Dirty son of an OAR

[Bluezone]

Okay I've had an ongoing problem with my Boost levels especially on launch. I've been fighting this thing back and forth we couldn't figure out for like me of what was going on. I ended up talking to Matt at Gearhead and he needed some special data logs in order to figure it out. I didn't get around to doing the logs. What he did mention was that my air load demand was kind of messed up.
So I says to myself, self what the heck is an air load demand? So I looks on the internets and finds out stuff about torque demand.
So my car is demanding less torque. I didn't like the sound of that. So I sat and pondered what the heck that could mean. Why in the world would my car want less torque. So I double checked everything on the car and made a mental note about how difficult it was to set the OAR value to -.96.
Now this being a number referring to resistance of knock I thought what the heck could be making it not so easy.
Then the LED flash bulb went off over my head and I went crap and I kicked myself in the ass. I've got carbon buildup in my cylinder heads.
So I used an old trick to clean the carbon out of the cylinder heads. Namely using a squirt bottle to spray distilled water into the throttle body throat while the engine idled. When water is in this cylinder bore it is transform to steam and loosens off the carbon buildup.
Now it took three applications to knock down the carbon enough to get a decent OAR value.
Chances are I'm probably going to have to do this two or three more times in order to he absolutely sure the carbon is cleaned out of the cylinder heads.
Anyhow the long and short of all this is, if you're having trouble sitting here or value with the gas you have available. Consider the possibility that you have carbon buildup in your cylinder heads. It might not be a case of the octane level being low.

 

[yaycandy]

Okay I've had an ongoing problem with my Boost levels especially on launch. I've been fighting this thing back and forth we couldn't figure out for like me of what was going on. I ended up talking to Matt at Gearhead and he needed some special data logs in order to figure it out. I didn't get around to doing the logs. What he did mention was that my air load demand was kind of messed up.
So I says to myself, self what the heck is an air load demand? So I looks on the internets and finds out stuff about torque demand.
So my car is demanding less torque. I didn't like the sound of that. So I sat and pondered what the heck that could mean. Why in the world would my car want less torque. So I double checked everything on the car and made a mental note about how difficult it was to set the OAR value to -.96.
Now this being a number referring to resistance of knock I thought what the heck could be making it not so easy.
Then the LED flash bulb went off over my head and I went crap and I kicked myself in the ass. I've got carbon buildup in my cylinder heads.
So I used an old trick to clean the carbon out of the cylinder heads. Namely using a squirt bottle to spray distilled water into the throttle body throat while the engine idled. When water is in this cylinder bore it is transform to steam and loosens off the carbon buildup.
Now it took three applications to knock down the carbon enough to get a decent OAR value.
Chances are I'm probably going to have to do this two or three more times in order to he absolutely sure the carbon is cleaned out of the cylinder heads.
Anyhow the long and short of all this is, if you're having trouble sitting here or value with the gas you have available. Consider the possibility that you have carbon buildup in your cylinder heads. It might not be a case of the octane level being low.

I thought i read somewhere before that the fuel pump controller, relay ?? I dont know what it is… behind the passenger back seat. When replaced it improves oar. Some were bad from factory. And nearly 10 years, maybe its worth replacing. Unless its just for “false knock”

 

[yaycandy]

 

[Bluezone]

Nope not talking about false knock or incorrect fuel pressure. This is plain and simply a mechanical issue. If you get carbon buildup in your cylinder head and on your piston top, you can end up with mechanically higher compression ratio and potential hotspots.

Most of my improvements in quarter mile times have been due to suspension mods and efficiency tweaks that I've made. Although I've been going quicker I've had less and less boost to work with. LOL

 

[yaycandy]

Nope not talking about false knock or incorrect fuel pressure. This is plain and simply a mechanical issue. If you get carbon buildup in your cylinder head and on your piston top, you can end up with mechanically higher compression ratio and potential hotspots.

Install thicker head gasket lol
I wouldnt be worried about the carbon on the pistons like the indirect injection engines. I would be worried about carbon on the injector. Run a bottle or 2 of techron concentrate. I run a bottle every 3k miles. We already have 10:1 compression. 10.001:1 compression realistically wont be noticed from carbon on pistons. Yea there is never really more than 2 thou of carbon on pistons of bad engines

 

[Bluezone]

I've run different injector cleaners every once in awhile. The thing is their purpose is to clean the fuel injectors. They can slightly help with deposits in the actual cylinder. Sparying distilled water is cheap and effective because you're more like steam cleaning your engine. Just watch how much you do it because you can wash away the oil. That's one of the reasons for using distilled water, it's less problematic for contaminants to mix with the oil and wash it away.

 

[yaycandy]

Berrymans is good, seafoam is good. Marvel mystery is good down the spark plug hole. Get a cheap phone inspection camera add on from amazon. And look down the spark plug hole. May not be that bad. Or run light meth. Aem v3 nozzle set to kick on at 8psi. Actually a great investment for any gdi platform. Did you look at your valves with the intake off? They do get bad. I did mine awhile back. Ill find pics.


Before and after, pulled intake manifold. Tried about every cleaner. The best one was crc gdi intake valve and turbo cleaner. Literally burned the carbon off instantly. Its pricey but works best. Carb cleaner didnt even do anything lol.
Or walnut blast them.

 

[Bluezone]

I don't want to have a meth problem. While I can get it, it's a bit of a problem and kind of expensive around here.
It's not a matter of being worried about a little bit of carbon. It's a matter of being worried about deposits of all kinds and their effect on getting your OAR value set and the nock on effect it has to torque demand. When no matter what brand gas you use, doesn't seem to have sufficient octane for knock resistance. it's a good time to start suspecting that there is excessive buildup in the cylinder area.
Since doing this solved my problem, I'm can be pretty sure buildup was causing the issue.

 

[yaycandy]

I don't want to have a meth problem. While I can get it, it's a bit of a problem and kind of expensive around here.
It's not a matter of being worried about a little bit of carbon. It's a matter of being worried about deposits of all kinds and their effect on getting your OAR value set and the nock on effect it has to torque demand. When no matter what brand gas you use, doesn't seem to have sufficient octane for knock resistance. it's a good time to start suspecting that there is excessive buildup in the cylinder area.
Since doing this solved my problem, I'm can be pretty sure buildup was causing the issue.

Did you ever run a catch can? Its good you got the issue figured out. Wonder if a catch can added early on the engines life would of prevented this. Or at least made it a 150k mile maintenance

 

[Bluezone]

Did you ever run a catch can? Its good you got the issue figured out. Wonder if a catch can added early on the engines life would of prevented this. Or at least made it a 150k mile maintenance

It got a catch can about eight months after I bought it. Had about 75 k miles at that point.

 

[luigisho]

it's a good time to start suspecting that there is excessive buildup in the cylinder area.
Since doing this solved my problem, I'm can be pretty sure buildup was causing the issue.

I agree with your assessment. There is a reason Toyota added injectors back to the port side on their direct injected engines (solely for deposits). This has been an issue for VW for a looong time.

 

[joe raptor]

I have been using BG 44K Platinum for the fuel system and no problems at all !!

 

[76FoMoCo]

I agree with your assessment. There is a reason Toyota added injectors back to the port side on their direct injected engines (solely for deposits). This has been an issue for VW for a looong time.

Ford did it on the f150's later.

 

[SM105K]

Ford did it on the f150's later.

I thought all of the newer GEN EB's added a port injector in addition to direct injection.

 

[luigisho]

Yeah I think debut around 16-17 gen 2+ ecoboosts starting with 3.5 and the newer displacement eco's got them. Also in v8's IIRC. At least for DI v8 mustangs that I remember

 

[SM105K]

Yeah I think debut around 16-17 gen 2+ ecoboosts starting with 3.5 and the newer displacement eco's got them. Also in v8's IIRC. At least for DI v8 mustangs that I remember

I wonder if someone has tricked the aux port fuel system to use meth while in boost. That would be pretty trick.

 

[ShatteredMJ]

I’ve struggled back and forth with this problem too. In the end I decided meth was the solution. It’s worth it as an anti-knock and octane consistency measure.

I used CRC, BG and other products and they seem to improve the situation a little bit. You’ll have to do it all over again periodically and you keep feeling the difference after every application. With meth, the pro is consistency and continuous cleaning. Eventually you’ll forget about it.

 

[Jordan_R]

I have been using BG 44K Platinum for the fuel system and no problems at all !!

You'd need to do the BG Platinum fuel induction service to get the intake tract! 44K is an amazing cleaner though for the injectors and combustion chamber but because these cars are direct injection you need get that preinjector tract cleaned up too!

 

[FrankK]

Jordan have you had the BG service done? What did you think about the results? and what is the cost of the service?

Thanks

Frank

 

[Jordan_R]

Jordan have you had the BG service done? What did you think about the results? and what is the cost of the service?

Thanks

Frank

I'm a BG rep in Missouri so I'm very familiar! I think induction treatments on any direct injection car is absolutely necessary. The carbon build up in the intake tracts and combustion chambers causes poor air flow, which reduces fuel atomization, and poor fuel spray patterns, which also causes poor fuel atomization and requires your injectors to work harder to spray the same amount of fuel.

Really an induction should be done at least every 30k minimum imo on these ecoboost (bg recommends 15k) otherwise run some methanol for cooling and cleaning. I am a Bg rep so take all this as you will but I've used about 85% of the products on my own vehicles and always love them. As for cost of the service its usually anywhere from $140-$200