Anyone tried Lubo-Moly valve clean?

[albalone]

My E30 with 216K mi has high NOX. It also pings on premium, so I'm thinking I've got carbon build up. Think the "hot soak" cleaning with this stuff will do any good? Thanx.

[bostogrun]

Did you do a compression test? If you are carboned up you will have extraordinarilly high compression. The "pinging" with premium could be caused by carbon deposits on the piston tops. The carbon glows in combsution chamber igniting the fuel when the intake valve first opens causing detonation.

The only thing you can do short of remvoing the head and cleaning everything up is a Seafoam Treatment. You can induce 1/3 of a can into the power brake booster with the engine running, when the engine stalls, let it sit for an hour then start the motor. It might trigger a misfire code but don't worry it's easily turned off.

It will smoke like crazy when it starts but after two minutes it will return to normal. If that does not cure the problem you can try an Extreme Seafoam Treatment. Pull the coil packs, blow out the plug wells to remove the debris, pull the plugs, Pour 1/6 of a can of Seafoam into each plug hole. Let the engine sit over night. In the morning crank the motor with the plugs out to get the Seafoam out (to avoid the danger of hydrolocking the motor). Drain and change the oil. Install the plugs and coil packs and start the motor. It will smoke like a gyser for a while but all that carbon is going out the tail pipe.

Run a compression test afterwards and your compression will actually fall back to say 140 to 170 (normal for your mileage) the higher reading before the treatment was caused by a layer of carbon on the piston top. The chemical action of the Stoddard Solvent will remove carbon build up and actually increase the volume of the combustion chamber therby lowering the compression. Removing the carbon that can glow like a barbque ember shold reduce the detonation.

This is the only way, I can think of reducing the carbon build up without major engine work. Try the intake manifold technique a couple of times before trying the extreme method. You might notice a reduction in oil consumption as well.

Is your car is burning oil? Burning oil can cause extreme carbon build up in the combustion chamber. The build up of hydrocarbon will cause the glow which in turn causes the detonation. Cleaning up the combustion chamber with the extreme method can free up the oil control ring and actually reduce oil consumption. The pour in the cylinder method is actually a factory procedure authorized recommended by Saturn to cure engines that suffer from extreme oil consumption.

If you car is detonating due to carbon build up caused excess oil consumption your engine is really on its last leg so you don't have that much to loose just
$20 for two cans of Seafoam.