Theres a thread in the second gen forum about spraying carb cleaner in youre intake manifold to clean out carbon like ATF or the distilled water trick. I decided I was a brave little guinea(sp?) pig or a stupid lemming and tried it out on my FD. I checked out my upper intake manifold and located the two vacuum nipples(the auxiliary for the boost guage and the BOV nipple) and removed the associated hoses. I then placed my friend Matt in the drivers seat and told him that the car was going to stall out and he should try to keep it between 3000 and 4000 rpms. i waled around to the passengers side and began spraying into the nipples. A lot of smoke and noxious fumes were produced. I burnt about half the can as evenly between the two rotors as possible and then let the car idle for about 10-15 minutes afterwards before shutting it down or driving to let it clean out. My idle was noticeably smoother. It no longer pops or misses at idle and idles slightly lower than before. Ive definitely got a vacuum leak so i didnt expect this to work miracles or anything. The car sounds and feels better. My butt dyno says its more responsive to throttle modulation than before. Unfortunately not enough of a difference was ade because on the way home i went nose to nose with an h22 civic to the top of second. He claimed he runs low 13's and im pretty sure i run high 12's or low 13's. I think i wouldve started walking in 3rd and we went from a roll so my rwd to his fwd was not an advantage. Anyways the stuff seems to help and didnt make my car explode. I also put MMO in my gas and oil. Tomorrow im changing my oild/filter and runningthe other half of the can and i will update this thread.

 

update:

oil anbd filter changed. i figured half the can was enough. also, turns out i was really low on coolant. wierd, the buzzer went on today and i check it. it sucked. threw some premix in there. hoping its not what we all know it might be. rebuild under warranty anyways so, meh. but she still idles smooth with some apparent vacuum issues. seems to have helped regardless of the rest of the tuneup. the oil i took out was pitch black, as in blacker than usual. so i think i got some carbon out.

/barban

 

so wat kind of cargb cleaner did you use? isn't that going to hurt some of your sensors? I used to clean my air flow meter in my old r32 skyline gts-t and i swear everytime I clean it with carb cleaner my AFM would go bad and I have to replace it. After 3 AFM I stop cleaning it period.

 

These cars don't have AFM's. The only thing downstream of those nipples should be the injectors.

-s-

 

sea foam deep creep

no, but a more realistic concern is the effect of these harsh alcohols on rubber gaskets inside the engine. i was low on coolant which concerns me but it doesnt smoke at start up, or ever. it does smell sweet but id place it closer to rich sweet than coolant sweet. anyways if i find out this has hurt anything in my car i will immediately let everyone know. so far it only seems to have helped.

 

the seafoam trick is actually a old trick that alot of us fd guys have been using for a REAL long time.

 

how does it compare to ingesting water?

 

i am sad now

 

At least yo know nothing bad will happen to your 7

 

yeah right, no one in an FD is without fear. i just doubt that the cause will be my sea foam adventure.

 

Yep, that's why - for piston engines - people say to run a seal replenisher/leak stopper in the oil, such as "gunk" or something similar. I'd be worried about the effects of something like that on the OMP though.

And for the record sea foam has been around a long time (the '40s IIRC), just look at the bottle packaging if you doubt me .