About to tear engine down - Carbon remov.

FWIW-Seems like the only place carbon would be is in the combustions chambers and on the pistons, and possibly with some deposits behind the rings. I doubt you'll find anything that is as effective as hand cleaning after disassembly or that will prevent you from having to do so. I think a turbo race motor would have very little anyway. Carbon deposits tend to cause detonation, the death knell of turbocharged motors. As a race motor with low miles, it probably has only as much carbon as you can clean with a shop rag.

 

+1

Mechanical action (hand removal) will always be vastly superior to any chemical cleaning, and if you're taking it apart anyway I'd do it by hand.

 

If there are significant carbon deposits in the combustion chamber, disloding them chemically while the engine is insitu/running could conceivable cause some minor valve burn if deposits get lodged in the valve seat. I'd definitely stay away from chemicals here and simply remove by hand when the heads are off...

 

Bob,

There is a method of decarbonizing an engine that involves injecting water into the intake manifold. Basically, you "mist" the engine with water vapor, which creates steam in the combustion chamber and scrubs the chamber clean. I've done it with old 6 cyl. Jaguar engines, but not sure how you'd do it with your turbos. It's kind of the same thing that happens when a head gasket leaks -- you usually find that the combustion chambers are spotless, because the leaking anti-freeze/water has steam cleaned the chambers.

Chances are you don't have a lot of buildup in there anyway. When we took Paul's 308 apart a few weeks ago, it was pretty clean, and he had a lot more miles on that than you have on yours. I have some great commercial solvent that works well on carbon (called Agetene) that I got from Graingers. You're welcome to borrow my parts washer and some solvent and soak the pistons and other parts when you take it apart.

Regards,
Steve

 

If it has build up of any amount that would matter it needs to be taken apart far enough to cure the problem. It is absolutely considered VERBOTEN in the car industry to perform any cleaning of the pistons while still in the motor. Inevitably be some of the material WILL get down between the pistons and cyl walls, it is unavoidable. It will further get into the ring lands. That material will be very destructive of those parts.

If something is wrong with the motor causing the buildup, once it is put right, it will during normal operation just burn off harmlessly.