Quote:
Originally Posted by ratgreen
FYI you can do this for almost free using water injection. Just spraying a fine mist into the engine with a bit of throttle for a few minutes works by essentially steam cleaning the combustion chamber.
Tuners use water/meth injection to keep intake temps down, but it also has the added bonus of removing carbon buildup. I also think that ericthecarguy made a video on this.
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Water was the reason to keep the old 10-oz returnable Coca-Cola bottle in the tool chest bottom drawer. Prior to a tune-up one would use the right hand thumb to meter water flow into the carburetor while the left hand kept the rpm high enough working the throttle linkage on that 850-cfm ThermoQuad to prevent engine stall. Got to be an interesting race between the two at times. Listening to that V8-440 gulp and sing.
As to some of the additive claims above: some of you all aren’t working the drivetrain long enough (short trips are anything to the three hour mark), nor hard enough (car loaded to max capacity or trailer towing; with attendant full throttle use).
An Italian tune-up: get it out on the big road and do a series of acceleration runs 45-mph to well over 100-mph after the three-hour mark. And keep it there. And use the decel phase to get brakes well-heated.
Once back at shop is time for tune-up plus fluids/filters/belts change.
Some of the low end economy cars will be fine with a life of barely opened throttle. Something with substantial horsepower, won’t.
Fuel additives have their place. I use them. I expect better fuel stability and combustion. In this is no disappointment. In the days of carburetion as the 1960s faded and fuel quality declined, use became mandatory for really tight tuning for FE.
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