# Cleaning My Intake Valves (Semi DIY)



## staulkor (May 21, 2007)

50,000 miles has come and gone. My idle has been odd and I get a lot of cold start misfires. More and more threads have been popping up about intake valve deposits and what to do about them. Unfortunately, no chemical will solve the problem and manual cleaning is the only way to get rid of them...for a short period until they return
Here is my experience of cleaning my intake valves. Big thanks to guilford32 for letting me use his heated garage when it was 40 and raining outside and staying up all damn night
Parts required:
Intake Manifold Gasket -- 06F 129 717D
Injector Seal Kit** (read note below) -- 06D 998 907
*Removing the intake manifold*
This part is relatively straight forward. STaSIS has a very good document on how to remove it. You can get the document here.
**If an injector comes out with the manifold, you will need to reseal it. Follow the directions on the document, but you will need an injector seal kit and replace the teflon seal and blue o ring.
*Cleaning your valves*
This is what I was looking at before I began:








Looks like fun don't it, hehe
There are 4 metal "trays" as I call them in the hole for each cylinder. They should slide right out. Place them on a clean shop towel on the side and come back to them later. Keep them ordered so you know which one goes to which cylinder. Personally I dont think it matters, but it is better to be safe than sorry.
Here is what you all wanted to see: valve deposits. First some history about my car and what was done.
- Currently at 50,5xx miles.
- Water/methanol for 25k miles.
- Seafoam at 30,xxx miles.
- Car is driving hard-ish. I dont beat it, but I have my fun.
With all that said, this is what I found:
*CYLINDER 1 LEFT VALVE*








*CYLINDER 1 RIGHT VALVE*








*CYLINDER 2 LEFT VALVE*








*CYLINDER 2 RIGHT VALVE*








*CYLINDER 3 LEFT VALVE*








*CYLINDER 3 RIGHT VALVE*








*CYLINDER 4 LEFT VALVE*








*CYLINDER 4 RIGHT VALVE*








Cylinder 1 was the best and cylinder 4 was the worst as you can see. The valves were progressively worse as you went from #1 to #4.
*Cleaning the valves*
*PUT TAPE OVER YOUR INJECTORS NOW!!* If you do not, you risk clogging an injector with all the **** that comes out of the valves. Use painters tape as it leaves no residue. Cover the o ring and back of the injector in tape.
You will need to rotate the crank to close the cylinders. I ended up getting 3 closed and 1 was a tiny bit open. If you get a similar case, just clean the ones you can and tape up the one that is open. Once the others are finished, rotate the crank again. Having a friend look down the holes helps A LOT. To rotate the crank, there is a 19mm bolt on the crank pulley.
I had a set of picks I bought at harbor friend for a few dollars. I picked up some carb cleaner at Autozone for a few dollars. I carefully sprayed some carb cleaner on the valves. I was careful not to get that stuff on anything else. It is highly corrosive. My rubber gloves were being eaten by that stuff, no joke.
I let the carb cleaner soak for a few minutes and then went to work. It took about 20 minutes per valve. If you use picks, be very careful not to scratch anything. Do not scrape with the point, use the side of the hook. I used shop towels to get the liquid out. If you put too much carb cleaner in there, poke around at the carbon and get it off and let it sit for a while. The extra liquid will evaporate enough and turn everything into a paste which can be pulled out with the picks. Repeat the process for each valve.
This is about as good as you can get:
*CYLINDER 1 LEFT VALVE*








All other valves looked similar after being cleaned.
Once all the valves are cleaned, we need to clean the intake trays. Grab one at a time from where you placed them earlier. I used the side of a hook pick to scrape off the carbon, then sprayed it with carb cleaner and wiped off all remaining carbon.
Currently scraping off carbon








Before and after








Now that everything has been cleaned, I wanted to take a look at my throttle body to asses if it needed cleaning. I thought, "surely if the valves are this dirty, the throttle body would be similarly dirty" Boy was I wrong, partly.
Unfortunately, no dealer in the area had a throttle body gasket. This limited me to not being able to actually remove the throttle body from the intake manifold/fuel rail assembly (pictured below).
Intake manifold/fuel rail assembly








The side pointing away from the valves is SPOTLESS :happyanim:








Unfortunately, I will never know how the other side was. The butterfly valve didnt want to move and I didnt want to force it in fear of breaking it. Throttle bodies arent what we call cheap.
Along with cleaning the valves, I had some very sexy black billet aluminum bits to install:








*Reassembling the intake manifold*
Follow the STaSIS document backwards. Be very meticulous and only plug in sensors in the reverse order of the document. This way will guarantee you plug back in all the sensor. Last thing you want is to try turning on the car with no fuel pressure sensor or something hard to get to like that.
*Turning the bitch back on*
This was scary. Since the entire fuel system, more or less, was depressurized, it needed to be primed again. To do this, simply open the driver door, wait 5 seconds, close the driver door. Do this a few times. Now get in the car, put your key in, turn to accessories, DO NOT START THE CAR, wait a 5 seconds, pull key out. Do this a few times.
Not that the fuel system is primed and ready to go, turn on the car while having your foot partly on the gas. If reassembled everything correctly, the car will start and probably struggle. Dont be alarmed if it takes a few tries to get it started. Just do not hold the key in the on position and let it crank for too long. If it doesnt start within a few seconds, it probably wont. Use your judgement.
Let the car *FULLY* warm up. Rev the motor a bit, say up to 2000-2500 rpm. You might get some misfires. If you do, just wait them out unless there is an obscene amount of them. I had 40 misfires on cyl 4 when I first revved it. I turned off the car, turned it back on, and no more misfires.
Go and test drive the car. Be very careful and listen for anything that sounds off.
*Comments*
If I know you personally, and you ask me to clean your valves, I will laugh in your face and say short of a few hundred dollars, your valves will remain dirty. This job was a pain in the ass. My back really hurts and I am tired. The job took 10 hours from start to finish.
I am reserving my judgement in regards to the cold start misfires and rough idle for a few more days. It hasnt even been 24 hours yet, so I cant really say if there has been an improvement. At the very least I will have gained a lot of knowledge about this motor and taking it all apart. I will update this once I know.


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## GERHARD PETZER (Jan 21, 2004)

*Re: Cleaning My Intake Valves (staulkor)*

I take my hat off to you for taking on that job, well done! Nice write up too http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif ! I do not know if I would ever try what you did. I was keen to see what your TB was going to look like. It looked great for running W/M for a long period of time. I feel a bit more relaxed about the state of mine now. Thanks for sharing the info http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif


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## VBMike P (Jun 25, 2008)

*FV-QR*

It wouldn't be a bad idea to re-adapt your intake manifold runner and throttle body after doing all this.


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## ajz9415 (Feb 7, 2005)

*FV-QR*

Marked for later


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## staulkor (May 21, 2007)

This morning, it was 36 F outside. Car turned over just like it was at normal running temp







It hasnt done that in a long time...and it has RS4 injectors!
Ill see how it goes over the next few days.


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## thethirdjq (Apr 7, 2009)

*Re: (staulkor)*

http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif 
Well done!


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## b6turbopassat (Aug 14, 2008)

*Re: (staulkor)*

Hey Staulkor any change yet? Also total cost on parts ie. (Gasket, Injector Seal, Carb Cleaner(I know how much that is lol got a couple cans now), and Picks) Also I'm thinking of using a gun cleaning kit since I've seen it used before seems to do really well. Thanks


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## Sloth (Jul 5, 2002)

*Re: (b6turbopassat)*

Hi Guys,
My mechanic last week did this for me on my MY07 A3 2.0TFSI which has only approx 30k klms on it (approx 18k miles) and found cylinder 3 to be the worse for these deposits - it also was the cylinder whereby I had a coilpack fail about 2k klms ago. He said it definitely needed to be done.


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## Uber-A3 (Feb 23, 2002)

*Re: (Sloth)*

this proves that the whole seafoam does little but make a smoke show for your neighbors


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## VwGTIKid (May 1, 2006)

*Re: (Uber-A3)*

what type of gasoline do you use?>?
I wonder if vpower shell would of cleaned it up a little with all their claims of being the best gas out there


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## iGen3 (Mar 21, 2002)

*Re: (VwGTIKid)*


_Quote, originally posted by *VwGTIKid* »_what type of gasoline do you use?>?
I wonder if vpower shell would of cleaned it up a little with all their claims of being the best gas out there
















Dude, on this FSI Direct Injection motor, gas never sees the intake valves. Least not on this side of the valves.


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## INYNN (Apr 14, 2008)

Thanks for the nice DIY, your pics and comments will be helpful.


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## Sloth (Jul 5, 2002)

*Re: (iGen3)*


_Quote, originally posted by *iGen3* »_
Dude, on this FSI Direct Injection motor, gas never sees the intake valves. Least not on this side of the valves. 

I reckon that's half the problem - in a non FSI, at least the fuel washes away many of these deposits.


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## seattheodore (May 5, 2009)

*Re: (Sloth)*

That`s the whole problem







in a non FSI engine high octane fuel kills them all.
The only thing I don`t know is if the high octane fuel vapors are helping to soften or mollify the valve deposits in order to shake them with high rpm









http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif to Staulkor, excellent job my friend http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif


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## najel (Apr 10, 2008)

Gonna bring this thread back to life. I finished the intake valve cleaning on my car. Of course I forgot to take before pics, so I am not going to bother with after pics :laugh: Anyway the OPs post helped a lot in combination with the Stasis instructions and comments etc on other posts. 
My valves were pretty bad, I thought. I just passed 80,000 miles. A friend of ours who has been runinng an indy shop for decades happened to stop by and he said he had never seen valves caked that badly. Thought that was very reassuring 
For cleaning them, I used carb cleaner, a rounded pick thingy, a shopvac with a small hose attached to it and the air compressor. I basically first sprayed carb cleaner in all the valves that were closed, then waited a while. Then went to town with the little pick and scraped. At first. I was being super careful not to drop anything in the valve but rather taking it out with the pick (the stuff was pretty sticky). But then I figured out that with the compressor air and the shopvac, I was able to get everything out pretty easily, so I just scraped and cleaned the gunk out every once in a while.
Reason I did this project was that I was starting to get cold start problems. I hope that I resolved that issue so this was at least worth it. This project was a huge huge PITA. Of course I broke a nipple in the vacuum check valve so I had to buy a new one of those, and one of the injectors came out as well. I decided to order the injector repair kits for all injectors because the blue o-rings also looked pretty rough on all injectors. SO my car was in the shop for a while just waiting around for parts.
By the way, somebody who has resealed the injector, is there a good way of getting the white teflon seal ring off an on? Would appreciate any hints on that procedure.


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## lumpypumpkin (Jun 14, 2011)

najel said:


> By the way, somebody who has resealed the injector, is there a good way of getting the white teflon seal ring off an on? Would appreciate any hints on that procedure.


When I resealed mine, I used something akin to a dental pick. The white ring is actually pretty soft. I just dug the pick under the lip and pulled out & up. It cut the old one in half, and I just slid the new one on


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## najel (Apr 10, 2008)

Thanks. Yeah the ring was actually softer than it seemed at first. I also used a pick, stretched it a bit and than cut it with wire cutters.
To get the new one on, I actually put it in boiling water a while before I installed it to expend and soften it a bit. It slid on like you said. My dealer is getting one more injector seal kit in tomorrow so then I will have the last injector o-ring and should be ready to put everything back together.


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## rdjr74 (Jun 26, 2007)

I'm gonna have to do this soon I think. You have a link to the injector kit. How much and what does it come with? thanks


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## MFZERO (Mar 13, 2002)

fuel injector seal kit @ ECS


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## najel (Apr 10, 2008)

Your dealer has them for the same price also. I would really recommend ordering four of those. Even though not all the injectors probably come out of the head, all four of my blue o-rings (they seal the common rail connection) had little rips and tears in them. I decided it is better to just replace all those before I put everything together and end up with a big fuel leak and have to do it all over.


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## bck6780 (Jul 16, 2010)

Hey all, BCinco and I just tackled this job yesterday on my 08 (FSI) GTI 6mt. I wanted to post our experience and offer some tidbits to help other Vortexers do the same if/when they decide to take it on.

*Background:*
I purchased the GTI CPO a few months back at 46k, now have 55k on the clock. I was experiencing stumbling during the first start of the day, and somewhat lower-than-expected mpg (~25 combined highway/suburban). After a bit of research I took care of plugs, fuel filter, and ran Techron cleaner through twice, but issues persisted. Dealership was essentially no help-they couldn't replicate the cold start issue. Thanks to info on here I started to explore carbon buildup on intake valves. BCinco and I confirmed I had substantial buildup by scoping the valves, and we decided to perform the clean.

Previous writeups were a huge help in getting this done; we followed the STaSIS protocol for removing the intake manifold nearly to the letter and things went well. However, I wanted to post a few notes/tips that made the job easier and improved results.


-We let the car sit overnight untouched in an effort to depressurize the fuel system.

-Be safe. Have eye protection and gloves for all. You’ll be removing gas lines so be very careful to avoid fuel spray in case of residual pressure (we had little/none). If you use carb cleaner, the spray goes everywhere. It has nasty stuff in it (xylene, methanol etc), so make sure you’re prepared and protected. Wash up regularly and thoroughly. Paper towels-have lots of them.

-Coolant hose is easily removed from the green nipple located in the upper left hand corner of the engine bay near the coolant ball. We couldn’t remove the rubber hose from the teflon line as STaSIS advised-they were fused by engine bay heat.

-TIP? (fat, stubby hose connecting to throttle body) is a PITA to remove and reinstall-there’s just too little space to move it around. Be patient and grab a friend to help wriggle it free.

-We found that 6 of 8 valves were closed. Stuff a clean rag into the port containing open valves while cleaning the others. Closing remaining valves on a MT car is easy. Jack up the front two wheels and put the car in gear (we used 5th). Ask a friend to hold the driver’s side front wheel stationary while the passenger side wheel is rotated. 

-The right cleaning tools make a world of difference.
2 metal picks with straight and 90-degree ends are ideal for reaching back of valve stems
Small wire brush or two
Wet/dry shop vac with small reducer nozzle (we used a funnel).
At least 2 big spray cans of carb cleaner

-Notes on picking/scraping: engine ports and valves are very strong, but with that said be careful, scrape by applying little actual force, let the sharp pick do the work! Pick/scrape valves and ports, vacuum grit, repeat until satisfied. Then, spray carb cleaner into port and let sit for a few minutes. Brush valve and port thoroughly with wire brush. Vacuum slurry out. Pick any remaining grime and vacuum again. Finally, spray cleaner into port while applying vacuum. The swirl will dislodge remaining gunk.

-Protect your injectors from carbon grit while cleaning-cover them with a shirt/rag.

-Do yourself a favor: spend a few bucks (~$80 at the dealership) and pick up a new intake manifold gasket and 4 injector seal kits. Nearly all of my seals were slightly torn when we removed the intake manifold (not sure if this was a product of removal or not). Install new seals before reinstalling intake manifold and apply just a small bit of engine oil to them.

-Once everything is reinstalled, prime the fuel system as described previously (open door, turn key to accessory, then off, shut door). Repeat 10x. Then open door, turn key to accessory and let sit for ~5 minutes. Start the car as normal. You may misfire/struggle to start, but after ~5sec of cranking, mine turned over. A generic OBD reader revealed no codes at all.

-Slowly test engine; bring RPMs up to 1500 and hold, then 2500 and hold, then blip throttle a few times. Perform a local test drive, varying engine speeds. 


*Initial impressions: *I've only had a day to play with the car, but things are going very well. The engine feels extremely strong and no codes have appeared. Suburban/highway driving (conservative, AC on) yielded 29mpg over 70 miles. Unfortunately, it appears my cold start issue persists. I'm going to run BG 44K through a tank and see what happens.

*A huge thank you goes to BCinco. The job took 8 hours start to finish (we took our time and had a sandwich break) and things went a lot quicker than I anticipated. He had all the right tools to make the job go smoothly and extensive knowledge about the process-I would recommend his work without hesitation. I'm really happy with how my valves look.*

Before and after pics: http://s1106.photobucket.com/albums/h377/bck6780/


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## G_Lader_91 (Dec 28, 2006)

staulkor, and bck6780 :beer:

I really appreciate you folks taking the time to do this. I am picking up an 07 gti next week with 51k on it and fully expect to do this.

I had the EXACT same carbon issues with my 24V oddly enough, and it was obviously not direct injection. 

Only difference is I literally poured brake parts cleaner into the intake ports, waded up decent sized pieces of blue shop rags around the valves to stop it from seeping down too much into the engine. I then put saran wrap over the intake side to keep it from evaporating.

I let it sit overnight and it quite literally wiped all of the carbon right off the next day. I did use a scribe, but only on the cyl head in the corners where it was really thick. Also, I used an in-expensive air vac and a blow gun to remove debris. Took maybe 30 min. Kinda balanced out to just doing it straight.

Just a thought, if you have some spare time to kill and don't need right back into the car. Plus it was refreshing to take a break and start fresh the next day:thumbup:

Again, great diy :thumbup:


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## theronin (Aug 6, 2012)

when was the last time you changed your fuel filter?

a turkey baster works very well to remove the fluid and carbon mush. however with the chemicals you are using your baster should only last 2-3 cylinders. dollar store buy 6.


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## bck6780 (Jul 16, 2010)

*~1month update*

Hey all, just wanted to post once more about the long-term results of the clean.

First off, there have been absolutely no deleterious effects of the clean. No CELs, nothing funny at all. :beer: (although my TIP did slip off after romping on it a few weeks back-I re-tightened and everything was fine).

*Findings:
*
-30mpg highway consistently. My short commute to work (mixed highway/suburban) gets me ~26mpg.

-Power is unbelievable (I'm REVO stg1) and improved in every dimension; engine responds quicker and even pulls harder at its peak. Essentially, the area under the torque/hp curve is greater.

-Cold starts have gotten better generally, but still not 100%. I ran a tankful of BG 44K with virtually no effect.


Just wanted to put the word out; follow directions closely, have someone there to help if you haven't done this before (thanks again BCinco!) and everything will go fine. :beer:


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## BCinco (Dec 17, 2006)

Glad to know things are going well! 

On a side note, did you pick up an intake?


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## BritBulldog (Feb 6, 2009)

bck6780 said:


> Hey all, just wanted to post once more about the long-term results of the clean.
> 
> First off, there have been absolutely no deleterious effects of the clean. No CELs, nothing funny at all. :beer: (although my TIP did slip off after romping on it a few weeks back-I re-tightened and everything was fine).
> 
> ...


If you are still having cold start problems try replacing your n80 vlave (also called purge valve). Its a ~$20 part and it fixed my cold start issues.


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## Hedgehodge (Nov 7, 2008)

could i use these methods for my 1.8t also? i like the idea of letting it soak overnight with the soaked shop rags placed around the valves and Saran wrap. mine has 167k and am getting all new injector hardware, seats and have had a power gasket for the longest time to install....best to do this all at once right? I'm just worried about dripping things inside, also worried about the carb cleaner in there going boom, but its an engine so eh lol


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## Hedgehodge (Nov 7, 2008)

same for my 1.8?167k miles and injector stuff otw along with me going to try and reverse flush them connected to a battery and change out seats and install the power gasket I've had laying around here. worried about the cleaner seeping in and going boom later or if its harmful, then again engine go boom all day but to an extent. i like the idea of wrapping the valves in cleaner soaked rags then covering with Saran wrap and wiping off the next day. no idea how to close all valves? though. new to this but want to do it all at once thanks


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## Hedgehodge (Nov 7, 2008)

sob i thought it was deleted, am on my phone lol fml that took forever


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## Jay-Bee (Sep 22, 2007)

Hedgehodge said:


> could i use these methods for my 1.8t also? i like the idea of letting it soak overnight with the soaked shop rags placed around the valves and Saran wrap. mine has 167k and am getting all new injector hardware, seats and have had a power gasket for the longest time to install....best to do this all at once right? I'm just worried about dripping things inside, also worried about the carb cleaner in there going boom, but its an engine so eh lol


 You have a 1.8T what are you doing reading about valve cleaning in the 2.0T forum? 

This should not be an issue for you, 1.8T is not direct injected.


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## Hedgehodge (Nov 7, 2008)

any input please


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## Hedgehodge (Nov 7, 2008)

Jay-Bee said:


> You have a 1.8T what are you doing reading about valve cleaning in the 2.0T forum?
> 
> This should not be an issue for you, 1.8T is not direct injected.


 i also have a 2011 2.0 so was just making sure since I'll be in that area,i was using google like i should and search and only came up with 2.0. like i said while in that area. thanks. no idea difference on direct, googling that now thanks, new to this kind of stuff


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## bbout (Feb 3, 2012)

Anyone know if the 2.0 TSI motor improves the carbon deposit situation at all?


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## sdrizo (Mar 27, 2013)

*2007 BPY Inlet Valve*

First cleaning on wifeys car at 134k mi.

Cant figure out the picture thing so try here: http://brewing-with-stevo.blogspot.com/2013/03/whats-wrong-with-20t-fsi-engine.html

Never mind the title of the post, I was just venting.


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## BCinco (Dec 17, 2006)

That was some pretty serious buildup :thumbdown:


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## U.G. MKV (May 31, 2010)

For anyone who hasn't and needs to clean their valves, I cleaned my valves a few days ago and all I can say is wow. My car has 70,000 miles and the valves and ports were pretty caked. For the last six months to a year I've been seeing a decline in performance mostly noted at the track. My 1/4 mile times were getting worse and worse. After cleaning the valves the performance is back. the car runs much harder and a lot smoother. If you have high miles get in there and clean those valves you'll be happy you did.


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## Hedgehodge (Nov 7, 2008)

interesting enough my 1.8T did have build up but only on the valves furthest from the intake, the back ones were blackish a little sludge(ish)

I could only imagine how much your back hurt if mine was hurting after like 2 hours outside behind over this area doing my powergasket and fuel injectors.


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## filthyillness (Feb 13, 2010)

what about the BG aperatus kit they have that uses air, a valve cleaning chemical, and a fuel conditioner to dissolve and blow out all that crude?


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## BCinco (Dec 17, 2006)

filthyillness said:


> what about the BG aperatus kit they have that uses air, a valve cleaning chemical, and a fuel conditioner to dissolve and blow out all that crude?


I own the BG VIA kit and I've found it works best on new or recently cleaned valves.

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthre...tion-Service-Quasi-Review-Initial-Impressions


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## filthyillness (Feb 13, 2010)

So an fsi with 101+k miles thats prolly never had it done, it wont help much?

I gotta do or find a solution, very problematic.

Tapatalk 2.0


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## ordpetegti (May 20, 2004)

I will be tackling this job this weekend. 2006 GTI with 104K miles and APR stage 1 since 5K miles. I have used Mobil 1 only and changed oil at 5K mile intervals. Never used any pour-in-tank fuel system cleaners. My fuel mileage has just been going downhill steadily since 70K miles and I can feel a bit of power loss. Ordered up all the parts from ECS along with a Bentley manual. 

Does anyone have a current link on the instructions from Stasis? The old link is broken. 

I will post up pics when done. Looking forward to the results!


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## filthyillness (Feb 13, 2010)

All photos and links are broken. OP, please fix.

Tapatalk 2.0


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## BCinco (Dec 17, 2006)

http://www.stasisengineering.com/si...l_pdfs/STaSIS MTF turbo install Mk V rev9.pdf

I used that one. Starts on Page 11/49


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## ordpetegti (May 20, 2004)

BCinco said:


> http://www.stasisengineering.com/si...l_pdfs/STaSIS MTF turbo install Mk V rev9.pdf
> 
> I used that one. Starts on Page 11/49


 Thank you so much for posting that up. 

Well the job is done. I started on a Friday morning and finished it completely on Saturday night. It took about 8 hours on Friday and about 6 more on Saturday. I was working slow and probably took off more things than needed. I was using the Bentley manual for disassembly. 

I was able to get away with not removing the fender liner. I had a 1/2 inch ratchet and small extension that fit nicely onto the crank pulley to turn the engine to manipulate the valves. I did use jack stands on the front since I am a tall guy and it made my back hurt less. I also took the charge air pipe out the bottom. 

 


 

 

 



My first impression was that they did not look bad. I had been using mobil 1 and changing at 5000 miles religiously, with a lot of hwy runs with high revs. Always bought the cheap gas, but always premium. I started scraping and was amazed at the layers and amount of carbon that came off. It was about a shot's glass worth from every valve and chamber. I would recommend scraping first with picks, and then use carb cleaner on the rest. I vacuumed out and then used paper towels and a screwdriver to clean the rest. Soaking the valves right away without scraping just made for a sludgy mess. I used about 1.5 cans of B12 chemtool and one can of brakekleen. The results: 

 

 


 


 

 


When I first ran the car, there was zero boost. I realized I had somehow ripped the wires out of the charge air pipe sensor. After soldering those back together, the car ran strong. (APR stage 1) The car revs faster and the exhaust actually sounded more throaty. I have not been able to test the gas mileage because I cannot help but floor it everywhere. I am in love with this car again. 

The pain in the butt is definitely worth it. I had a friend helping, so it made it go faster. If you have any doubt about doing this, do it. I was glad I saved the $700 vs the dealer. I also replaced all the fuel injector seals and clips, but probably did not have to. They were all in super good shape after 103K miles. 

Almost forgot...... I also replaced the cam follower again since I had the HPFP out. This one had about 58K on it. The black coating was worn off, but the metal was still in good shape and there was no pitting or scoring. The last one I did at 44K miles and it looked identical. I kept them both to compare for the next time. 


Pete


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## BCinco (Dec 17, 2006)

Pete, awesome job! :thumbup: Isn't it like driving a new car again?


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## ordpetegti (May 20, 2004)

BCinco said:


> Pete, awesome job! :thumbup: Isn't it like driving a new car again?


 Most certainly! I am going to need some new tires soon if I keep up the spirited driving! 

I have noticed better city gas mileage. Oddly enough, the highway gas mileage is still hovering around 30 mpg at 70 mph indicated. I used to get around 34 mpg at that speed. It still has the original o2 sensors and catalytic converter. Those are next on the list to replace. :beer:


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