Hello and advice needed

B6/7 S4/RS4
#1

Hey guys, I was wondering where all the knowledgeable people from EA had gone and it looks like I found ya! Just want to say hi and get some advice. I posted this on AZ as well but figured I’d get better answers on here.

My CPO has expired and I finally decided its time to have some fun with the S. I recently picked up a JHM intake manifold and had to pull my stock one off to ship it out. I believe this was the first time the manifold was removed from the car so there was some build up/gunk around the base of it. When I lifted the manifold off, some of the debris fell into the lower manifold where the valves are. I’m wondering if I should be concerned with these little pieces of debris that are on the intake valves? Or is some buildup around the edge of the valve normal?

http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/IM_3.jpg

http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/IM_2.jpg

This is a picture of the engine after I cleaned it up a bit.

http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/IM_1.jpg

The debris seem to be a mixture of sand/dirt, oil and coolant (some of it may have been carbon buildup). There were some bigger chunks as well, but I was able to vacuum them out. Fortunately, only 1 cylinder is open and I don’t think much of anything fell into that one. If it did, it didn’t stop at the valves so there’s not much I can do at this point.

Is there any way of cleaning the valves without disassembling the entire top half of the motor?

While the manifold is out, I also plan on replacing the valve cover gaskets. Is there any other maintenance items that would be logical to replace at this point?

Background info: It’s currently at 63k and up to date on all necessary maintenance. The only performance mod at this point a FI 2.5" catted fullback exhaust w/ xpipe and res. Within the next few weeks I’ll be installing the JHM IM, JHM LW rotors, and the JHM tune (Finally! I’ve been dying to get it tuned for years).

#2

Welcome, you came to the right site.

This kind of build up is normal. I would run a bottle of tecron in your tank for the next two fuel ups still as its not good to have build up.

Having debrits in the motor is not good. If the injectors are unpluged then its a good start to clean out the motor. Pull out the plugs and leave the intake off. vacume the ports and then roll the motor over by hand to make sure you have gotten to each cylinder. Continue to vacume this out.

Or another thing you can do is to leave the intake valve open and put air into the spark plug hole this will force most of what is in that cylinder back out. If you feel comfortable that you got most of it our then dissregard the above.

#3

Awesome. Thank you for the response. I will definitely use some tecron once this is all cleaned up and reassembled.

My plan at this point is to pick up an air compressor and try blowing air into the 1 open cylinder through the spark plug hole while vacuuming the through the intake valve side. I’m not sure if anything even made it into the cylinder but if it did that should take care of it.

Then for each of the 7 closed cylinders my plan is to clean each valve with a straw attachment on my shop vac and a pic set. Then once I’ve removed all the sand that is around the outer edge of the valve I’m going to clean up some of the carbon with some brake cleaner and a brush.

How do I crank the motor over by hand? I want to be able to close the open cylinder before cleaning the carbon.

Thanks again for the help.

#4

Here’s something that might help getting farther in past the valves. B6JOES4 had this idea when he carbon cleaned an S6. McDonalds straw taped to the end of a shopvac attachment.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x59/joec1992/DSCN2325.jpg