# My Intake Valve Cleaning



## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

I knew this was long overdue. Performance had been deteriorating to pre-chip levels. I followed the intake removal procedure that is part of the Stasis power package installation: http://sys9five.com:8080/etc/valves/16176692-STaSIS-K04-Install.pdf

The bolt shown in step #43 was a total biotch! The metal coolant pipes absolutely did not allow a straight access like shown. You can barely see it, can't touch it, and the 12 point bit has to go straight in. I eventually got it by using a universal joint and guiding with a long reach grabber from the top.

So this is what I found at 73,135 miles:










All the valves looked roughly the same.

I had read the oven cleaner can break this stuff up pretty good so I sprayed it in and let it soak for two hours. Then I took the time to check my nuts... and bolts. I always try to check the various fasteners in the area I'm working. I found 3 "not tight" bolts on the valve cover and one that was completely loose!. So... After 2 hours I soaked up the excess liquid and then gave a blast with the pressure washer to clean it out. I ended up with this:










Still some gunk around the valve and you can't see it but there is a layer of gunk still on the upper and back walls. It was pretty gooey and not hard to scrape off. A bit of scraping and another blast with the pressure washer and I get this:











Good enough for me. That crap is just going to build right up again anyway. If anyone wants a hand doing this, just ask. I could use the laugh.


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## fowtj (Apr 15, 2003)

Did you do this with the head on the car?!?!?! :what:


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## Krieger (May 5, 2009)

fowtj said:


> Did you do this with the head on the car?!?!?! :what:


ummm.... yeah, there is no need. your just looking at the valves from the intake ports, not pulling the whole valve-train.


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## fowtj (Apr 15, 2003)

The OP said he was using a pressure washer and scraping the gunk off. I dont know about you, but there is no way I would take a pressure sprayer to the exposed engine of my car with only a (hopefully) seated valve between gunk/pressure sprayer and the cylinder.


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## guiltyblade (Jul 12, 2007)

fowtj said:


> The OP said he was using a pressure washer and scraping the gunk off. I dont know about you, but there is no way I would take a pressure sprayer to the exposed engine of my car with only a (hopefully) seated valve between gunk/pressure sprayer and the cylinder.


for real.. I would be weary but to each his own. Hell i'm afraid to even spray down my bay...


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## Krieger (May 5, 2009)

guiltyblade said:


> for real.. I would be weary but to each his own. Hell i'm afraid to even spray down my bay...


trust me, our engines are way more water tight that most people are led to believe. ive washed at least 12 FSI and TSI engines and all cranked right up after a good drying with some air.

i thought you were asking if he did this with the head on, like it would be weird to not take the head off or something. woops.

yeah, id rather use a pick and chemicals, not a pressure washer, but to each his own.


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## guiltyblade (Jul 12, 2007)

Yeah I'm actually thinking of spraying down mine. Figure i'll tie some garbage bags around my alternator, some of the electrical and whatever else I see if scary spray it down with degreaser, spray, then tire foaming agent and re-spray it down. 

What did you do in the past? I would love to know. Trying to get ready for h2o!


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## tdotA3mike (Feb 5, 2009)

guiltyblade said:


> Yeah I'm actually thinking of spraying down mine. Figure i'll tie some garbage bags around my alternator, some of the electrical and whatever else I see if scary spray it down with degreaser, spray, then tire foaming agent and re-spray it down.
> 
> What did you do in the past? I would love to know. Trying to get ready for h2o!


keep the water away from the coil packs! pressure washer plus coil packs = :banghead:

i just use a bucket of water and scrub down the engine.


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

fowtj said:


> The OP said he was using a pressure washer and scraping the gunk off. I dont know about you, but there is no way I would take a pressure sprayer to the exposed engine of my car with only a (hopefully) seated valve between gunk/pressure sprayer and the cylinder.


If an intake valve isn't seating properly you've got bigger worries than carbon build up.

Chunks of gunk break off and get sucked into the cylinder all the time anyway. What about when people do the BG Induction service or Seafoam, which breaks this stuff up and sends it into the cylinder and through the exhaust in chunks? Also, between the chemicals and the pressure washer, the area around the valve seats were perfectly clear so I was able to avoid any scraping in that area.

The pressure washer saved at least 1-2 hours of tedious gunk removal. :thumbup:

I also pulled the plugs after and looked inside to see if any water got down in there but it was bone dry in all cylinders. You definitely don't want to crank your engine with a bunch of water in a cylinder!

Worked good for me and I'll do it again next time.


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## Uber-A3 (Feb 23, 2002)

Did you change your oil afterwards?


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## A3_yuppie (Jun 5, 2006)

MisterJJ said:


> If anyone wants a hand doing this, just ask. I could use the laugh.


How long did the whole process take? I am fairly mechanically uninclined, and I want to take you up on this offer, and buy you lunch for your troubles. I am in the OC.


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

Uber-A3 said:


> Did you change your oil afterwards?


Nope. I thought about the possibility that I forced water or goo up the valve guides but figured the chance were slim to none. You get condensation in an engine anyway so some tiny amount of water won't matter. If you're going to be so paranoid about a tiny amount of carbon goo getting into the oil I'd hate to have you think about what happens to the pieces of hard coating and metal that eventually come off the cam follower.


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

A3_yuppie said:


> How long did the whole process take? I am fairly mechanically uninclined, and I want to take you up on this offer, and buy you lunch for your troubles. I am in the OC.


I hate to think about it. I guess I spent about 5 hours getting the intake off. That includes over an hour messing with that one PITA bolt. Seriously... over an hour. The next day I started at 10am and finished at 9pm. I did a lot of stuff in-between though like mowing the lawn, dinner, etc. If I was just working on the related stuff, it would be around 12 hours total. I don't rush through things when I work on my car though. I'm sure if I kept focused and just wanted it done as soon as possible it would have been around 11 hours. Of course I spent a lot of time just getting that one bolt off and then on. That one damn, ****ing, bitch-of-a-bolt.


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## A3_yuppie (Jun 5, 2006)

MisterJJ said:


> If I was just working on the related stuff, it would be around 12 hours total. I don't rush through things when I work on my car though. I'm sure if I kept focused and just wanted it done as soon as possible it would have been around 11 hours.


Yeah I hear you. Hmmm... don't want to take up your whole day. But let me guess, BG induction service is not nearly as effective at removing gunk?


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## Krieger (May 5, 2009)

guiltyblade said:


> Yeah I'm actually thinking of spraying down mine. Figure i'll tie some garbage bags around my alternator, some of the electrical and whatever else I see if scary spray it down with degreaser, spray, then tire foaming agent and re-spray it down.
> 
> What did you do in the past? I would love to know. Trying to get ready for h2o!


dont need to cover anything. I used a hose with a gentle shower nozzle, some Meg's APC+, a paint brush, a GOOD hosing down to get rid of everything, repeat as needed, then blow dry with a shop vac or hair dryer or something, then follow up with a good water based dressing like Meg's hyperdressing.

PM me for more specific info and pics.


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## Uber-A3 (Feb 23, 2002)

MisterJJ said:


> Nope. I thought about the possibility that I forced water or goo up the valve guides but figured the chance were slim to none. You get condensation in an engine anyway so some tiny amount of water won't matter. If you're going to be so paranoid about a tiny amount of carbon goo getting into the oil I'd hate to have you think about what happens to the pieces of hard coating and metal that eventually come off the cam follower.


I would be concerned about the oven cleaner than the water.


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

Uber-A3 said:


> I would be concerned about the oven cleaner than the water.


I soaked up the vast majority of it with paper towels first and had a big towel covering everything when I sprayed out the gunk. Any tiny amount that could get into the oil is nothing compared to the fuel dilution we normally get in these engines.


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## The Sage (Jul 30, 2004)

BG chemical have a chemical and way to do this. you get you car to operating temps and then take of your intake manifold. then you close the valves as you rotate the engine. you fill the closed valves with the chemical and let it sit for 10mins and use about 40 zipties that are rubberbanded together to scrape out the baddies. and do the same for the other valves. you use and air vacuum or like a mighty vac to suck out the bad stuff. ive done this twice and works great intake side looks brand new. but the biggest problem is the chemical only works at temps over 160F so its a time thing to get it done. but once done its so sweet. no cold start misfires


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

The Sage said:


> but the biggest problem is the chemical only works at temps over 160F so its a time thing to get it done.


I just followed the oven cleaner instructions for a cold oven, which was a 2 hour soak. Softened everything up nicely. Not sure how warm my engine would have been after taking 5 hours to remove the intake. Did I mention the PITA bolt on the support bracket? I hate that bolt.


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## Rogerthat (Oct 23, 2005)

I want to take this on myself so badly but I'm afraid I'll break something. I was just quoted yesterday around 600 dollars to do this.


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## The Sage (Jul 30, 2004)

the biggest problem is the tool list alot of tools that can help do this faster. but its a pretty straight forward job. just gotta watch the injectors and make sure you put the seals back right if they fall out. once you get the throttle body off you can see things alot better $600 seems pretty reasonable if you get it done at a dealer


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## Uber-A3 (Feb 23, 2002)

The Sage said:


> the biggest problem is the tool list alot of tools that can help do this faster. but its a pretty straight forward job. just gotta watch the injectors and make sure you put the seals back right if they fall out. once you get the throttle body off you can see things alot better $600 seems pretty reasonable if you get it done at a dealer


 If the injectors stay in the head your golden, if the pull out you need new teflon seals or risk the chance of doing the whole thing again. I have done this job 3 times and had 2 injectors pull out.


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

The Sage said:


> once you get the throttle body off you can see things alot better


 That sounds like a very good idea. I only had a new gasket for the intake so I didn't want to remove the throttle body. Next time I'll get a throttle body gasket too so I can just remove that. Also, I've got all sorts of ratchets, extensions, and universal joints, but I don't have one of the those flexible cable extensions, which may have worked quite well for that one %$#@! bolt. I think I'll get some of those before I tackle this job again. 

One other issue that I remembered... two of the blue o-ring seals that go between the fuel injectors and the fuel rail came off when I pulled the intake and one looked like it was torn a little in the process, but not on the inner or outer sealing surfaces. It would probably be a good idea to just replace these while you're in there. 

I think this job needs to be done at 40k-50k intervals at the most. I was really starting to notice a big performance loss and gas mileage was getting worse too. 30k would be better but, at least for me, this is way too much work to do that often.


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

Uber-A3 said:


> If the injectors stay in the head your golden, if the pull out you need new teflon seals or risk the chance of doing the whole thing again. I have done this job 3 times and had 2 injectors pull out.


 Yikes! Sounds like a set of the teflon seals on hand is a must as well. I was a little worried about that so I kept wiggling the intake back and forth as I pulled. That may be why some of the blue o-rings came off. It still required a surprising amount of force to get it off.


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## guiltyblade (Jul 12, 2007)

i want to do this, but I'm probably going to opt for the BG service.


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## Rogerthat (Oct 23, 2005)

guiltyblade said:


> i want to do this, but I'm probably going to opt for the BG service.


 Does anybody know where they offer this in the south bay area? I'd rather do this first.


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## LWNY (Jul 30, 2008)

Why is the intake valve so dirty? I thought with FSI, you only have air sucked through them?


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

LWNY said:


> Why is the intake valve so dirty? I thought with FSI, you only have air sucked through them?


 More than you really want to know can be found here: 

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/336352-Audi-FSI-Engine-Carbon-Build-up-Megathread 

You get a lot of gunk from the positive crankcase ventilation but it appears to be mostly from the fact that the valve guides "weep" oil down the valve stem. You can see in my pictures how it looks like the stuff is just dripping down the valve like wax on a burning candle. Cars with vent-to-air catch can systems still get this buildup. 

Non direct-injection engines don't have this problem if you use high quality fuel because that fuel is very good at cleaning deposits like this off the valves. Sucks to be us.


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## Spitzbergen (Sep 10, 2010)

What about Sea Foam? I've used it on other cars with good results.


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## MisterJJ (Jul 28, 2005)

Spitzbergen said:


> What about Sea Foam? I've used it on other cars with good results.


 http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?4611119 


Uber-A3 said:


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


 At least my car didn't look like a coral reef was forming in there. Here's what to look forward to if you don't clean the valves:


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## GTIy Up (Aug 7, 2010)

Rogerthat said:


> Does anybody know where they offer this in the south bay area? I'd rather do this first.


 Eurocode Tuning in Torrance offers decarbonization for Audi's. They have done plenty of decarb service for their RS4 and S4 clients I would highly recommend them! :thumbup:


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