked and idled the first try. I drove it for 3000 miles until I overheated it because I was a dumbass and didn't replace a radiator hose.

Now, after the ATF, it smoked on startup and past 5500 RPMs, but I don't know if that's attributed to the ATF or the condition of the engine beforehand (165k on the original engine).

 

Also, I might want to add that I think it's better to take out the ENG INJ fuse and turn the engine over, or take the spark plugs out and take the fuse out, than to use ATF to deflood a car.