Ok, so I'm racing in Sebring this weekend, so I decided to prep the car a little. I went to the Honda dealer and got a can of Honda Top Engine Treatment ($4.56) and noticed it was kinda small, so I went and bought a can of seafoam at Autozone ($6.99) and went back to the house. Instead of doing things as per directed ( I didn't buy honda's special *tool* (hose) for this...), I decided to try a different approach. Leaving the engine running, I removed the filter and intake tube, so I had direct access to the face of my throttle body. I poured the can of seafoam into a spray bottle, and then proceded to spray into the intake, with the car still at idle. Each spray, the car stuttered a little, but then returned. Ok. Did this for about 1/4 of the can, then decided to really start the cleaning. I started to throttle the car a little while spraying in seafoam at a much faster rate, and I had to hold it at about 50% throttle to keep it from stalling, but HOLY COW did the smoke start pouring out the exhaust!! I kept this up, with WOT pulses 3 at a time about 30 seconds apart, until the intake manifold appeared clean from looking down the throttle body.
Next...Instead of removing the power brake vacuum hose and letting the Honda stuff get sucked in from there, I decided to use the PCV hose (easier to get to). The hose wasn't long enough, but fortunately I had some leftover air hose for my fishtanks that fit snugly into the pcv hose attached to the intake. **A curious side note, once the valve is actually pulled from the hose, the engine hunts...negcamber, this reminded me of your problem after the hondata....I think you have a vacuum leak bud**
Leaving the car in idle, I dipped the hose into the can of honda cleaner. Stall. Damnit. Attempt to restart. Yea right....about 30 seconds later, she slowly lopes back up to idle. Ok, that's to be expected. Go back to the hose and cleaner...this time giving it some throttle, I put the hose back into the bottle. I had to manipulate the throttle between 30% and 70% to keep it from stalling again, but dear god in heaven, I thought it smoked bad with the seafoam!! NOT!! This stuff made a cloud so thick I couldn't see my hands in front of me!! I let it drink the whole can, then revved it thru the range for about 2 minutes. Took it out for a test drive once it stopped smoking....




















DEEEEEAAAAAAAMMMMMMM!!!! My car feels like it grew a pair of titanium balls!!! The throttle response is sickeningly quicker than it was before (never knew it was bad to begin with), it sounds much meaner at WOT (prolly my imagination), and is noticeably stronger! My car has just shy of 60k miles on it, and I can tell it most defenately needed this!!


So in short...do it! Takes an hour out of your life, costs less than $15, and cleans the ever living crap outta the intake side of your engine!

BTW, do NOT breath the smoke...I'm sure it causes 476 different kinds of cancer!

 

after it sucks down, I shut off the car and let it soak for 15 minutes

 

hmm....didn't do that...just let it keep running at idle...


i think it did a fairly decent job either way

 

Oooo...thanks Nate. I'll check that hose again.

Sounds like a worthwhile cleaning. I recall how nasty the tops of intake valves looked when we pulled the intake for the Hondata...can only imagine how bad the exhaust side must look. I'll have to give this a try this weekend.

Careful at Sebring with those tires!

 

I'm getting new tires this afternoon...Nobody could get to Bridgestone's in time, so I'm gonna go with a set of the new Cooper Xeon's (I think that's what they're called). Getting them put on a 3pm....doing a smoky burnout at 230 to finish these poor things off

 

Sounds like it was pretty dirty. Maybe a good idea for those with some miles on there car.

 

I decided I should probably do it when I was doing the hondata gasket, and noticed now nasty the inside of the manifold was, and how much carbon buildup there was on the valves. I defenately needed a good cleaning. I'm thinking this is something that should be done probably every 30k, instead of waiting till 60...

 

For $12 an injector you can get you fuel injectors cleaned at a carb shop.

 

I might do that. After this weekend I'm gonna pour a can of seafoam into the gas and let it work it's magic in there as well.

 

Theres a thread in UTH where they also pour some of the honda stuff into the spark plug holes (with the plugs removed)