S6 Carbon cleaning attempt (need some pointers)

Hello,

I decided to dive into attempting the carbon cleaning today on my '07 S6. I followed the intake removal guide from another member on here but I ran into a few snags and was hoping I could get some ideas how to get this done. So my issue is that I cannot physically remove the intake once everything is unbolted. I have a picture showing what my problems are. First the back part of the intake (where the coolant lines connect) is hitting this black metal bracket held on by a T10 triple square bolt. These are shown as the red arrow (coolant line connections) and red square (black bracket). I’m not sure if the fuel lines need to be completely removed (shown as yellow arrows) and if they do I have no clue how I could reach the a wrench onto the nuts near the firewall.

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/634175178.jpg

I know I didn’t remove the oil separator but I don’t see that making a difference since the metal part of the coolant connections and the black bracket still hit each other.

Also I’m not sure if the higher T30 bolts (shown by light blue arrow) need to be removed or not (there are 10 of them total).

Does the car have to have to have the front end off to get the manifold off? Do I need to remove that black bracket (the triple head holding it is kind of difficult to get to so I was hoping I didn’t need to and it wasn’t mentioned in the guide)? The only thing I’m guessing is the front end has to come off so the intake can slide under the fuel lines to come out…I was really hoping I didn’t need to remove the radiator and all that so any alternatives would be greatly appreciated!

Lastly is there a specific pattern for tightening the manifold back down and does anyone know the torque specs?

Thank you!

Brenden your in the right place to get the answers you need.

Let me start. To get the intake off make sure to physcaly remove all the bolts from the intake manifold to the head. Its easy to have the bolts loose but a few bolts can have threads snag if they are barly in.

As for the black brackets. Remove them. There are 4 of them one on each back corner and on the front corner. These are used for the assembly line and placement of the motor. They can be used again if you remove the motor. But for general use they are not used and not needed. I generally pull them off all cars I do a carbon clean on and just give them back telling the owners to hold on to them. So remove those.

The next step is the fuel pumps. Your not going to be able to pull the intake off if you dont either remove the front clip from the car or pull off one of the high pressure fuel pumps Or HPFPs. I found that pulling the passenger side pump off makes for the best removal. Once you remove the passenger side pump you can also loosen some of the fuel lines. Your going to need to remove the one line that goes from the back of the intake on the passenger side to the driver side HPFP.

The coolant lines you can follow back to the elbow and just pull them off.

let me know how far that helps you get and if you get stuck after that. I will be looking in on the thread all nite and give more direction if you need it. As for the oil seperator there is a little oil line that drains back into the oil pan off the back of the seperator. It makes sense to take some extra time to get the actual seperator off because your going to be fighting with that oil line if you try to remove the intake with that line still on

Update to help if anyone that searched out this thread

http://audirevolution.net/forum/index.php?topic=3950.msg116391#msg116391

A helpful walk through

Also it will take a day or two to do the carbon clean If you havent already look into getting the JHM intake spacers for the car They really help with keeping carbon at bay longer keeping the intake temps way down along with helping keep the motor cooler and happier along with more performance in the hotter temps all that and they make putting the intake back on much eaiser.

Thanks for response justincredible! I had to get a few other things done so I put this project aside for now, but I’ll tackle it again tomorrow.

I should’ve been more specific as to how far I’ve gotten in the removal. I have removed all the bolts for the manifold (12 long T30 bolts) and I can physically pull the manifold up (nothing is holding it down), but I can’t get it to clear the fuel lines on either side. I’ve already removed the two fuel lines going to the passenger side pump but they don’t move much since they are still bolted near the firewall (the one line that goes over the manifold is completely loose). I’ll go ahead and pull that separator off as well, but literally every other line (oil, coolant, vacuum, etc…) has been removed from the manifold. The only thing I’m struggling with is physically pulling it out.

I’m not sure how much I can try to man handle it past the fuel lines…I’ll take out those brackets though and see if that gives me some more room…I’ll have to go get an M10 triple head though lol

I do have the JHM spacers as well :slight_smile: Part of the reason I wanted to get this done. Once the intake is off I’ll just done a cylinder here and there when I have free. I’m not in any hurry to get it completed

You wont be able to get the intake out of the motor galley unless you pull off the front core support or you pull off one of the HPFP units. The fuel lines are helpful but the HPFP units are what holds the intake from comming out. I found taking off the pasenger unit gave the most room. Once you take off all the other little bits and the HPFP the intake will come out easy.

A tip I use. I dont put the knock sensor clips back on the bottom of the intake. I remove them and zip tie them down under the intake

Roger that, I’ll remove that passenger side pump then along with the black bracket and oil separator and give it another shot. Thanks!

once you remove the HPFP from the passenger side of the motor you will see there is a lot more room. The brakets make it tough as well. For sure get the oil seperator off as there is that oil line that will be almost impossible to put back on if it gets pulled off

I didn’t have to remove either HPFP or the core support to remove my manifold… but did have to remove the core support to rotate the crank for the carbon cleaning :frowning:

Beyond what you have in the first pic, I removed all the black engine hoist brackets (kept them around for if/when I need to pull the motor), the oil separator (inspect this, as they fail too, I replaced mine), and removed all the fuel hard lines to/from the HPFP’s. Once those were out of the way it angles up and out without issue. Don’t remove those other torx bolts, those are the bolts that hold the manifold together as it’s a multi-layer manifold.

Once I had the manifold off and started cleaning the carbon from the heads you’ll have a couple cylinders with valves open, just block those off with a rag and clean all the other cylinders first. Once you’ve driven yourself crazy cleaning all the other cylinders, rotate the crank of the motor to close the open valves, then block off any cylinders you’ve already cleaned and clean the remaining cylinders (now that you’ve rotated the engine to close the valves).

Lastly, here’s to hoping you don’t have any broken flaps within the manifold! That alone is a $1700 fix…

Also- of all the cleaners I used during the carbon cleaning, I found oven cleaner worked by far the best.


http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/b505/winceenzo/20160209_180153%20Medium_zpsbqapg6xa.jpg

Success!!! Got the manifold out after some maneuvering with 3 people, lol. That black bracket on the back right (driver side, close to firewall) is a nightmare due to the bolt placements. Also those plugs that slide into that metal bracket underneath the manifold were a surprise! Luckily I wasn’t pulling very hard and was able to angle the manifold while somebody else popped them out. I went ahead and removed that passenger side HPFP which gave me some more wiggle room.

Thank you so much for the help!!!

A couple other final questions. Is there a way to open the oil separator? I don’t want to break it but I don’t see any areas that really look like they would pop apart readily.

I have the JHM spacer kit but do I need to put two gaskets on each side with the spacer? Meaning each side will have; gasket touching the block, spacer, then gasket touching the manifold? Also with the kit has two rubber caps which I assume go over those two nipples in the manifold that had coolant lines going into them, then I just use the provided double-barb to run those lines together?

Lastly, is there a specific pattern when I bolt the manifold back down? Anyone know the torque specs? i noticed the RS4 has a pattern and calls for 9 ft/lbs for the bolts. I guess I could just use that pattern slightly modified for the 2 extra cylinders.

Again, thank you so much for all the help! You guys rock!

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/678661216.jpg

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/972262227.jpg

You got it. Looks great. Sorry I told you about the plugs but assumed you knew they were the knock sensors that were on the bottom of the intake. The blue and tan plug you see in your bottom picture are the knock sensor plugs. There were also a black one and one orange on if i remember correctly. Dont put them back on. It will be a pain to reinstall. I zip tie them together and then zip tie them to the bottom fuel rail in the galley.

One think to look for while the intake is off. Check the galley to the right. If you see oil in that galley consider changing the oil rings in the bottom of your oil filter housing.

Also the black port spacers you have on the right of the intake. Dont put those back in. Just leave them out.

As for the gaskets. Check the gaskets for fitment right now but how it works is. One gasket on the bottom of the spacer one on the top.

As for tightning down the bolts Ill try to get a picture from a friend that made one for refrence and post it.

If you have any more questions feel free to post em up

Yeah I saw those knock sensor plugs were there but looking at it from the top down it seemed they would just come out with the top wiring harness, didn’t realize there was another harness underneath. No worries though since I was being pretty careful to not snag anything, but yeah, I definitely don’t plan on putting them back into that bracket underneath!

So those port spacers aren’t necessary? Well that’s one less thing to clean :slight_smile:

Thanks for the tip on the oil filter housing, I’ll check around there and in the galley to see if there are any oil leaks along with double-checking the fitment on those gaskets and spacers.

Thanks!

Oh one other question in regards to the oil separator. I was thinking of just discarding it and going with a catch can instead. ECS has one here https://www.ecstuning.com/Audi-C6_S6--V10_5.2L/Engine/Performance/Catch_Can/Catch_Can/ES2816990/ that looks pretty simple. Has anyone done this? i know it won’t do much for carbon build-up but might be a nice alternative to replacing the separator.

Hi, about oil separator, after first pulling out intake, there was about half litre or more oil inside it. At that time i just put all back. After one year when engine was out, also intake was remowed it was again a lot of oil inside intake, and then i put new OEM oil separator and yesterday, after about 7months it was just thin oil film arround surfaces, nothing to be worried

That unit looks good. I dont think I have seens any one use that unit before. So far all the other guyys in the FSI boat havetried the seperator idea testing to see if that will fix the carbon issue. So far it really wont make a difference over the standard oil seperator unless your seperator is bad.

You can diffinitly throw out the port spacers. They are nothing more then a carbon magnanet. They are used for cold start and after that they dont do much. It is suposed to be used for cold start the low speed air tumble work but its wont work with carbon

Any pics of the port spacers that are not needed?

They are the parts shown here just to the right of the intake manifold. They go in the intake ports of the cylinder head

http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/678661216.jpg

Okay, so I got all the runners cleaned and the car back together. Fired up fine, sounds great however after taking it out the first time I got a engine code for the intake runner flaps being stuck closed. I took it back home and double-checked the plugs to the flap motors on the front of the manifold and everything is plugged in correctly. I also saw one of the motors move the flaps just shortly after turning the car off so it seems the motors work.

I cleared the code and took it back out but it came back on and the car feels very sluggish at higher RPM’s so I’m pretty sure they are actually stuck closed.

This manifold is almost brand new (was replaced by previous owner 20k miles ago) so I don’t think the motors have failed, but the car definitely is not making the right power at higher RPM’s.

I’m thinking either the spacers are making contact with the flaps or there is some kind of reset procedure I need to perform with the flaps after removing the manifold.

The spacers seemed to fit fine when I tested the fitment with the manifold off but I do remember them having a tiny bit of wiggle room…I guess the next step would be to pull the manifold and see if it throws the code with the spacers removed, but I was hoping I could use them…any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks