This is the craziest thing I've ever encountered in an engine

[450knotOffice]

Guys, I am stumped.

A couple of months ago, when I bought my Porsche, I noticed something very odd in the engine compartment. Lying down in the recesses of the compartment were thousands of little tiny man-made cylindrical pieces of carbon graphite. They can best be described as looking like little 1/32" long pieces of pencil lead from a mechanical pencil - but there were thousands of them all over the place. Odd, I thought. I am a trained aircraft mechanic from 20 years ago (not active though) and have worked on my own cars most of my adult life, yet I have never seen anything remotely like this.

When I first noticed them lying all along the bottom of the compartment I thought to myself "OK, this is odd, but there doesn't seem to be any real issue with them being here so I'll just remove as many as I can and dismiss it as being, well...strange."

However, today I decided to take my air filter out and take a look at it. I got the thing out and WHOA! Holy Moly...I found the mother lode!

Lying in the bottom of the air filter housing, downwind of the filter, were probably a couple thousand of the little carbon thingies. They were a 1/2-inch deep in there. What the...!?

Lucky for me, the intake to the throttle body is at the top of the filter housing because those carbon graphite things appeared to have been too heavy to have been sucked into the engine. They just sat there on the bottom of the housing, fat, dumb, and happy I guess.

Needless to say, I shop-vacuumed them out and performed a thorough inspection of the area. Everything seems fine.

Does anybody have any idea why I would have thousands of these little tiny carbon graphite barrel shaped thingies inside my engine compartment and more importantly, inside my air filter housing downwind of the filter? All I can think of is that this car spent most of its former life in Florida and may have been set up for long term storage. Maybe, since carbon is water absorbent, someone thought that if they put a bunch of carbon pellets into the air inlet then they could possibly keep the intake moisture free in that humid environment.

I don't know. I'm throwing out a wild guess here.

Anybody have any ideas? This is the strangest dam thing I've seen. Hmmm.....

-Scott

[dhoward]

Mouse poop?

Other than that, I have no idea.

[OZCarrera3]

...ssshhhhh!

I think they're listening...

[Oldporsche]

Sounds wierd to me too.

Start with a vacuum cleaner and a fresh bag.

David Duffield

[ewave]

It's from the charcoal canister that is part of the emissions system. It absorbs fuel vapors wile the cars is parked. Fresh air is is cycled back through the canister when the car is started and run, so that the gasoline in the charcoal is drawn out and burned in the engine.

[doozer]

Some sort of blasting material - like bead blasting??

[Eagledriver]

You have discovered what happens when the charcoal canister reaches the end of it's life. The canister is there to absorb the fuel vapors from the fuel tank vent. When it gets old enough the membrane or whatever holds the charcoal bits in breaksdown. At that point the vacuum lines that connect it to the air filter housing suck the pellets into the air filter area. The canister is located in the front compartment near the battery. You can raplace it or just do what most do and plug the lines.

-Andy

[450knotOffice]

Mouse poop was my first thought too, until I took a good look at the little things. They are coal black and perfectly cylindrical. And they are hard as brick. I smashed one with a hammer today and it was carbon, all right.

Not only that, but I have seen what rodents do to a car that they take up residence in. This one shows no evidence of having been lived in by furry little four leggers.

-Scott

[450knotOffice]

Ewave and Eagledriver!! You guys RULE!!

I was stumped and you guys gave me an answer in FIVE minutes. Sweet

I am greatly relieved. Thanks. I even told my wife about it. She looked at me like I was losing it.

-Scott

[dhoward]

Cool.

[randywebb]

Replace it. Plugging the lines can cause problems when you change altitude. Ask me how I learned this way back in the 70s....

[Eagledriver]

How did you learn this way back in the 70s...

[randywebb]

Car (BMW 2002) died way way back in the mtns. Fix it yourself or hike out.... There was a lot of fizzy once I got the gas cap off. Took a day or so to get it off as the pressures were so unequal. But used the diurnal cylcle of temperatures in the high mtns. to my advantage. When it cooled way way down I was able to get the gas cap off and vent the system.

As I recall this was in Colo.

[thomasalva]

Take a look at these! I pulled my air filter tonight and saw all of these little carbon things. I searched the forum and sure enough I wasn't the first, so I decided to post my pics here in case anyone is curious about this. They seem to be carbon and appear to have been extruded from a 1/16" tube. FYI, my car is an 89 Coupe.

[JSDSKI]

Ya know, I've heard that if you fire those things into a magnetic plasma field and zap them with a laser at just the right temp and time you'll get fusion - whaddya think?

[randywebb]

there has been a rupture in the fabric of reality (or maybe your carbon canister) and you drove thru it.

[thabaer]

Looks like extruded gunpowder, I would have waited to find the source BEFORE I hit it with the hammer

[911Mac]

Scott,

That really does look like smokeless gunpowder. Hopefully, it's just whatever was in the charcoal canister.

If you want to find out if it's gunpowder, just put 5 or 10 grains in a little pile on something that won't burn like an aluminum pie plate, take it outside and light it with one of those long fireplace matches. If it's gunpowder, it will burn vigorously. It's when it gets ignited in a small enclosed space like a rifle cartridge that things get more exciting. They actually used to burn old smokeless powder that's to old for use to get rid of it.

-Mac

[Grady Clay]

I understand how these carbon pellets can get into the air cleaner assembly. How do they get around the outside of the engine on the tin?

Best,
Grady

[911pcars]

"How do they get around the outside of the engine on the tin?"

The mice take it there?


Sherwood