Direct Injection carbon & other 2.0T issues

[Hennessey17]

My Wrangler 2.0 is still hasn't been delivered, but I'm driving a 2013 VW Tiguan with the 2.0 TSI... (direct injection, turbo, etc) Mine is stage 1 with 161K miles and still drives beautifully. I have never had the carbon cleaned, but 80% of my miles is highway, and I do get near the redline several times a week (Italian tune-up). VW recommends oil changes every 10K, but this engine has had timing tensioner problems, and most seem to happen when people go 10K between oil changes... so I change mine every 7,500 miles. Now that it's high mileage, I change it every 5k. And always full synthetic VW approved... I never skimp on the fluids. I have run a can of Seafoam through it, but honestly, not sure how much it helps things.

Main thing is, follow your manual, or do things sooner. Change all fluids. Don't cheap out... and redline occationally (safely of course)... basically, take care of it. My VW can easily last another 100k miles.

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[west tex]

I see lots of DI motors from various manufacturers. In the end, people that are lazy with oil changes end up getting misfire codes due to too much carbon buildup on the backsides of the valves. I do also see that some manufacturers that have 10K oil changes tent to have the misfire codes more often. 5K oil changes seems to work better at keeping this problem from happening. I do get my real world experience at working on various cars with many reaching 400K on the motors and they are DI (some turbo and some not) where the motor has never been opened up and no carbon buildup. Those are just regularly maintained.

People that go off the deep end with catch cans are only using the failures for their justification. Not the overwhelming successes that do not have a catch can. The intranets seem to fixate on the few failures and thus need an extreme solution.

If you want to run a catch can, then take and put a fitting on the bottom and then a fitting on the oil pan. Run a hose between the two and then you never need to drain it. That's what we do in racing as we run "loose" engines.

Does an additive like Chevron's Techron address this issue with carbon build up on the vales? Assuming reasonable oil change intervals and all routine maintenance is done on schedule.

 

[hiimmike]

Does an additive like Chevron's Techron address this issue with carbon build up on the vales? Assuming reasonable oil change intervals and all routine maintenance is done on schedule.

I'm hearing that no fuel additives will address this issue. The fuel isn't sprayed on top of the valve, it's sprayed below it so no amount of fuel additive, detergent, cleaner, whatever, will help wash away carbon as it builds up. If you can put in an additive to air.... you might have something that works.

 

[CarbonSteel]

I'm hearing that no fuel additives will address this issue. The fuel isn't sprayed on top of the valve, it's sprayed below it so no amount of fuel additive, detergent, cleaner, whatever, will help wash away carbon as it builds up. If you can put in an additive to air.... you might have something that works.

This is correct. Unlike an MPI engine that sprays fuel into the back of the valves and tends to wash away carbon, DI engines only have air flowing over the back of the valves since the fuel is injected directly into the cylinders.

Although current engines are much improved from the initial DI engines, it is imperative that correct oil specifications and oil change intervals are followed to help reduce carbon build-up.

 

[At Risk Ute]

We would add seafoam to the intake on the similar Mazda 2.3T DI engine to clean the valves. Not neighbor or environmentally friendly.

 

[hiimmike]

We would add seafoam to the intake on the similar Mazda 2.3T DI engine to clean the valves. Not neighbor or environmentally friendly.

This is interesting. Where would you put this? This will sound stupid but just dump it in the air intake? That can’t be correct because then you’d just flood your cylinder.

 

[At Risk Ute]

This is interesting. Where would you put this? This will sound stupid but just dump it in the air intake? That can’t be correct because then you’d just flood your cylinder.

You’d suck up the seafoam off a vacuum line.

 

[Headbarcode]

A mishimoto catch can was one of my very 1st Jeep purchases. Reading about intermittent codes tripping the cel made me pause on installing it. I decided to just closely monitor it for any signs of blowby or oil usage. I've checked the intake track on several occasions for any moisture and it remains bone dry. So far, at 55k on the clock, I've yet to see any loss of oil between changes. The catch can kit is still in its original box.

I only ever feed it 93 octane from Mobil and stick with quality full synthetic oils that meet the specs. Lately, I'm using pennzoil ultra platinum 5/30 that uses a natural gas base which is cleaner than crude oil base. I change it every 5k and the oil never darkens to more than a mid amber color.

 

[hiimmike]

A mishimoto catch can was one of my very 1st Jeep purchases. Reading about intermittent codes tripping the cel made me pause on installing it. I decided to just closely monitor it for any signs of blowby or oil usage. I've checked the intake track on several occasions for any moisture and it remains bone dry. So far, at 55k on the clock, I've yet to see any loss of oil between changes. The catch can kit is still in its original box.

I only ever feed it 93 octane from Mobil and stick with quality full synthetic oils that meet the specs. Lately, I'm using pennzoil ultra platinum 5/30 that uses a natural gas base which is cleaner than crude oil base. I change it every 5k and the oil never darkens to more than a mid amber color.

Can you reach me how to check the intake track? I don’t even know what that is hah! I’m stupid. I’ve been considering using 85 fuel from Costco out in CO. I’m undecided, many people say they do this and have no problems. I have 3-4 months to decide while I wait impatiently and annoy my wife daily with “is my Jeep done yet?”

 

[jjvincent]

Can you reach me how to check the intake track? I don’t even know what that is hah! I’m stupid. I’ve been considering using 85 fuel from Costco out in CO. I’m undecided, many people say they do this and have no problems. I have 3-4 months to decide while I wait impatiently and annoy my wife daily with “is my Jeep done yet?”

I look at it this way. People tend to just buy the cheapest gas. So, where you are at there is 85 octane gas and lots of Jeeps. So, it's good reasoning that many people are sticking in that gas. If there was an issue with it, then there would be a 50 page thread on it. Yet there is not. Any time a widget breaks on more than one vehicle, you know there will be a thread on it. People typically post when they have a problem. Not to give an update on how nothing has gone wrong yet.

 

[Headbarcode]

Can you reach me how to check the intake track? I don’t even know what that is hah! I’m stupid. I’ve been considering using 85 fuel from Costco out in CO. I’m undecided, many people say they do this and have no problems. I have 3-4 months to decide while I wait impatiently and annoy my wife daily with “is my Jeep done yet?”

The intake tract is the plastic tube that's heading into the intake manifold. It's where the crankcase and any possible blowby is routed back through the engine to be burnt off. Generally, if there is any it will leave an oily film on and around the throttle bodies butterfly valve.

Admittedly, I'm being a bit ocd. I'm a former heavy equipment mechanic, so it's sometimes hard to shut that part of my mind off and a simple air cleaner swap will spiral into a bit of digging.

Just treat your incoming Jeep to high quality oil that meets the manufacturers specifications and fuel from a station with a tier 1 certification. Avoid trying to save a buck by getting those consumables from mickey mouse sources.

 

[AnnDee4444]

We would add seafoam to the intake on the similar Mazda 2.3T DI engine to clean the valves. Not neighbor or environmentally friendly.

The smoke has nothing to do with direct injection. I've had a few port injected and one carbureted car do the same exact thing.

 

[srt20]

Can you reach me how to check the intake track? I don’t even know what that is hah! I’m stupid. I’ve been considering using 85 fuel from Costco out in CO. I’m undecided, many people say they do this and have no problems. I have 3-4 months to decide while I wait impatiently and annoy my wife daily with “is my Jeep done yet?”

Do yourself a big favor and research how turbos work and at different elevations and absolute pressure.

The very short of it is, your turbo will maintain an absolute psi level at all elevations (up to a point, but that does not matter for this question). That means you need the same fuel requirements at 8,000 ft as you do at sea level.


I understand alot of people aren't going to accept some short quick answer for some dude on the net. And I'm not going to write a book on here.

There is many many places online to learn all you need to know and what you should be using for fuel in a turbo engine at elevation.

 

[gijohn56]

when I was in high school (79-82) and cars had carbs... my shop teacher told us to rev the engine up to 3000rpm and very slowly pour some water into the carb in very small amounts. The combustion with the water cleared out the carbon just nicely! Now I would not recommend this today seeing it only cleaned out the piston area not behind the valves.

Just another cocktail trivia tidbit.

 

[GATORB8]

So, this engines been out a while. Has anyone seen a post about actual carbon build up issues?

I owned an N54 BMW and have personally seen what one looked like at 60k when I walnut blasted it, but it was a real issue with those and pictures of the build up were all over the forum. I can’t even find one in a hurricane searching for it.

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