[Ilma]

Had my valves cleaned today and took a few shots before the cleaning process.

I was quite shocked at how much crud I had for only 39,000 miles

Needless to say, the idle is better, there are no small hesitations when I go WOT and the car seems to pull in the higher gears better now too.

Car feels brand new!

I cannot recommend this maintenance item enough.

I was getting an occasional misfire code on cylinder 4 and sure enough, it had the largest amount of crud on it.

Don't be fooled at how smooth the walls of the intake ports look. We scraped the sides with a screwdriver and pic #4 shows how the carbon fell off the wall and completely covered up the valve. There is a lot of curd on the walls as well as the valve stems.

Here are some pics of before......sorry no after shots.
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[dlbrooks18]

Wow.. how much does this maintenance cost to do?

[AU335i]

damn... did you walnut blast or use a chemical solution?

[Ilma]

Originally Posted by AU335i

damn... did you walnut blast or use a chemical solution?

It was a chemical scrape and scrub. The guy who does walnut blasting wanted $200 more than the scrape and scrub method.

Originally Posted by dlbrooks18

Wow.. how much does this maintenance cost to do?

I paid $300 to a local private mechanic.

[type rrr]

doe's this problem occur to the exhauts side too?

[E90Company]

Wow

[sammy_0559]

run a 50:50 90/85 mix i shit you not it will clean 70% of buildup!

[Jake@MOTIV]

Originally Posted by sammy_0559

run a 50:50 90/85 mix i shit you not it will clean 70% of buildup!

Maybe in a car that was port injection where the fuel ran over the valves. Unfortunately our fueling is Direct Injection.

[NjRep335i]

Originally Posted by sammy_0559

run a 50:50 90/85 mix i shit you not it will clean 70% of buildup!

I know my valve's need this cleaning too. I filled up with a 50/50, 93/E85 and the idle surge stopped. I don't know if this was coincidental or not. I'm still planning on going through with the cleaning in three weeks. 82,000 miles.

[sammy_0559]

Originally Posted by NjRep335i

I know my valve's need this cleaning too. I filled up with a 50/50, 93/E85 and the idle surge stopped. I don't know if this was coincidental or not. I'm still planning on going through with the cleaning in three weeks. 82,000 miles.

u keep running the mix i don't think there will be anything to clean

[Dackz]

Originally Posted by sammy_0559

u keep running the mix i don't think there will be anything to clean

If your method worked, then I could just run a can of BG 44k through my engine every 15k too. The fuel does not go over the valves, hence the valves not cleaning from that method.

[sammy_0559]

Originally Posted by Dackz

If your method worked, then I could just run a can of BG 44k through my engine every 15k too. The fuel does not go over the valves, hence the valves not cleaning from that method.

i dunno man, but I've been running E85 for the past 2 monthts and on the second time the rough idle dissapered, and having never cleaned my intake valves since i bought my car around 40k miles ago and I'm sitting at 81k miles and my intake valve barely have any carbon buildup! I'm all for manually cleaning intake valves don't get me wrong, but E85 and meth do a hell of a job cleaning the buildup.

[NjRep335i]

Originally Posted by Dackz

If your method worked, then I could just run a can of BG 44k through my engine every 15k too. The fuel does not go over the valves, hence the valves not cleaning from that method.

I do agree since we have a DI, but for some reason everything smoothed out. Like I said coincidental.

[Dackz]

Originally Posted by NjRep335i

I do agree since we have a DI, but for some reason everything smoothed out. Like I said coincidental.

Exactly, coincidence.

[flexinator]

I know the car is DI so the fuel doesn't directly hit the intake valves... But there is pass through gasses containing exhaust gasses and oil that comes back around through the valves. That is what causes the buildup of carbon. I wonder if e85 changes the composition of the pass through gases and in fact does reduce buildup or even clean the valves to some degree. Some people that spray meth also say it keeps their valves cleaner... Different idea but still...

Thoughts ?

[MDORPHN]

Originally Posted by flexinator

I know the car is DI so the fuel doesn't directly hit the intake valves... But there is pass through gasses containing exhaust gasses and oil that comes back around through the valves. That is what causes the buildup of carbon. I wonder if e85 changes the composition of the pass through gases and in fact does reduce buildup or even clean the valves to some degree. Some people that spray meth also say it keeps their valves cleaner... Different idea but still...

Thoughts ?

Not a bad theory, but no.

The crud is caused by oil vapor.

If there was enough E85 in it to change the chemical composition, you'd be suffering from excessive fuel dilution in the oil -- which would suggest far more serious problems with your motor.

Neil

[flexinator]

I know it's the oil, but maybe the e85 causes less oil to come through... It will be interesting to see if e85 really does make a difference to the valve build up as more people run it...

[335iaz]

I shudder to think what mine look like, never been cleaned and approaching 100k miles lol.

[Ilma]

Got a few datalogs in tonight to see how the valve cleaning affected performance.

I gotta admit, it's hard not running meth - but I am process of relocating the tank.

So I ran map 1 stage 2 procede.

Before I cleaned the valves my fuel trims would be 5-10% apart between bank 1 and bank 2.

Now they appear to be within 2%.

Dialed in map 1 for 14-15 psi and everything looks nice and smooth.

Car definitely is a bit more responsive with the new found airflow.

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[benzy89]

Meth & an Oil Catch Cans will not prevent carbon build up on your intake valves. While these two things will slow down the carbon build up, the N54 (as a turbo charged, direct injection motor) will suffer from oil vapors traveling through the intake tract, and eventually getting burned onto the intake valve walls.

The best solution (and the only one that guarantees clean valves) is walnut blasting. Luckily the valves need to be cleaned every 40k-50k miles, so in the lifetime of the car you maybe do it two or three times. The best thing to do is try and jump on a GB & get the price down, chances are you kind find N54 owners who want/need to get their valves cleaned. Common symptoms of a car that needs its valves cleaned are misfires, rough idling, a decrease in power or rough delivery of power.

[Tzu]

Wow your cyl 1 looked like shit! My cyl 5 and 6 looked like that, 1-2 were actually the cleanest.

I noticed the same thing with trims after cleaning. Distribution is even nicer with meth.

[Ilma]

Originally Posted by Tzu

Wow your cyl 1 looked like shit! My cyl 5 and 6 looked like that, 1-2 were actually the cleanest.

I noticed the same thing with trims after cleaning. Distribution is even nicer with meth.

Cylinder #4 was actually the worst of them and it was starting to give me an occasional misfire code.

The other tell-tale sign of uneven carbon buildup was that my bank 2 fuel trims while spraying meth were not stable as compared to bank 1. They oscillated up and down quite a bit as did the fuel trims for bank 2.

So I figured meth is not getting evenly delivered to all cylinders because of the carbon.

Glad to hear that your trims balanced out while spraying as that is the result I was hoping for.

I still may replace the 3 injectors that BMW didn't swap under the recall campaign. But going to get meth hooked back up first and see what happens with the flow first.