Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting dribbling water into throttle as a cleaning technique??

The reason this works, IIRC, is because the water does not compress during the compression stroke, this casues a major increase in compression ratio. For some reason this will help to clean carbon deposits in the combustion chamber (more heat?). So.. this should not be something to try if you are looking to clean a manifold.

Yes, this technique works if done carefully (i.e., misting the intake).

I've been told that combustion temps are enough to turn the water to steam which does the cleaning....Seems to work!

its a 351 M. I was running at about 1300 RPM, I had the throttle almost wide open, and there was so much water that it was spraying out the exhaust, not comming out as steam.

I think that the water trick could be accomplished with a well rinsed out syrup container. But i would shy against it becasue the engine and heads are made of aluminum which is much more susceptable to thermal shock cracking than is cast iron.

The water only works when it is heated to produce steam so it is unlikely that water would clean out the intake system.

It will only clean out your heads and mostlikely will trip your CEL. SMALL AMOUNTS OF WATER! One of those lil bottled water jugs with the spout top (or gatorade) at a time. If you need your intake cleaned this will not work. What happens is it runs into your motor, on the compression swing it turns to steam and steam cleans your combustion chamber, valves, and exhaust ports.

BE CAREFUL you can disloge large carbon particles causing big problems, hydrolock the motor, and clogg your cat's doing this.

So how hard would it be to do this on the Duratec? Would it be possible to feed the h20 through a PCV opening in the intake??

I undersatand this.

its a 1978 - no such thing as a CEL

the polution controls are this fixed main jet in the carburator and thats it. no EGR, no sensors, no cat, nothing just a carb and an ignition system with pipes to carry the exhaust out.

The old iron engines of yesteryear aren't as finickey and delicate as the advanced aluminum engines of today. Its an old pig, made to work and thats it, uses lots of gas, 8 mpg on a good day. Has toruble going over 65, but will drag 22,000 pound cement blocks at 2mph like they are hay bails.

Like I said before, unless you have had a lot of experience doing this, don't do it. It can be a beneficial thing if done with skill and good judgement but the potential for disaster is too great to mess around if you don't know what you are doing.

Anyone tried this on a tour and if so, how did you do it. Seems interesting. Should you use hot water in the bottle to speed up the steam process.

Since Ive been working on our fuel trucks at the airport, i thought i would chime in on this... we were having problems with the truck, turns out to be a couple bad lifters... but at first we tried this out, one of the guys there is what i would call an 'old school' mechanic. So he pured the water down the carb, and man, seeing the way that truck reacted with it's big old Ford engine, sputtering, shooting out nasty smoke out its a$$pipe, etc... I would NEVER personally do this to my baby, with an aluminum engine. now I dont claim or have in depth knowledge of metal structures, but I do know aluminum is much more tempermental and sensative to heat/cold shocking it. If you want to clean something, just buy a product designed to do it, or hell, if its that important to you, clean it by hand! Just for the sake of your motor, if you dont know exactly what your doing, dont go pouring cold water into it... Just my somewhat edukated opinon.... Peace! -Nick