No, I’m not kissing a** here. I don’t really see why there’s a need for negativity. Project farm has not been bought by any sponsors and uses his own equipment at his own cost assuming all of the risk for our entertainment. He also goes through experiments that most of us would think of doing or buying products we have doubts about. In my honest opinion, project farm gets played on TH-cam from my tv on Sundays and I can honestly say he’s the best subscribed channel I have. Please keep up the great content!
How do you KNOW that to be the case? Who has the time to make these kinds of video just for the hell of it? Snake oil being pedaled by snake oil sales technics for the 21st century. If your car or whatever is in at least middle of the road good shape and is properly taken care of you don't need none of these kinds of elixirs and or magic potions! If its in lousy shape, old and worn out these thing will not fix it.
@@johns5591 who has the time to make these videos? Obviously projectfarm does. Sure he makes a little money on these videos but it's not from being sponsored by seafoam or other things he is experimenting with. He makes money from TH-cam because he monetized his videos and so when they play the small 30 second ads that you watch or skip past after 5 seconds is where he is making his money. I haven't seen every single video he has posted to TH-cam but I've watched a good amount and I have to say I think he does a great job of creating content and coming up with non biased answers that a lot of general laymen would like to know. He doesn't try an sell you anything ever he only comes up with a question that he thinks others might want to know the answer too and then sets out to determine what the facts are.
After rewatching this and seeing your new videos, you have come such a long way in both your presentation and video editing over the years, kudos to you. Thanks for your continuing work in testing and giving great information with no marketing BS.
The internet is a great source of information. It's people like you that make it fantastic. Thank you for cutting through the chase, sharing your time, and passing along useful information.
I needed to know about bedliner sprays. First place I come? Project Farm! Now I am going with a roll on Hercules instead. Awesome guy, awesome channel!
I have run water/isopropanol alcohol injection in a 4 stroke 1000cc turbocharged engine. Water-ipa injects into each intake track at 150 psi, the water alcohol mix is completely waporized when entering the combustion chamber. I've run this on many of my turbo charged Yamaha snowmobiles over the years. On teardown of the engines I've found them all completely free of carbon deposits inside the combustion chamber, on the valves, and on the top of the pistons. There is no harm seen from the injection of water. Reason for running water-ipa injection is the ability to run higher boost on pump gas insted of running race fuel. Poor man's race fuel is a nickname used for this injection. I've run 22 psi of boost making about 350 HP in the 1000 cc engines on pump gas. Side effect was a very clean engine in the intake and combustion chamber. Thank you for your videos, very informative, highly appreciated. Greetings from Norway 🙂
this actually seems like fun to do. more complicated than just putting race fuel into the tank but can be a lot cheaper when tuned right (and a computer can just remove the boost if the water/iso tank runs out)
@@blendpinexus1416 True, I have a failsafe switch that reduces boost to the waste gate setting, not do destroy the engine when the Water/IPA tank runs emty. I have the waste gate setting to allow for a boost level that is safe to run on Premium or 93 octane for USA or 98 octane for Europe. It's the cheap way out, and when you are riding trails you don't have the ability to get race fuel anywhere. Most servicestations sell IPA and water is free at the tap.
I'm a big fan of the channel & just wanted to toss a quick comment out. This info comes via my father, who was a big name in auto racing back in the late 50's and before that an instructor for the Air Force just after WWII in internal combustion aircraft engines. His highest qualification was in the Pratt & Whitney R4360. The history of using water in ICE's is long and storied, and much of my dad's knowledge came front USAF research regarding the use of water/water methanol injection. The first time he guided his very skeptical son through using water in an engine, it was accompanied by this: "Son, this car has been driven for years around town on short trips. This has caused it to get so loaded up with carbon that it's not working the way it should. When you dump a large quantity of water in a hot engine, the water soaks into the carbon, turns to steam, and blows the carbon apart. Once the water cools the engine down, it won't do any good. Once the engine is good and hot, manipulate the throttle to keep the engine running and DUMP A QUART OF WATER DOWN BOTH BARRELS OF THE CARBURETOR AS FAST AS YOU CAN WITHOUT KILLING THE ENGINE (it was an AMC 343 V8 and only took maybe 8-10 seconds)." I understand that much of the advice about using water to clean engines has been to feed over a longer period of time. However, executed as my father instructed it is effective and does not contaminate the oil. I run a performance sportbike equipped with water injection and have never had oil contamination. The rate of feed is critical. Water injection is far slower than in your test, and cleaning is faster but of VERY short duration. Thank you so much for your good, unbiased and scientific testing.
I wouldn't waste time with water/meth injection on an engine as a performance enhancer UNLESS the engine was boosted.... There's really no benefit to it on an N/A engine.
I really appreciate all the time and cost you have put into this to teach all of us amateur motorheads about these techniques and products. Thanks! Subscribed!
We had a Chevy 350 engine in a DOH crew cab truck which spends a lot of time at idle or slow speeds when working on the roads. It had a serious sounding knock and I thought it was toast. My buddy I worked with, great mechanic by the way, said he thought it was a carbon knock, so he did the water treatment for no more than 5 or 10 minutes at the most and the knock was gone. After working with him for almost 30 years, he never ceased to amaze me with his seat of the pants knowledge.
In my travels In High school years around salvage yards I was introduced to slowly pouring about a half a quart of transmission fluid in a running cadilac engine that was knocking, believed to be carbon buildup, causing the noise. the exhaust was billowing with smoke temporarily but It did clear out the carbon in about 2 minutes.
I’ve spent so much time and money keeping water out of my engines, there is just no way I’m putting it in on purpose. Great vids keep up the good work!
Here in Louisiana, sometimes the insane humidity would probably introduce water vapor equivalent to close to a Gallon per Hour of driving!!! Curious to know exactly!!! But GREAT Vids!😎👍🏼🇺🇸
I've made ethanol free gas, it feels so wrong to pour water into gas, I measured how much I put in and confirmed that I had more come out after the ethanol bound to the water and settled to the bottom of my clear tank.
We learned the water to clean carbon trick when I went to motorcycle school back in the 80's We were taught to use a mister(spray bottle) to atomize the water. I've seen results of that on motorcycles and it worked well. dribbling the water in I would worry about not having it atomize correctly. I would love to see this same test with a water spray vs. dribble. Love your tests!
I’ve seen this done before and the amount of black that went out on the ground from the exhaust was crazy. I wonder if it a safe to do it on Diesel engines.
Last question... Yes I would and do use water. Always have. As in the other suggestion I actually switched to steam with wand applicator. The steam is what cleans and its already in steam form and much easier to deliver especially in a fuel injected engine. I do suggest using the steam wand ... I believe you will be impressed with the outcome... Maybe use a vacuum pump on a small engine to help with the crankcase. Although you should see less with steam.
Old Briggs lawn mower engine- “wow, after 12 years I’m retiring- going to a great retirement home called Project Farm!” Project Farm- “heh heh heh..... just have a seat, this won’t hurt a bit...” Keep up the great work sir!
Water added to the intake, fast cools and FRACTURES the carbon deposits in the combustion chamber. That is why you need to have the engine up to a very high temp before you add the water. After the initial hit of water, it has cooled down enough it will not do any more good as the carbon is not red hot anymore and it just runs the water through the engine and as you found out, dilutes the oil. Sea foam is a chemical compatible with fuel and oil so it reacts favorably to the gas and oil when exposed over an extended time as you did in this test. Hard to compare the two in this manner when the water only cools and fractures the red hot carbon and blows it out the exhaust and SeaFoam chemically cleans the carbon after it cools it. I really like all the videos you are producing! Very thorough, fair, and relevant to most of us gear heads.
If you use less water (water injection nozzle) then you won't have water leak down the cylinder walls, also there's probably a lot of wear on the cylinder walls leading to leaking.
Temperature was very low. Water was being more liquid than vapour. I agree, smaller quantity of water would have made a difference. Also putting a load on the engine to make it run hotter.
I knew a guy who ran a water injection system on his Rally Car.. He used a mixture of water and alcohol(increase the octane rating, cool the engine and quicker evaporation) Also he used an atomizor behind the carby so that he was only injecting a mist of it to the engine.... Putting water as a stream into an engine is looking for trouble... Look how easy petrol will flood and engine and it evaporate far easier than water when it's a liquid..
I just watched two episodes of attempting to remove carbon from a cylinder head. Water, then Sea Foam vs Marvels Mystery Oil. Back in the early 80's when I started tinkering with engines I used the water followed by transmission oil to recondition piston rings. Over the years I have used Berryman, and STP, products. However, watching your videos I believe that the MMO product does the best and can treat more common problems from fuel cell issues, head & upper cylinder, to rotating Assemblies. Thank you for your time and studies. Glenn
Just watched this 5 years later. Wow. Your channel is still great after all these years. I’m wondering if the methodology gave the mixed result. I’d be tempted to add a mist of water in the air intake in a stop/start way to keep the engine temperature higher. You may achieve a better ‘steam clean’ that way. This appeared in my feed after searching Liqui-Moly Diesel engine cleaner. Still love your work 👍
the more i watch the more i like-very thorough very easy to watch no tricks--the lubrication from seafoam and marvel in the oil and gas of mowers equipment and vehicles used on a regular basis wont rust freeze or built up smeg we used to call it--but your method is why the mower doesn't blow up great effort thanks again
Great video :) I have used water to clean my engine head/valves, but the way I did it was to warm up the engine, pull off the air filter, rev the engine to 3-4K rpm and then spray carbonated water from a bottle into the intake directly for a few seconds. The engine doesn't sound happy when you do that, but afterwords it runs fine again. Still, that is a quick-fix only, until you have the time to take the engine apart and clean/inspect thoroughly.
auto repair 7 years experience MANY types of repairs. Always AMAZED @ blown head gasket repairs - the piston & valve heads were: like new looking so i concluded water or water w/antifreeze ? DEFFINATELY & ALWAYS caused the total removal of carbon(j whatever else it is) of the cylinder's pistin crown & valve heads
Thanks for the awesome content…I’m still working through the back catalog after finding your channel a few years back. Always look for a review from you when it comes to buying outdoor power equipment or repairing equipment and vehicles. I appreciate the well thought out experiments and effort put into avoiding conflicts of interest with sponsored trials etc.
Many years ago an old timer mechanic showed me how he "steam cleans" the combustion chambers in car engines and I have done it many times myself, though not in many years now! Start the engine with the air cleaner off. Bring it up to tamp and raise the idle while pour water slowly out of a jar/cup and while it tries to die, raise the RPM higher to keep it running. I have seen a difference on spark plugs before and after doing this, so I have to imagine it helps clean everything else in the chamber!!
Great topic! As a wrench and smog tech for 18 yrs before switching careers. A poor mans trick on NOX failures on smog was the water in the intake trick. Definitely works as I always saw a substantial drop in NOX confirming carbon cleaning and hot spots in there gone. I will say, I believe thered be better results with applying water and varying throttle. My program was to rev up, pour in and continue applying throttle as rpms dropped. Usually just 4 or 5 quick blasts was all it took. Seafoam? I always chose to use GM top end cleaner for the real job of top end cleaning without pulling heads. That stuff is amazing. I prefer to use Techron gas additive over the years on every oil change to keep it clean in the 1st place.
I would never put water in my engine 'cos it seems so counter-intuitive. But I have used a lot of Marvel in older cars (1980-something Monte Carlo and a 1970 Chevy Nova) that I had back then. and I thought it did help but not enough to continue using it. I am pretty biased about Seafoam which I think is great but I haven't sprayed inside the carbs yet. Question. my old supercharged Jag 2004? Mi bambino? isn't it true that if I put one of those 'Restore' liquids in the engine though, for the next ten oil changes or for the rest of its life, I will have to put at least the same amount every time I change the oil? Thank you very much for these videos; they're beautifully done, crisp, clean and to the point. Watching your programs is a bit like how going to church on Sunday used to be! I know it takes a lot of effort on your part! So Thanks again. P.S. That is my wife's picture, not mine; I stole her laptop when she wasn't looking!
Wild looking back at this channel from back when I first became aware of it. Production flow has clearly improved, as has recording of audio. Keep doing great work!
Great video. I also did what you did on a 2015 Kia Rio and let the intake slowly suck water in, unfortunately i bent the connecting rod. I later discovered that this was due to the intake manifold design of the vehicle, some of the water was getting into the engine and the rest started pooling on the bottom of the intake. I did a snap throttle and all that pooled up water go into the engine all at once hydrolocking it. I have done this water trick for the past 25 years and never had a issue but like you said you always run the risk of damaging the engine.
@@emma67890 Thanks i did try what you said and removed the intake after to inspect how well it cleaned the carbon off the valves, it did help a bit but there were still large chunks of carbon stuck to the valves. I guess the best way is to scrape it off manually.
Just a suggestion for ease of comparison. I know that the seafoam results are in another video, but a quick recap (just the pics) of the seafom would be helpful. Also would it be possible to use a split screen to show, say, the seafoam vs. water. This is more of a suggestion for the post editing process before upload and publish.
You sir, are a Gem. I am certainly going to look into the steam/mist/atomizing water induction with varying high rpms while at full hot temp to de-carbonize my engine. I have a lifted 2005 4x4 Lariat with the (I'll try to say it without cussing) um, "fickle" 5.4L 3 valve engine. I am very appreciative and thankful for all help and insight I encounter that helps me understand my truck better, as it is indeed an uphill battle strewn with obstacles of all sizes, to say the least. I really just wanted to extend a thank you, Project Farm, for ALL of your work that have done, and all that you will do in the future. Better understanding, un-biasing, belief correction, and insight into the inner workings of my own vehicle are some of the many things I've gained from your efforts, sir. Im always wanting to learn, and always thinking is a state of mind I try to remain in. I've been serving as a heavy mobile equipment mechanic(I work on cranes) since 2009. Thank you for being one of the things that helps me in becoming a better mechanic myself, both for my personal vehicles, and work life. V/R Ryan
You don't need that much water. About a cup or so should suffice, administered with a spray bottle into the air intake. Should be a job measured in minutes, not hours.
Yes! What I do to clean fouled spark plugs and clean the carbon off the head and valves is just take a glass of water and slow pour(1/2oz at a time) it into a car carburetor, or take off a small vacuum hose and let it pull the water straight into the intake manifold. The water goes in, and under compression then flashes into steam, shattering the carbon. Who told him 2 hours? and how much water?
Sea foam: spend $7 pour, run, change oil, enjoy. Water: Free design drip system, construct drip system, run and monitor for hours, change oil several times (not free), enjoy. You decide who's the winner.
Seafoam in my book. Much less work on my part. My time is worth more than the $ 7.00 for seafoam when you consider all the extra time needed for the water drip, extra oil changes and the oil.
Not to mention that water has low lubricity. Water on the cylinder walls is oil NOT being on the cylinder wall. Seafoam atleast has lubricity. Thats enough for me to stay away from water.
First of I have to say I love the way you try and be as fair as possible. I really like your stuff! I was first told about the water treatment 55 plus years ago and have used it many times over the years. I get the engine up to operating temperature and have about a quart of water ready. With the engine running at a fast idle I run the water through as fast as I can without stalling the engine. Once the water is gone I shut the engine off. After the engine has cooled right down I start it up and rev the engine up and down about ten times or more until the carbon quits coming out. It works great On cars trucks and tractors but I must admit I have never done a lawn mower lol. The idea behind it is that the water gets into the carbon and breaks the carbon up. The cooling breaks it free. Starting it up after just blows it all out. Anyway you did it one way but the principle did not add up to me so sadly it didn't work out. Maybe try it out the way I do it. Thanks for all the stuff you do!
In doing this process, the steam is what cleans the combustion chamber. Every time I’ve seen this done, the engine was fully warmed up and small amounts of water were poured in periodically (not constantly fed for extended periods of time). The cylinders have to be kept hot for this to work. The engine got way too cold in this video and the water was not fully vaporizing when entering the chambers. This is why some started to make its way into the oil. I would encourage you to try this again, but instead of a constant trickle try adding small amounts by hand 3-4 times-giving the engine time to warm back up in between.
Also use a mist spray of hot water or steam. Be sure the engine is HOT. Best if the water is steam. Thats how Ive done it for along time. Im 67 yrs old
You are spot on . He cooled the engine way below normal operating temperature and didnt allow the water to evaporate and steam the engine. Instead the low temperature converts the little bit of steam to condensate, which explains the water blow by through the piston rings, into the crankcase
Pulled many cylinder heads from many vehicles that had blown head gaskets. The affected cylinders were nearly spotless from the steam cleaning every time.
Derrick Hodges Derek as you have said bad gaskets or cracked cylinder heads the Pistons were spotless.And the lawn mower runs low cylinder temperatures so it can’t be done in a small engine.with a car I have been cleaning my engines in my cars like this since the 70s and they come out spotless.one engine I built 28 years before that and it looked like it didn’t have a month on it.Just don’t be a moron and hydro lock the engine by dumping to much water to fast as it can bend rods etc...jkfl
I watched this when it was posted. I just happened across it, I had to skim through it again. The video kist cracks me up. Sometimes the learning process is brutal. For all of us. All aside. Water does do a great job of cleaning carbon from a combustion chamber.
Mower engines are tougher than you think. Simple engineering. Great base for these kinds of experiments. My last lawn tractor that I purchased used) ran fine for over 25 years because I took care of it and used Seafoam in it.
To be honest with you, from what I have observed, I believe that the carbon deposit that was on the top of the head was transferred to the head of the piston and the one valve. If I had an engine that needed to be cleaned. I would choose to use an engine cleaner to do the job and forget about using water.
2 Hours! Wow when I was a kid in high school auto shop in the 70s our instructor taught us to us a single glass of water down the carb slowly (over like 2 minutes) while the engine was revving at about 3000 rpm. Another important point, I am not a small engine mechanic but when tightening head bolts or any bolt pattern DONT go in a circle, tighten the bolt across from the last one
That pattern is so small and not receiving any rotational torque, the use of the impact is more than consistent enough given he replaces the gasket every time.
2 hours man thats to long brother … the secret is use ice cold water and only need one glass of water You did this way to long brother… But the ice cold glass of water also works great for cleaning carberator
Interesting facts to consider. I have been doing small engine repair for almost 40 years and it seems that Water or Moisture that gets into the Gasoline on these small engines( lawn mowers, trimmers, pressure washer etc..) will turn the fuel rancid and usuable plugging up the carburetor, eating up fuel lines and build up in the combustion chamber. I've used seafoam or berrymans fuel combustion treatment for all these engines and even in my vehicles and it helps keeping the moisture out of the fuel system and makes these engines run better. These products also will keep the fuel from going bad. Thats what ive found using these products. Thank for all your videos...
The way It works is with the engine at operating temp rev it to about 2500 Rpms add a burst of water. The water cools the carbon deposits on contact breaking them free from the engine surfaces. You don't run the engine on water constantly. It needs to be added In short bursts To allow the surfaces you cooled to heat up agan.
My gues would also be coal liquefaction at these conditions, cleaning even that stuff that a wire wheel cant get. Too much water and it would be too cold for this to happen.
It's as old as the hills to use automatic trans fluid to keep carbon at bay, as an old gasoline engine trucker we always put AT fluid in the gas tank, it lubed everything . This test you did works because of the cool liquid is what breaks the carbon off the hot parts. However not to many took the engine apart.
trans fluid the carb for carbon breaking; and a pint (to 4-5 quarts motor oil) in the crankcase to dissolve slug and carbon build-up, plus it keeps all internal rubber seals supple...
I am also impressed with his videos. All to often people for what ever reason, look for something they can fault. He does his videos out of his own pocket, and I find them informative and interesting. Like my old Grandma used to say "If you can't find something good to say, don't say anything at all" advice to live by. Constructive criticism does not need to be negative criticism. Thank you for your positive comment.
Please just know as systematic as these test may seem to be - they do not even approximate any testing standards, think SAE, ASTM, API, ISO etc. I worked as a engineer tech in a testing lab for an OEM and after market manufacture and while a different type of products ( tho automotive and other equipments) I became quite familiar with testing protocols and methods. These videos come closer to infomercials demos than valid testing.
ProjectFarm, thanks for the great videos! I’m sure you’ve heard it quite a few times already but I would recommend using a spray bottle and misting the water in or injector nozzle with a container connected to regulated air to pressurize the water to be able to mist it. Also what temperature was the water? I use hot water to clean carbon due to the fact it will not cool the combustion chamber as much. The reason a blown or leaking head gasket cleans so well is that it is heated coolant and steams it. I guarantee with a spray bottle with hot tap water will provide drastically improved results. Thanks again for the great videos!
@@ProjectFarm Don't stop doing what you're doing. Be encouraged...your vids ARE important, and DO inform. Nothing's perfect, and everyone has a right to their own opinion. Just because the "squeeky" wheel is the loudest, DOESN'T mean the other wheels don't NEED grease too! Some of us may rarely comment, BUT GREATLY VALUE YOUR CHANNEL!😉👍
Project Farm Horrible thing to ask but I wonder if we could recreate this experiment only with a spray mister instead. The results might be worth the pain in the ass!
I think this was very interesting to watch and you’re very creative in creating makeshift devices as part of your testing. I think the gallon of water was excessive. A sprayer bottle might provide a better result as the mist droplets should convert to steam faster than droplets of water. Overall I think the result was very encouraging and would definitely try this on my car.
I know this is an older video but sadly I think this test was doomed from the start, the compression was low telling me the rings were worn allowing for this outcome. I am in no way saying you did anything wrong, your test and testing methods are always spot on and that is why I have watched all your videos at least once some even three times like this one. Anyway thanks for the video.
FWIW, a lot of these small engines are fit with custom cams or decompression features to allow for easier starting. This usually translates to lower than average compression readings and most suppliers advise against putting too much weight in them. Instead they say to do a leak down test. If this thing really only had 60-80psi of compression it wouldn't run this well and it would likely be puking blue smoke the whole time.
I haven’t read any comments (yet) and about half way through video. I keep thinking though … When using water … Seems to me that a step was missed. Idea is steam. Steam is what’s gonna clean. You would have to keep an eye on engine temperature, making sure that when engine temp dropped below let’s say 200F or so, water feed is stopped. This would also ensure the engine doesn’t hydro lock by accident. Great vid!
awesome video! I didn't think a lawn mower engine could be cleaned with straight water. Steamers is what they use in Europe. like a little carpet cleaner with a nozle
That's not a bad idea - one of those hand-held steam-cleaners discharging into the carb would probably be a valid method for a small engine. On a car engine, a high-pressure pump and mathematically calibrated atomising injector is the go for an OEM-quality installation.
Yes it's steam you need to clean, engine needs to be hot, these briggs and the carb/manifold system on them doesn't get hot enough for vaporizing the water. With a little alcohol added to steam I'll bet you might get an engine to run on a water/alcohol mixture only, There's about 2 cups of water in ever gallon of gas, you see it coming out a cold tailpipe on cars, there's also hydrogen in water and a lot of cylinder pressure developed by expansion of said water to steam, some of the hydrogen liberated is also burned. I did some studies of high mileage carbs and all the principals of best and most efficient combustion rely on high/er operating temps and more complete vaporization of fuel. It's not a big deal a little carbon in the cylinder chamber, where is it proven that a clean cylinder is any better better, looks nice but is it better? Carbon is a thermal barrier, keeps combustion heat in the cylinder, if ya don't have overheating problems that's a good thing, it's why you gunked up the piston cause it was running too cool, and your compression test being higher after the water test might be simply from the carbon/junk deposit build up on piston raising compression slightly.
In the leaded fuel days, we used to see carbon buildup to the point of causing knocking. Similar sound of rod knock. We would slowly pour a glass of water down carb., and shut off engine to let steam loosen, then restart, and repeat until knock went away. I have not seen this since lead has been removed from gasoline. The amount of carbon shown is harmless.
I have added water to my engine many times and would do it again if I thought it would need it. Normally though it's a quick process. Wild revving the throttle give the engine a quick slurp of water two or three times. The science is that that cold water it's that hot combustion chamber causes an explosion and blast the carbon loose. But the engine has to be hot whereas the way you did it obviously the engine was cool down as you trickled the water in. I have torn down motors with lots of miles on them and found the combustion chamber and valves to be surprisingly free of carbon. Quick simple and you don't get water in the oil. Love your work.
That's what I was thinking too. I wonder if an even slower trickle of water would have allowed for a higher temp and therefore more steam action. I'm impressed at how much carbon was removed from the head even though it took so much time.
Usually I run a gallon through a car engine in about 15-20 minutes. It requires a slight throttle opening to keep it alive but the engine stays hot enough to keep it rolling steam. I thought the video was great though!
YES!!! I am ASE certified through college and hands on, and this may sound crazy but standard practice taught by the engineers is that AFTER the seafoam the same amount of water needs to be introduced the exact same way (use 1ltr bottle with a little hole in the lid to spray), and the water actually is more abrasive and breaking off any remaining deposits that the seafoam has eroded. The water is actually the main catalyst to removing deposits as the seafoam is to breaking the bond of deposits. Through the engine performance course a student was introducing the Seafoam through the brake booster line by SLOWLY pooring it in and accidentally sucked too much in at once and hydrolocked the motor, BENDING A ROD! so the spray method before throttle plate done in another vid is MUUUCH safer!!! GOOD STUFF!!!
Like other viewers I enjoy your painstaking detailed investigations of various products and appreciate the time and effort to disassemble and reassemble machinery in order to illustrate the process/progress of a treatment. I might suggest that when injecting water that you do it as a fine atomized mist or from a steam tool. The amount of water you were inserting was way more than the engine could process, made obvious by all the mixing of water into the oil. I had seen for myself on an old Ford I had and was told by an uncle who ran an Esso/Exxon station for a number of years, how a customer whose car had a coolant leak into a cylinder had shown the valves, the head and piston top to be clean right down to bare metal. I believe the water introduction has to be slight in order to not adversely affect combustion chamber temperature otherwise you do not get the benefit of true steam cleaning. I use a handheld steam cleaner with the steam directed in after the mass flow sensor on my '99 Tahoe, through the hole that the PCV air is drawn out of. There is a drop in rpm which is brought back up to the high idle speed that I do this at. I have a homemade tool for holding the accelerator back while I hold the hose up to the port. I can only guess how much effect this treatment has as I am not wont to pull a head off for inspection. It has not caused any lack of performance and at 344 K plus it is running very nicely. I have run steam into my mowers and did not get the oil like what you had. My steamer is a Perfection but there are other brands on this page. The capacity on mine is 8 ounces and I do the car treatment in blocks of three. www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=perfection+steam+cleaner
@DESTROY white supremacy BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY ~ Unless you pull parts for visual inspection you can only go on any possible improvement in performance. Spray your air intake line post mass flow sensor with carb cleaner or chem of your choice to make sure there are no leaks which will affect how the engine runs but wont show up as a check engine light. I found where the tube mounts to the throttle body, to be letting air in which will definitely affect shift points. The Silicone "ring" gasket at the end of the tube was damaged. I inserted one or two of those O ring gaskets that they sell for the household water filters, about a 3 inch O.D., and with some non hardening gasket sealer, tightened it up nicely. I found the leakage with carb. spray. My 3 stage, possibly soon to become a 4 stage oil vapor catch system DOES keep the liquid component from going back into combustion which makes for pretty much all the carbon that accumulates in the combustion area. If I had a GDI car and access to PCV vapor flow ie, a hose, tapping into the line would be the best way of filtering out muck from going back into the engine. I had read that some, at least, current engines don't have the PCV vapor flow as an external circuit. Two GDI systems, one being Toyota, have a hybrid injection where it alternates between GDI and standard injection which sprays gasoline onto the intake valves, in effect "washing" them to reduce or eliminate carbon build up. Scotty Kilmer did a video on that. I usually get an oil water emulsion from the first stage vapor can, and that mainly happens during periods of high humidity. 2nd stage has also shown emulsion at times while the third stage, a glass bottle, produces liquid oil. I am thinking a 4th because after about a 4 K trip this summer I saw the faintest amount of liquid oil on the PCV intake. My vapor system is entirely homemade so the appearance is a bit rough. I may take pictures one day and link to my Flickr page. The collected effluent goes to recycling along with used oil from oil changes I do. I would like to know your steam treatment results and sincerely hope "Farm Boy" can do the test. His thorough method should be enlightening. Good Luck ! Gordon
Very impressive! I want to thank you a lot Project Farm. You are absolutely amazing! Also, maybe trying this with engine coolant will serve a different effect? That is known to clean sparkplugs, and maybe carbon too? I've seen engines run on their own coolant and it doesn't impact the oil that much. P.S. Subscribed. :) I would say it's a competition but in Florida, it's so humid that engines basically run on water and fuel!
You need larger partials if water to slam into the metal for it to work. Due to water can not be compressed. Also why it went around the rings & damaged his motor.
That's what I said and comment on many decarbinizing videos, I'd love to see a handheld steam cleaner and hot it effects an engine - also the engine's rpms must be high enough
I think Seafoam won this one, for the amount of time and substance used. You can't rule out the cost of the extra fuel that was needed with the water treatment.
Holy cow!!! This shows you how tough an old simple flathead is. lol 2 hours and a gallon seems absolutely insane to me, and I'm super impressed the engine survived it. Back in the day, we'd use a small glass worth of water and either spray it in the carb via a sprayer bottle, or put little bits out of the cup at a time down the carb. This process would only take several minutes. I still can't believe that the engine survived that and that compression seemed to improve! I'm glad I found this channel; you have a lot of cool and informative videos, but this one definitely made me chuckle and entertained me. :D lol
Excellent test! Antagonists could argue that lubrication failure could affect results-negatively. But results showed improvement! I used water injection for octane improvement in the old days.
You most likely have a fuel injected engine and the water to clean carbon is for cars with carbys only , obviously it is unessecary for fuel injected motors as they are more efficient and have no carbon build up unless you have Volkswagen designed CDI which is bullshit for carbon build up
Michael Wilson how dose a fuel injection motor have no carbon buildup when your still running a carbon base fuel if there is no additives in the fuel it doesn’t matter how you put the fuel in the motor it is going to have carbon buildup
Whenever I used water for this I put it in a very weak, cheap spray bottle, about 1 - 1 and 1/2 cups of water over about 15-30 mins (depending on size of motor) for that little mower I'd use about 1/2 a cup of water over about 10-15 mins, making sure to mist it, then again, now that I have money I tend to use seafoam, mostly used the water back when I was dirt poor, it worked, only costing around $1 for the spray bottle. EDIT: BTW, love your videos, and love the way you handle your testing, as objective as possible while taking into account how the people in the comments recommend doing things.
Looking at all these Types of products. If your going to clean the cylinder head of a lawn mower. It's a lot easier to take the head off wire brush and a scraper. Be quicker and cleaner. At least you won't have to run the engine for a couple hours and drain the oil 3 times? At least cleaning it yourself you know you got best result. Good video tho mate ;)
These chemicals is more proof of concept in regards to automotive/truck type application. Put yea, on a lawnmower it would be quicker and easier to pop off the top and give er a good scrubbing, but then the carb would'nt get so clean however.
Project Farm, for the question you asked at the end, "Would you use water to clean deposits in the engine", I have, but never had very good results with it compared to a volatile liquid like Seafoam or Marvel Mystery Oil. It's true, water can have really good results, but the thin line between positive results and failure is too narrow for me. From what I've witnessed, it's not really water that's doing a cleaning, it's steam, and to get the right balance between pouring water/creating steam, you run the risk of hydrolock and water mixing with the oil. Now, hydrolock is a risk no matter if you're using a solvent or water, but where something like MMO, Seafoam, B12, or Gumout can safely creep into the crankcase and intermingle with the oil, water can't. And a solvent treatment, unlike water, is not really dependent on temperature. You don't have to worry about whether you're misting or pouring, or whether the temperature inside is enough to create steam. In fact, I've had the best results from pouring MMO or Seafoam straight into the spark plug wells, sitting overnight, bumping the ignition to spray out the excess, putting the spark plugs back in and running it rough for a bit before changing the oil. You really can't do that with water. (You could, but your motor wouldn't be very friendly to you afterward.)
I always did a steam cleaning, then follow up with seafoam because it's a solvent and will clean up the majority of the remainder. That's for very nasty engines though, ones that you test this stuff on in the hopes you don't have to pull the cylinder heads on it.
Used to dribble one 10 ounce Coke bottle of plain water through the carb of my older cars just before oil changes. Never seemed to hurt the engines, did seem to "blow the carbon out" as my dad used to say. Good videos!!!
Used water many times, but never over the span of hours. My dad (certified mechanic for Chrysler back in the day) and I started doing this in his old company car, which he never ran hard, mostly constant highway miles running maybe 10 over the speed limit. There would always be lots of carbon buildup over a couple of years. We would use a couple of Coke bottles worth of water and just pour sips in as the motor could take it while throttling the carb. as needed. The whole process took only 10 minutes of non-continuous feeding of water. The difference in power afterwards was quite noticeable to the "seat of the pants". I remember seeing all the "smoke" coming out of the tail pipe (as a kid), :-) We never changed the oil after and never had a problem. This may be due to the relatively small amount of water, for a short time, mostly blown out the exhaust (steam). Super impressed with your testing by the way, interesting and very appreciated!
I’ve used seafoam also in my fuel to clean varnish. I would also.dribble it into the intake and flood the engine with the last one third of the can and wait fifteen minutes for it to work on varnish and grime. On really dirty engines with gunk in the valve covers, I would put several cans in the motor oil and idle for 15 minutes before dumping the oil. This was back in the 70’s when I was a mechanic.
I used distilled water back in the 70's when lead was removed and octane levels were lowered. My car had 12.5 compression ratio and the knocking was killing me. JEGS then sold a water injection system that helped with the knocking and restoring my HP. The lack of lead was another issue. Fixed that by installing hardened valve seats. Adding lead to the gas was a pain. My valve stems and combustion areas were nice and clean when I removed the heads for the seat upgrade. Water injection was pretty amazing. You knew you needed water when the pinging came back.
Used diesel trucks in my work, had a fuel strike for a month. So I added 1/3 diesel to my 1800cc petrol engine, having a adjustable SU carburetor, ran it. 1800 rpm idle. Rebuilt engine later, the head was bright, clean, no build ups. Diesel cleaned it.
Really love the content. Small thing I'd suggest is that when you tighten the head back on the engine, tighten the bolts diametrically, just to keep even tension across the head.
this was a great video. I really appreciated the work you put into this. I truly believe the water must be very well atomized, but still be introduced into the engine at a rate fast enough to clean the engine, but not so much water so fast that you can hear the engine run differently as you could hear in this video. I would suggest using a few ultrasonic mist makers to very effectively atomize the water. I would think you still need plenty of water entering the engine at a sufficient rate for steam cleaning to take effect, so, If it were me, I would start out at like 3 or 4 ultrasonic mist makers and rout the mist to the carburetor inlet. Also I would still run a full gallon through. Is there any way you could try this for another video?
Three things: If the cylinder head is getting that cool, there is a chance that the sweater isn’t getting hot enough to have the effect that it might if everything were hotter. SeaFoam might have contaminated the engine oil the way the water did, but didn’t get noticed due to miscibility and color similarity. Auto engines have PCV (stress on “positive”) systems that let in fresh air on one end of the engine and evacuate that air plus blowby into the intake downstream of the throttle blade. IOW a car engine isn’t at as much risk for oil contamination as a small equipment engine because any vapors (again, if the engine is hot enough) get carried out of the crankcase and out of the oil. Love the show, good rhythm and explanations of each potentially non-obvious point.
You might wanna give 2+2 a try. I’ve used it direct in the tank (about 1/2 can to up to 2 gallons of gas, and direct spray it into the intake and it works well cleaning up carbon. I’d be interested to see how it shakes out compared to seafoam.
I used to work at a tune-up shop and we routinely used water to de-carbon engines just before performing the final idle adjustments. We would usually only use about a 1/2 cup of water on anything from a 1600cc 4-banger to a 472 ci V-8. It was ALWAYS used while the engine was at wide open throttle going 60 mph on the dynamometer. The dyno would adjust the load so that you couldn't exceed 60mph -- even with 450 hp -- and such cars needed extra caution b/c if you kick it down into passing gear you could have the rear wheels jump over the dyno roller (69 barracuda 340 would do this very easily). On a car that had no carbon -- it would just sputter slightly as you added water and the exhaust remained clear. Those that had mild to moderate carbon would start to emit a bluish/white smoke from the exhaust after about 5 seconds of water intake. The smoke would often continue for 30-60 seconds after the water intake stopped. The smoke had a peculiar irritating odor that was unique to burning carbon deposits -- it smelled a bit like fuel varnish deposits burning and seemed to stick to your airways -- it was a smell that I hated. Cars that had severe carbon would ping during the process and sometimes spit actual chunks out of the tailpipe. Such bad cases would sometimes require running a gallon or so through it in the course of 5 minutes -- backing off whenever carbon breaking loose would cause it to ping. I never damaged the hundreds of cars I put this through -- and most of them were cleanable on the dyno with water. A couple of them were so bad that 5-10 minutes on the dyno with water intake didn't eliminate the smoke and they sounded so bad during the process that I was afraid of making things worse. A motor this small (lawnmower) would only have gotten about 6 oz. of water -- max. The large volume of water used is why some of it ended up in the crankcase.
I've heard that some old motorcycles came with water injection, to lower cylinder head temperatures and reduce deposits. I think it works better if the water is in the form of vapor. if you had a fog machine, or a fine mister, that would be ideal. it probably works better as a constant ,preventative feature, rather than a one time treatment.
Correct, OEM solutions are always water injection, not an IV drip lolol. Water injection is an old racing trick that has made its way to the public roads a few times in various bikes and cars
Water injection was also used in some turbojet engines to improve performance. Misfuelling with jet fuel instead of water in the tanks led to this : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paninternational_Flight_112
Ever hear of the Crower 6 cycle engine? Water injection and the flash to steam creates a second power stroke. ( yes it's real) however in testing attempts to move this design toward usage water contaminating the oil and the overall problems with cylinder/ring wear and sealing have thus far not able to be overcame. The designer is Bruce Crower of Crower Cams (hi performance cams)
@@johns5591 Had not heard of that, will look it up. I ran water injection years ago for an overworked motor that got hot when pulling trailers (67 Dodge), it was a home made system water (jug, hose, small needle valve to throttle flow) run into vacuum line at the bottom of the carburetor. I read all the stuff about how it didn't work and would ruin a motor but my dad (engine builder, machinist, metallurgist ) and an old mechanic I knew talked me into trying it. Since I had already done everything else (radiator ,flush, water pump etc.) I figured why not. The results were that the motor temperature dropped about 20 deg., I seemed to have more torque and got a little better mileage pulling trailers (about +1.5 mpg). Every thing I read said this could not be, however it worked. The diesel effect was all we could attribute it to. That motor was the original motor and had been a daily driver from day one, supposedly had never been rebuilt, I was the second owner in the mid 80s, no idea how many times the odometer rolled over. The first guy used it to feed cows and general ranch work. I used it to drive to work and general farm and ranch work. The third owner rebuilt the motor in the 90s. Last I heard that pickup was still on the road in mid 2000s.
@@rosseryn8216 We used a water vapor system in the seventies on my dads Chevy truck. Bought it from J.C. Whitney. Seemed to help. Compression and gas quality were changing in them years, had to try something. Like I said , it helped but in Minnesota we can't run it year around. Probably should have filled it up with wiper fluid....
TH-cam popped me back to this video. I always enjoy watching older videos from youtubers to see whats changed. I warched this video not long after you posted it. Your presentation has gotten better over the years and whats cool is, even when this video was posted i thought your presentation was great. Its the same with all of us as we go through life. How we better ourselves and what we do is a never ending process. Still a great video as always! One thing i was thinking though, maybe a mist of water would have faired better to keep from passing the rings?
93sundance, Makes sense. I chose to leave it, since I'm using the same engine for an upcoming test with ATF to see if in can do what water couldn't. Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
I'm not sure the results of this test are valid as a result for water. If you look closely you can see that new deposits were formed on the piston top although everywhere else looks pretty clean. I suspect these deposits are due to oil or unburnt gas depositing on the piston, and not being water-soluble. Since the oil level was raised it may have gotten behind the piston, in which case it would have been coming back through the rings just like the water was being blown the other way.
Which is exactly what the engine manufacturers recommend, a manual decarbonization of the combustion chamber after so many hours. IIRC 500 hours on the old Kohler single cylinder K series engines. Cool test though, supplied water for too long though.
Thanks for putting in the work to make this video. It proves one thing. Time is money. I can't believe people will waste 2 hours of their lives to save 10 dollars.
@@kennethschultz6465 That's the point. The steam actually does the cleaning. At the point where the engine cooled down to less than 212 degrees, I knew it would be a problem.
Agreed, you should aim to keep the engine above 180*f at minimum. Water injection can help clean as well as help provide more oxygen as well as keeping cylinder Temps down for better combustion. Generally its used in forced induction engines to help compensate for the heat produced while compressing the air. But you dont want to run the injection the whole time as you'll get what we have here. Short bursts of maybe 30s when the engine gets up to temp (which looked to be around 220*f on the head) spray it until it cools down to 180*f and let it get back up to temp
water injection as a form of decarbonization tool works best when the water isn't atomized and is more raw in form, if you want to use it as a form of knock suppression then it works best as in atomized form.
No, I’m not kissing a** here. I don’t really see why there’s a need for negativity. Project farm has not been bought by any sponsors and uses his own equipment at his own cost assuming all of the risk for our entertainment. He also goes through experiments that most of us would think of doing or buying products we have doubts about. In my honest opinion, project farm gets played on TH-cam from my tv on Sundays and I can honestly say he’s the best subscribed channel I have. Please keep up the great content!
Thanks for the positive comments!
Keep up the great work,love the videos and I appreciate the time and work you put into them . They helped me with my old ford ranger.thank you
Amen to that Richard. Not many people would go to their own expense trying these different tests!
How do you KNOW that to be the case? Who has the time to make these kinds of video just for the hell of it?
Snake oil being pedaled by snake oil sales technics for the 21st century. If your car or whatever is in at least middle of the road good shape and is properly taken care of you don't need none of these kinds of elixirs and or magic potions! If its in lousy shape, old and worn out these thing will not fix it.
@@johns5591 who has the time to make these videos? Obviously projectfarm does. Sure he makes a little money on these videos but it's not from being sponsored by seafoam or other things he is experimenting with. He makes money from TH-cam because he monetized his videos and so when they play the small 30 second ads that you watch or skip past after 5 seconds is where he is making his money. I haven't seen every single video he has posted to TH-cam but I've watched a good amount and I have to say I think he does a great job of creating content and coming up with non biased answers that a lot of general laymen would like to know. He doesn't try an sell you anything ever he only comes up with a question that he thinks others might want to know the answer too and then sets out to determine what the facts are.
After rewatching this and seeing your new videos, you have come such a long way in both your presentation and video editing over the years, kudos to you. Thanks for your continuing work in testing and giving great information with no marketing BS.
Wow, thank you!
@@ProjectFarm amazing that you still reply to your comments on a 4 year old video! Keep it up man!
The internet is a great source of information. It's people like you that make it fantastic. Thank you for cutting through the chase, sharing your time, and passing along useful information.
I needed to know about bedliner sprays. First place I come? Project Farm! Now I am going with a roll on Hercules instead. Awesome guy, awesome channel!
When Im in the market for something I check here. So far it's helped make a decision on 3 - 4 items. Thanks for your unbiased results.
I have run water/isopropanol alcohol injection in a 4 stroke 1000cc turbocharged engine. Water-ipa injects into each intake track at 150 psi, the water alcohol mix is completely waporized when entering the combustion chamber. I've run this on many of my turbo charged Yamaha snowmobiles over the years. On teardown of the engines I've found them all completely free of carbon deposits inside the combustion chamber, on the valves, and on the top of the pistons. There is no harm seen from the injection of water. Reason for running water-ipa injection is the ability to run higher boost on pump gas insted of running race fuel. Poor man's race fuel is a nickname used for this injection. I've run 22 psi of boost making about 350 HP in the 1000 cc engines on pump gas. Side effect was a very clean engine in the intake and combustion chamber.
Thank you for your videos, very informative, highly appreciated. Greetings from Norway 🙂
Greetings! Thanks and you are welcome!
this actually seems like fun to do. more complicated than just putting race fuel into the tank but can be a lot cheaper when tuned right (and a computer can just remove the boost if the water/iso tank runs out)
@@blendpinexus1416 True, I have a failsafe switch that reduces boost to the waste gate setting, not do destroy the engine when the Water/IPA tank runs emty. I have the waste gate setting to allow for a boost level that is safe to run on Premium or 93 octane for USA or 98 octane for Europe. It's the cheap way out, and when you are riding trails you don't have the ability to get race fuel anywhere. Most servicestations sell IPA and water is free at the tap.
As far as a turbo charged engine what does methanol do?
@@tonyhilton1461 In my application (although I do not use Methanol, but Ethanol) it is to prevent water from freezing.
I'm a big fan of the channel & just wanted to toss a quick comment out. This info comes via my father, who was a big name in auto racing back in the late 50's and before that an instructor for the Air Force just after WWII in internal combustion aircraft engines. His highest qualification was in the Pratt & Whitney R4360.
The history of using water in ICE's is long and storied, and much of my dad's knowledge came front USAF research regarding the use of water/water methanol injection.
The first time he guided his very skeptical son through using water in an engine, it was accompanied by this: "Son, this car has been driven for years around town on short trips. This has caused it to get so loaded up with carbon that it's not working the way it should. When you dump a large quantity of water in a hot engine, the water soaks into the carbon, turns to steam, and blows the carbon apart. Once the water cools the engine down, it won't do any good. Once the engine is good and hot, manipulate the throttle to keep the engine running and DUMP A QUART OF WATER DOWN BOTH BARRELS OF THE CARBURETOR AS FAST AS YOU CAN WITHOUT KILLING THE ENGINE (it was an AMC 343 V8 and only took maybe 8-10 seconds)."
I understand that much of the advice about using water to clean engines has been to feed over a longer period of time. However, executed as my father instructed it is effective and does not contaminate the oil. I run a performance sportbike equipped with water injection and have never had oil contamination. The rate of feed is critical. Water injection is far slower than in your test, and cleaning is faster but of VERY short duration.
Thank you so much for your good, unbiased and scientific testing.
You are welcome! Thanks for sharing.
I wouldn't waste time with water/meth injection on an engine as a performance enhancer UNLESS the engine was boosted....
There's really no benefit to it on an N/A engine.
I really appreciate all the time and cost you have put into this to teach all of us amateur motorheads about these techniques and products. Thanks! Subscribed!
Thank you!
We had a Chevy 350 engine in a DOH crew cab truck which spends a lot of time at idle or slow speeds when working on the roads. It had a serious sounding knock and I thought it was toast. My buddy I worked with, great mechanic by the way, said he thought it was a carbon knock, so he did the water treatment for no more than 5 or 10 minutes at the most and the knock was gone. After working with him for almost 30 years, he never ceased to amaze me with his seat of the pants knowledge.
Thanks for sharing.
In my travels In High school years around salvage yards I was introduced to slowly pouring about a half a quart of transmission fluid in a running cadilac engine that was knocking, believed to be carbon buildup, causing the noise. the exhaust was billowing with smoke temporarily but It did clear out the carbon in about 2 minutes.
@@randymccalla9995Yes, same here. Tranny fluid has a lot of detergents in it.
We watched this guy in school and now I watch him all the time keep up the great work
Thank you very much!!
I’ve spent so much time and money keeping water out of my engines, there is just no way I’m putting it in on purpose. Great vids keep up the good work!
Thanks, will do.
Here in Louisiana, sometimes the insane humidity would probably introduce water vapor equivalent to close to a Gallon per Hour of driving!!! Curious to know exactly!!! But GREAT Vids!😎👍🏼🇺🇸
Funny.
I have always had trouble keeping water out of my walk behind snow blowers.' oil.
I've made ethanol free gas, it feels so wrong to pour water into gas, I measured how much I put in and confirmed that I had more come out after the ethanol bound to the water and settled to the bottom of my clear tank.
Neighbors: it's pouring rain and Project Farm's been mowing his lawn for 2 hours.
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I love this guys energy, short, concise, and to the point.
Thank you very much!
@@ProjectFarm I do this with a mist of water not sure if it would make any difference tho. Great video as usual👍
@@mattlawton4715 helps keep the engine hotter for better steam yep spray is way better than drips
I think this guy needs his own TV show great work!!! I wish I had the time and resources to do the stuff that you're able to do
Thank you very much!
I agree that he deserves a TV show, but I am glad he is completely independent and on TH-cam.
If he had a TV show there would be so much politics he wouldn't get anything g done. I'm glad he is on TH-cam.
We learned the water to clean carbon trick when I went to motorcycle school back in the 80's We were taught to use a mister(spray bottle) to atomize the water. I've seen results of that on motorcycles and it worked well. dribbling the water in I would worry about not having it atomize correctly. I would love to see this same test with a water spray vs. dribble. Love your tests!
Thanks for sharing
I’ve seen this done before and the amount of black that went out on the ground from the exhaust was crazy. I wonder if it a safe to do it on Diesel engines.
I used a sprayer as well and got decent results.
@@NathanWaste This is actually the only safe way to decarbon diesels
I agree I’ve only use spray bottle with a extremely fine mist 😊
Last question... Yes I would and do use water. Always have. As in the other suggestion I actually switched to steam with wand applicator. The steam is what cleans and its already in steam form and much easier to deliver especially in a fuel injected engine.
I do suggest using the steam wand ... I believe you will be impressed with the outcome... Maybe use a vacuum pump on a small engine to help with the crankcase. Although you should see less with steam.
I agree injecting vapor would be better. My Dad had a vapor injector on a Chevy 402 engine. But on the other hand, Seafoam and be done
Old Briggs lawn mower engine- “wow, after 12 years I’m retiring- going to a great retirement home called Project Farm!”
Project Farm- “heh heh heh..... just have a seat, this won’t hurt a bit...”
Keep up the great work sir!
lol. Thank you!
🤣
Only in death does duty end.
Ok
Anybody else amazed that a $100 mower keeps working after all this?
Great point!
Not really. Simple engineering lasts for ever. It's the same with cars, old diesels run laps around any new engine.
@@bixby9797 yea barely halfway
Mine won't after one season. 😂😂😂👍👍👍
Personally, I would not want that mower.
Water added to the intake, fast cools and FRACTURES the carbon deposits in the combustion chamber. That is why you need to have the engine up to a very high temp before you add the water. After the initial hit of water, it has cooled down enough it will not do any more good as the carbon is not red hot anymore and it just runs the water through the engine and as you found out, dilutes the oil. Sea foam is a chemical compatible with fuel and oil so it reacts favorably to the gas and oil when exposed over an extended time as you did in this test. Hard to compare the two in this manner when the water only cools and fractures the red hot carbon and blows it out the exhaust and SeaFoam chemically cleans the carbon after it cools it. I really like all the videos you are producing! Very thorough, fair, and relevant to most of us gear heads.
Thanks and you are welcome!
I believe sea foam does adequate job w/o having to replace the oil in the engine. Oil and extra time equates to more than $7.00
If you use less water (water injection nozzle) then you won't have water leak down the cylinder walls, also there's probably a lot of wear on the cylinder walls leading to leaking.
Temperature was very low. Water was being more liquid than vapour. I agree, smaller quantity of water would have made a difference. Also putting a load on the engine to make it run hotter.
@@madjimms so in the end, scott is right, less hassle, less chance of extra work if you use seafoam, no real logic to use water 💦
I knew a guy who ran a water injection system on his Rally Car..
He used a mixture of water and alcohol(increase the octane rating, cool the engine and quicker evaporation)
Also he used an atomizor behind the carby so that he was only injecting a mist of it to the engine....
Putting water as a stream into an engine is looking for trouble... Look how easy petrol will flood and engine and it evaporate far easier than water when it's a liquid..
Also the crankcase breather tube is very near... maybe it as suck some ? who knows.
I just watched two episodes of attempting to remove carbon from a cylinder head. Water, then Sea Foam vs Marvels Mystery Oil.
Back in the early 80's when I started tinkering with engines I used the water followed by transmission oil to recondition piston rings. Over the years I have used Berryman, and STP, products.
However, watching your videos I believe that the MMO product does the best and can treat more common problems from fuel cell issues, head & upper cylinder, to rotating Assemblies.
Thank you for your time and studies.
Glenn
You are welcome! Thanks for sharing.
Just watched this 5 years later. Wow. Your channel is still great after all these years. I’m wondering if the methodology gave the mixed result. I’d be tempted to add a mist of water in the air intake in a stop/start way to keep the engine temperature higher. You may achieve a better ‘steam clean’ that way. This appeared in my feed after searching Liqui-Moly Diesel engine cleaner. Still love your work 👍
Now that’s an idea
Water+methanol injection systems exist for ricer racers and drag racers.
the more i watch the more i like-very thorough very easy to watch no tricks--the lubrication from seafoam and marvel in the oil and gas of mowers equipment and vehicles used on a regular basis wont rust freeze or built up smeg we used to call it--but your method is why the mower doesn't blow up great effort thanks again
Thanks for watching.
You are welcome
Great video :) I have used water to clean my engine head/valves, but the way I did it was to warm up the engine, pull off the air filter, rev the engine to 3-4K rpm and then spray carbonated water from a bottle into the intake directly for a few seconds. The engine doesn't sound happy when you do that, but afterwords it runs fine again. Still, that is a quick-fix only, until you have the time to take the engine apart and clean/inspect thoroughly.
*The way how the chap is a bit shy* in those older videos is adorable. But I love newer videos where he is more upbeat and smiley, too.
Thanks for sharing.
auto repair 7 years experience MANY types of repairs.
Always AMAZED @ blown head gasket repairs - the piston & valve heads were: like new looking so i concluded water or water w/antifreeze ? DEFFINATELY & ALWAYS caused the total removal of carbon(j whatever else it is)
of the cylinder's pistin crown & valve heads
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the awesome content…I’m still working through the back catalog after finding your channel a few years back. Always look for a review from you when it comes to buying outdoor power equipment or repairing equipment and vehicles. I appreciate the well thought out experiments and effort put into avoiding conflicts of interest with sponsored trials etc.
You are welcome!
Many years ago an old timer mechanic showed me how he "steam cleans" the combustion chambers in car engines and I have done it many times myself, though not in many years now! Start the engine with the air cleaner off. Bring it up to tamp and raise the idle while pour water slowly out of a jar/cup and while it tries to die, raise the RPM higher to keep it running. I have seen a difference on spark plugs before and after doing this, so I have to imagine it helps clean everything else in the chamber!!
Be care full ! Spray bottle is the best .
Question, after doing this water treatment say in my 1990 chev Silverado would I need to change oil immediately after?
Great topic! As a wrench and smog tech for 18 yrs before switching careers. A poor mans trick on NOX failures on smog was the water in the intake trick. Definitely works as I always saw a substantial drop in NOX confirming carbon cleaning and hot spots in there gone. I will say, I believe thered be better results with applying water and varying throttle. My program was to rev up, pour in and continue applying throttle as rpms dropped. Usually just 4 or 5 quick blasts was all it took.
Seafoam? I always chose to use GM top end cleaner for the real job of top end cleaning without pulling heads. That stuff is amazing.
I prefer to use Techron gas additive over the years on every oil change to keep it clean in the 1st place.
Thanks for the feedback.
Man, you put a lot of work into this, thank you!
Thank you!
I would never put water in my engine 'cos it seems so counter-intuitive. But I have used a lot of Marvel in older cars (1980-something Monte Carlo and a 1970 Chevy Nova) that I had back then. and I thought it did help but not enough to continue using it. I am pretty biased about Seafoam which I think is great but I haven't sprayed inside the carbs yet. Question. my old supercharged Jag 2004? Mi bambino?
isn't it true that if I put one of those 'Restore' liquids in the engine though, for the next ten oil changes or for the rest of its life, I will have to put at least the same amount every time I change the oil?
Thank you very much for these videos; they're beautifully done, crisp, clean and to the point. Watching your programs is a bit like how going to church on Sunday used to be! I know it takes a lot of effort on your part! So Thanks again.
P.S. That is my wife's picture, not mine; I stole her laptop when she wasn't looking!
Wild looking back at this channel from back when I first became aware of it.
Production flow has clearly improved, as has recording of audio.
Keep doing great work!
Thanks, will do!
9:08 I appreciate the use of a 10 ton bottle Jack to raise up the front of the lawn mower.
lol. Great point!
Travis k gotta stay safe when operating heavy equipment
Why go outside (in the rain) for a brick when the available jack does the job.
Better to be safe than sorry ! Lol 😂
More power is better than less!
Great video. I also did what you did on a 2015 Kia Rio and let the intake slowly suck water in, unfortunately i bent the connecting rod. I later discovered that this was due to the intake manifold design of the vehicle, some of the water was getting into the engine and the rest started pooling on the bottom of the intake. I did a snap throttle and all that pooled up water go into the engine all at once hydrolocking it. I have done this water trick for the past 25 years and never had a issue but like you said you always run the risk of damaging the engine.
Wow! Thanks for the feedback
@@emma67890 Thanks i did try what you said and removed the intake after to inspect how well it cleaned the carbon off the valves, it did help a bit but there were still large chunks of carbon stuck to the valves. I guess the best way is to scrape it off manually.
Just a suggestion for ease of comparison. I know that the seafoam results are in another video, but a quick recap (just the pics) of the seafom would be helpful. Also would it be possible to use a split screen to show, say, the seafoam vs. water. This is more of a suggestion for the post editing process before upload and publish.
Great point and great tips! Thank you
Wire wheel it while the head is off 😉🍻👍
Okay so the seafoam was in another video? And it was 7 years ago? The algorithm did me dirty this time
Okay, my mistake, the algorithm had the other videos below
You sir, are a Gem. I am certainly going to look into the steam/mist/atomizing water induction with varying high rpms while at full hot temp to de-carbonize my engine. I have a lifted 2005 4x4 Lariat with the (I'll try to say it without cussing) um, "fickle" 5.4L 3 valve engine. I am very appreciative and thankful for all help and insight I encounter that helps me understand my truck better, as it is indeed an uphill battle strewn with obstacles of all sizes, to say the least. I really just wanted to extend a thank you, Project Farm, for ALL of your work that have done, and all that you will do in the future. Better understanding, un-biasing, belief correction, and insight into the inner workings of my own vehicle are some of the many things I've gained from your efforts, sir. Im always wanting to learn, and always thinking is a state of mind I try to remain in. I've been serving as a heavy mobile equipment mechanic(I work on cranes) since 2009. Thank you for being one of the things that helps me in becoming a better mechanic myself, both for my personal vehicles, and work life.
V/R
Ryan
Thanks and you are welcome!
You don't need that much water. About a cup or so should suffice, administered with a spray bottle into the air intake. Should be a job measured in minutes, not hours.
Thank you for this recommendation.
Yes! What I do to clean fouled spark plugs and clean the carbon off the head and valves is just take a glass of water and slow pour(1/2oz at a time) it into a car carburetor, or take off a small vacuum hose and let it pull the water straight into the intake manifold. The water goes in, and under compression then flashes into steam, shattering the carbon. Who told him 2 hours? and how much water?
your point would make sense if the cylinder head in the video was completely de-carbonised but it wasn't. minutes would have made barely any impact.
The engine temp dropping does not help, if the water was cycled it would have worked better I feel.
I agree!
Sea foam: spend $7 pour, run, change oil, enjoy. Water: Free design drip system, construct drip system, run and monitor for hours, change oil several times (not free), enjoy. You decide who's the winner.
Thank you!
The viewers won outright.
Seafoam in my book. Much less work on my part. My time is worth more than the $ 7.00 for seafoam when you consider all the extra time needed for the water drip, extra oil changes and the oil.
Not to mention that water has low lubricity. Water on the cylinder walls is oil NOT being on the cylinder wall. Seafoam atleast has lubricity. Thats enough for me to stay away from water.
It's easy to see the clear winner here. But for people who has time, H20 hands down !
Should've used Flint, MI water. That would REALLY clean it.
LOL!
It would have raised the octane with all the lead in it lmao!
Hahaha
That surely would have killed that engine.
and take care of any knocking while it's in there.
First of I have to say I love the way you try and be as fair as possible. I really like your stuff! I was first told about the water treatment 55 plus years ago and have used it many times over the years. I get the engine up to operating temperature and have about a quart of water ready. With the engine running at a fast idle I run the water through as fast as I can without stalling the engine. Once the water is gone I shut the engine off. After the engine has cooled right down I start it up and rev the engine up and down about ten times or more until the carbon quits coming out. It works great On cars trucks and tractors but I must admit I have never done a lawn mower lol. The idea behind it is that the water gets into the carbon and breaks the carbon up. The cooling breaks it free. Starting it up after just blows it all out. Anyway you did it one way but the principle did not add up to me so sadly it didn't work out. Maybe try it out the way I do it. Thanks for all the stuff you do!
Thanks so much! Thanks for the feedback.
In doing this process, the steam is what cleans the combustion chamber. Every time I’ve seen this done, the engine was fully warmed up and small amounts of water were poured in periodically (not constantly fed for extended periods of time). The cylinders have to be kept hot for this to work. The engine got way too cold in this video and the water was not fully vaporizing when entering the chambers. This is why some started to make its way into the oil. I would encourage you to try this again, but instead of a constant trickle try adding small amounts by hand 3-4 times-giving the engine time to warm back up in between.
John Gotna I just posted the same thing you said before seeing your comment. I agree with you.
Also use a mist spray of hot water or steam. Be sure the engine is HOT. Best if the water is steam. Thats how Ive done it for along time. Im 67 yrs old
That's exactly what I thought. The engine ran too cold to flash the water to steam.
YES. This is how it is SUPPOSED to be done. Large gulps at a time, and a rest period in between to build up chamber heat again.
You are spot on . He cooled the engine way below normal operating temperature and didnt allow the water to evaporate and steam the engine. Instead the low temperature converts the little bit of steam to condensate, which explains the water blow by through the piston rings, into the crankcase
Pulled many cylinder heads from many vehicles that had blown head gaskets. The affected cylinders were nearly spotless from the steam cleaning every time.
Thanks for commenting on this!
GM has a habit of blowing head gaskets :P
I have a boat with a leaking head gasket on my 2 stroke. Only one cylinder and the spark plug looks brand new after a whole season
Derrick Hodges Derek as you have said bad gaskets or cracked cylinder heads the Pistons were spotless.And the lawn mower runs low cylinder temperatures so it can’t be done in a small engine.with a car I have been cleaning my engines in my cars like this since the 70s and they come out spotless.one engine I built 28 years before that and it looked like it didn’t have a month on it.Just don’t be a moron and hydro lock the engine by dumping to much water to fast as it can bend rods etc...jkfl
I've had the same experience
I watched this when it was posted. I just happened across it, I had to skim through it again. The video kist cracks me up. Sometimes the learning process is brutal. For all of us. All aside. Water does do a great job of cleaning carbon from a combustion chamber.
Steam.
Mower engines are tougher than you think. Simple engineering. Great base for these kinds of experiments. My last lawn tractor that I purchased used) ran fine for over 25 years because I took care of it and used Seafoam in it.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for doing these tests for us all. Great public service :)
Thank you!!
To be honest with you, from what I have observed, I believe that the carbon deposit that was on the top of the head was transferred to the head of the piston and the one valve.
If I had an engine that needed to be cleaned. I would choose to use an engine cleaner to do the job and forget about using water.
You took head off twice clean it off and wire wheel wins left sea foam and water in the carbon
2 Hours! Wow when I was a kid in high school auto shop in the 70s our instructor taught us to us a single glass of water down the carb slowly (over like 2 minutes) while the engine was revving at about 3000 rpm.
Another important point, I am not a small engine mechanic but when tightening head bolts or any bolt pattern DONT go in a circle, tighten the bolt across from the last one
Thanks for the feedback.
That pattern is so small and not receiving any rotational torque, the use of the impact is more than consistent enough given he replaces the gasket every time.
I think he knows that. It’s a cheap lawn mower. No need for caution.
Thats about right. I spray water maybe about 1/2 bottle worth max. It doesn't take much to clean the cylinder.
2 hours man thats to long brother … the secret is use ice cold water and only need one glass of water
You did this way to long brother…
But the ice cold glass of water also works great for cleaning carberator
Interesting facts to consider. I have been doing small engine repair for almost 40 years and it seems that Water or Moisture that gets into the Gasoline on these small engines( lawn mowers, trimmers, pressure washer etc..) will turn the fuel rancid and usuable plugging up the carburetor, eating up fuel lines and build up in the combustion chamber. I've used seafoam or berrymans fuel combustion treatment for all these engines and even in my vehicles and it helps keeping the moisture out of the fuel system and makes these engines run better. These products also will keep the fuel from going bad. Thats what ive found using these products.
Thank for all your videos...
You are welcome!
The way It works is with the engine at operating temp rev it to about 2500 Rpms add a burst of water. The water cools the carbon deposits on contact breaking them free from the engine surfaces. You don't run the engine on water constantly. It needs to be added In short bursts To allow the surfaces you cooled to heat up agan.
Thank you for this recommendation!
Eddie 27886
That's how I have always done it.
My gues would also be coal liquefaction at these conditions, cleaning even that stuff that a wire wheel cant get. Too much water and it would be too cold for this to happen.
The water is flashing to steam and steam cleaning it.
Eddie 27886 this guy gets it
It's as old as the hills to use automatic trans fluid to keep carbon at bay, as an old gasoline engine trucker we always put AT fluid in the gas tank, it lubed everything . This test you did works because of the cool liquid is what breaks the carbon off the hot parts. However not to many took the engine apart.
trans fluid the carb for carbon breaking; and a pint (to 4-5 quarts motor oil) in the crankcase to dissolve slug and carbon build-up, plus it keeps all internal rubber seals supple...
My vote: Sea foam. Letting water get into a sump is sacrilegious :)
Thanks!
You are welcome! Thanks for your support to the channel!
I am impressed with your videos. Besides the smart as comments from people you do your tests systematically and with honest results.
Thank you very much!
I am also impressed with his videos. All to often people for what ever reason, look for something they can fault. He does his videos out of his own pocket, and I find them informative and interesting. Like my old Grandma used to say "If you can't find something good to say, don't say anything at all" advice to live by. Constructive criticism does not need to be negative criticism. Thank you for your positive comment.
Agreed!
Please just know as systematic as these test may seem to be - they do not even approximate any testing standards, think SAE, ASTM, API, ISO etc. I worked as a engineer tech in a testing lab for an OEM and after market manufacture and while a different type of products ( tho automotive and other equipments) I became quite familiar with testing protocols and methods. These videos come closer to infomercials demos than valid testing.
ProjectFarm, thanks for the great videos! I’m sure you’ve heard it quite a few times already but I would recommend using a spray bottle and misting the water in or injector nozzle with a container connected to regulated air to pressurize the water to be able to mist it. Also what temperature was the water? I use hot water to clean carbon due to the fact it will not cool the combustion chamber as much. The reason a blown or leaking head gasket cleans so well is that it is heated coolant and steams it. I guarantee with a spray bottle with hot tap water will provide drastically improved results. Thanks again for the great videos!
I could watch these videos all day
Thank you!
@@ProjectFarm Don't stop doing what you're doing. Be encouraged...your vids ARE important, and DO inform. Nothing's perfect, and everyone has a right to their own opinion.
Just because the "squeeky" wheel is the loudest, DOESN'T mean the other wheels don't NEED grease too!
Some of us may rarely comment, BUT GREATLY VALUE YOUR CHANNEL!😉👍
you are supposed to use a spray bottle so the water is misted, that way it has a chance to be heated to steam. not just dump water in like that
David, Using a spray mister makes sense! Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
no problem buddy
Project Farm Horrible thing to ask but I wonder if we could recreate this experiment only with a spray mister instead. The results might be worth the pain in the ass!
Would an airbrush be better still?
i wouldnt put water through anything but a 10 dollar harbor freight paint gun, let alone a 700 dollar air brush
I think this was very interesting to watch and you’re very creative in creating makeshift devices as part of your testing. I think the gallon of water was excessive. A sprayer bottle might provide a better result as the mist droplets should convert to steam faster than droplets of water.
Overall I think the result was very encouraging and would definitely try this on my car.
Thank you!
I know this is an older video but sadly I think this test was doomed from the start, the compression was low telling me the rings were worn allowing for this outcome. I am in no way saying you did anything wrong, your test and testing methods are always spot on and that is why I have watched all your videos at least once some even three times like this one. Anyway thanks for the video.
You are welcome!
FWIW, a lot of these small engines are fit with custom cams or decompression features to allow for easier starting. This usually translates to lower than average compression readings and most suppliers advise against putting too much weight in them. Instead they say to do a leak down test. If this thing really only had 60-80psi of compression it wouldn't run this well and it would likely be puking blue smoke the whole time.
I haven’t read any comments (yet) and about half way through video.
I keep thinking though …
When using water …
Seems to me that a step was missed. Idea is steam. Steam is what’s gonna clean. You would have to keep an eye on engine temperature, making sure that when engine temp dropped below let’s say 200F or so, water feed is stopped. This would also ensure the engine doesn’t hydro lock by accident.
Great vid!
awesome video! I didn't think a lawn mower engine could be cleaned with straight water. Steamers is what they use in Europe. like a little carpet cleaner with a nozle
Emilthehun, Thank you for the encouraging comments regarding the video!
That's not a bad idea - one of those hand-held steam-cleaners discharging into the carb would probably be a valid method for a small engine. On a car engine, a high-pressure pump and mathematically calibrated atomising injector is the go for an OEM-quality installation.
BensDR30 yes that's what I have on all my cars. boosted or not. water injection gave me an extra 30tq at the wheels with no tune on my 3800
Project Farm awesome brother keep them coming
Yes it's steam you need to clean, engine needs to be hot, these briggs and the carb/manifold system on them doesn't get hot enough for vaporizing the water. With a little alcohol added to steam I'll bet you might get an engine to run on a water/alcohol mixture only, There's about 2 cups of water in ever gallon of gas, you see it coming out a cold tailpipe on cars, there's also hydrogen in water and a lot of cylinder pressure developed by expansion of said water to steam, some of the hydrogen liberated is also burned. I did some studies of high mileage carbs and all the principals of best and most efficient combustion rely on high/er operating temps and more complete vaporization of fuel.
It's not a big deal a little carbon in the cylinder chamber, where is it proven that a clean cylinder is any better better, looks nice but is it better? Carbon is a thermal barrier, keeps combustion heat in the cylinder, if ya don't have overheating problems that's a good thing, it's why you gunked up the piston cause it was running too cool, and your compression test being higher after the water test might be simply from the carbon/junk deposit build up on piston raising compression slightly.
In the leaded fuel days, we used to see carbon buildup to the point of causing knocking. Similar sound of rod knock. We would slowly pour a glass of water down carb., and shut off engine to let steam loosen, then restart, and repeat until knock went away. I have not seen this since lead has been removed from gasoline. The amount of carbon shown is harmless.
Dave, Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
Quit using a generic fucking "thanks for watching" bullshit and have a real conversation.
Richards WasteLand
Take a hike.
+Richards Stickupass - Or post your own video instead of whining, a video where you can say any effin' thing you want to, because it's YOUR video.
Richards WasteLand I'll never understand the need of some people to be a dick for no reason.
My grandpa did this with water back in the 80s' to clean out the carbon on my mom's 440 in her 69' RoadRunner
Great feedback. Very nice car!!
I prefer the Italian tune up myself :)
@@codyluka8355 Berryman special! VGG deeeeluxe!
I did it to my 68 Roadrunner back in the 80s as well lol.
I have added water to my engine many times and would do it again if I thought it would need it. Normally though it's a quick process. Wild revving the throttle give the engine a quick slurp of water two or three times. The science is that that cold water it's that hot combustion chamber causes an explosion and blast the carbon loose. But the engine has to be hot whereas the way you did it obviously the engine was cool down as you trickled the water in. I have torn down motors with lots of miles on them and found the combustion chamber and valves to be surprisingly free of carbon. Quick simple and you don't get water in the oil. Love your work.
Thanks! Thanks for sharing.
my guess is the engine was too cold from the water, this process uses the steam from water to clean the cylinder head.
crazysvt03, I agree! Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
That's what I was thinking too. I wonder if an even slower trickle of water would have allowed for a higher temp and therefore more steam action. I'm impressed at how much carbon was removed from the head even though it took so much time.
yup.... sucking the water into a vacuum while the water is BOILING is really the very best way to do this "steam cleaning" test
Dave Reiland or if the engine was under load, creating a hotter combustion chamber
Usually I run a gallon through a car engine in about 15-20 minutes. It requires a slight throttle opening to keep it alive but the engine stays hot enough to keep it rolling steam. I thought the video was great though!
Great going guy, now everyone knows Gliddens secret paint formula!!!
lol. Funny!
YES!!! I am ASE certified through college and hands on, and this may sound crazy but standard practice taught by the engineers is that AFTER the seafoam the same amount of water needs to be introduced the exact same way (use 1ltr bottle with a little hole in the lid to spray), and the water actually is more abrasive and breaking off any remaining deposits that the seafoam has eroded. The water is actually the main catalyst to removing deposits as the seafoam is to breaking the bond of deposits. Through the engine performance course a student was introducing the Seafoam through the brake booster line by SLOWLY pooring it in and accidentally sucked too much in at once and hydrolocked the motor, BENDING A ROD! so the spray method before throttle plate done in another vid is MUUUCH safer!!! GOOD STUFF!!!
Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks for the info .
Where did you get your certification? From a cracker jack box it seems!
Like other viewers I enjoy your painstaking detailed investigations of various products and appreciate the time and effort to disassemble and reassemble machinery in order to illustrate the process/progress of a treatment. I might suggest that when injecting water that you do it as a fine atomized mist or from a steam tool. The amount of water you were inserting was way more than the engine could process, made obvious by all the mixing of water into the oil.
I had seen for myself on an old Ford I had and was told by an uncle who ran an Esso/Exxon station for a number of years, how a customer whose car had a coolant leak into a cylinder had shown the valves, the head and piston top to be clean right down to bare metal. I believe the water introduction has to be slight in order to not adversely affect combustion chamber temperature otherwise you do not get the benefit of true steam cleaning.
I use a handheld steam cleaner with the steam directed in after the mass flow sensor on my '99 Tahoe, through the hole that the PCV air is drawn out of. There is a drop in rpm which is brought back up to the high idle speed that I do this at. I have a homemade tool for holding the accelerator back while I hold the hose up to the port. I can only guess how much effect this treatment has as I am not wont to pull a head off for inspection. It has not caused any lack of performance and at 344 K plus it is running very nicely. I have run steam into my mowers and did not get the oil like what you had.
My steamer is a Perfection but there are other brands on this page. The capacity on mine is 8 ounces and I do the car treatment in blocks of three.
www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=perfection+steam+cleaner
@DESTROY white supremacy BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY ~ Unless you pull parts for visual inspection you can only go on any possible improvement in performance. Spray your air intake line post mass flow sensor with carb cleaner or chem of your choice to make sure there are no leaks which will affect how the engine runs but wont show up as a check engine light. I found where the tube mounts to the throttle body, to be letting air in which will definitely affect shift points. The Silicone "ring" gasket at the end of the tube was damaged. I inserted one or two of those O ring gaskets that they sell for the household water filters, about a 3 inch O.D., and with some non hardening gasket sealer, tightened it up nicely. I found the leakage with carb. spray.
My 3 stage, possibly soon to become a 4 stage oil vapor catch system DOES keep the liquid component from going back into combustion which makes for pretty much all the carbon that accumulates in the combustion area. If I had a GDI car and access to PCV vapor flow ie, a hose, tapping into the line would be the best way of filtering out muck from going back into the engine. I had read that some, at least, current engines don't have the PCV vapor flow as an external circuit. Two GDI systems, one being Toyota, have a hybrid injection where it alternates between GDI and standard injection which sprays gasoline onto the intake valves, in effect "washing" them to reduce or eliminate carbon build up. Scotty Kilmer did a video on that.
I usually get an oil water emulsion from the first stage vapor can, and that mainly happens during periods of high humidity. 2nd stage has also shown emulsion at times while the third stage, a glass bottle, produces liquid oil. I am thinking a 4th because after about a 4 K trip this summer I saw the faintest amount of liquid oil on the PCV intake. My vapor system is entirely homemade so the appearance is a bit rough. I may take pictures one day and link to my Flickr page. The collected effluent goes to recycling along with used oil from oil changes I do.
I would like to know your steam treatment results and sincerely hope "Farm Boy" can do the test. His thorough method should be enlightening. Good Luck ! Gordon
Very impressive! I want to thank you a lot Project Farm. You are absolutely amazing!
Also, maybe trying this with engine coolant will serve a different effect? That is known to clean sparkplugs, and maybe carbon too? I've seen engines run on their own coolant and it doesn't impact the oil that much.
P.S. Subscribed. :)
I would say it's a competition but in Florida, it's so humid that engines basically run on water and fuel!
Thank you! Thanks for watching and subscribing! Thanks for the video idea.
Have you ever tested blowing steam from a steam cleaning machine wand?
Spray works well with water also the mist nozzles.
Not yet. Thank you for the video idea!
I was just thinking this. from a hot humidifier?
Water in a hot combustion chamber turns to steam. It’s why engines that blow head gaskets have clean pistons.
You need larger partials if water to slam into the metal for it to work. Due to water can not be compressed. Also why it went around the rings & damaged his motor.
That's what I said and comment on many decarbinizing videos, I'd love to see a handheld steam cleaner and hot it effects an engine - also the engine's rpms must be high enough
I think Seafoam won this one, for the amount of time and substance used. You can't rule out the cost of the extra fuel that was needed with the water treatment.
Witches Brew Animations, Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
Holy cow!!! This shows you how tough an old simple flathead is. lol 2 hours and a gallon seems absolutely insane to me, and I'm super impressed the engine survived it. Back in the day, we'd use a small glass worth of water and either spray it in the carb via a sprayer bottle, or put little bits out of the cup at a time down the carb. This process would only take several minutes. I still can't believe that the engine survived that and that compression seemed to improve! I'm glad I found this channel; you have a lot of cool and informative videos, but this one definitely made me chuckle and entertained me. :D lol
Thanks!
I like the non shoutiness in your voice of these older videos.
Excellent test! Antagonists could argue that lubrication failure could affect results-negatively. But results showed improvement!
I used water injection for octane improvement in the old days.
Thank you for the feedback
In what? And how low of a ratio water to fuel and which fuel?
It might work, but personally I'll never put water in any of my engines
Thank you!
Look up water injection in world war ll aviation.
When you drive during a rain storm you are probably sucking water vapor through your engine's air filter. Never say never ever.
You most likely have a fuel injected engine and the water to clean carbon is for cars with carbys only , obviously it is unessecary for fuel injected motors as they are more efficient and have no carbon build up unless you have Volkswagen designed CDI which is bullshit for carbon build up
Michael Wilson how dose a fuel injection motor have no carbon buildup when your still running a carbon base fuel if there is no additives in the fuel it doesn’t matter how you put the fuel in the motor it is going to have carbon buildup
Whenever I used water for this I put it in a very weak, cheap spray bottle, about 1 - 1 and 1/2 cups of water over about 15-30 mins (depending on size of motor) for that little mower I'd use about 1/2 a cup of water over about 10-15 mins, making sure to mist it, then again, now that I have money I tend to use seafoam, mostly used the water back when I was dirt poor, it worked, only costing around $1 for the spray bottle.
EDIT: BTW, love your videos, and love the way you handle your testing, as objective as possible while taking into account how the people in the comments recommend doing things.
Thanks for sharing.
Looking at all these Types of products. If your going to clean the cylinder head of a lawn mower. It's a lot easier to take the head off wire brush and a scraper. Be quicker and cleaner. At least you won't have to run the engine for a couple hours and drain the oil 3 times?
At least cleaning it yourself you know you got best result.
Good video tho mate ;)
lawnmowerman1271, I agree! Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
These chemicals is more proof of concept in regards to automotive/truck type application.
Put yea, on a lawnmower it would be quicker and easier to pop off the top and give er a good scrubbing, but then the carb would'nt get so clean however.
Not if you have a Honda engine (;
it's not about cleaning the engine, it's about testing water/seafoam results on cheaper engines
For a small engine yes. I'm not going to remove the head of my vehicle motor every 75 k miles.
2019. and still love to watch his videos
Thank you!!
Project Farm, for the question you asked at the end, "Would you use water to clean deposits in the engine", I have, but never had very good results with it compared to a volatile liquid like Seafoam or Marvel Mystery Oil. It's true, water can have really good results, but the thin line between positive results and failure is too narrow for me. From what I've witnessed, it's not really water that's doing a cleaning, it's steam, and to get the right balance between pouring water/creating steam, you run the risk of hydrolock and water mixing with the oil.
Now, hydrolock is a risk no matter if you're using a solvent or water, but where something like MMO, Seafoam, B12, or Gumout can safely creep into the crankcase and intermingle with the oil, water can't. And a solvent treatment, unlike water, is not really dependent on temperature. You don't have to worry about whether you're misting or pouring, or whether the temperature inside is enough to create steam. In fact, I've had the best results from pouring MMO or Seafoam straight into the spark plug wells, sitting overnight, bumping the ignition to spray out the excess, putting the spark plugs back in and running it rough for a bit before changing the oil. You really can't do that with water. (You could, but your motor wouldn't be very friendly to you afterward.)
Marvin, I enjoy reading your comments! It's clear you have a lot of experience and expertise. Thank you for watching the video and commenting!
Thanks for making them! This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite series on youtube!
I always did a steam cleaning, then follow up with seafoam because it's a solvent and will clean up the majority of the remainder. That's for very nasty engines though, ones that you test this stuff on in the hopes you don't have to pull the cylinder heads on it.
Used to dribble one 10 ounce Coke bottle of plain water through the carb of my older cars just before oil changes. Never seemed to hurt the engines, did seem to "blow the carbon out" as my dad used to say. Good videos!!!
Thanks for sharing.
Used water many times, but never over the span of hours. My dad (certified mechanic for Chrysler back in the day) and I started doing this in his old company car, which he never ran hard, mostly constant highway miles running maybe 10 over the speed limit. There would always be lots of carbon buildup over a couple of years. We would use a couple of Coke bottles worth of water and just pour sips in as the motor could take it while throttling the carb. as needed. The whole process took only 10 minutes of non-continuous feeding of water. The difference in power afterwards was quite noticeable to the "seat of the pants". I remember seeing all the "smoke" coming out of the tail pipe (as a kid), :-) We never changed the oil after and never had a problem. This may be due to the relatively small amount of water, for a short time, mostly blown out the exhaust (steam). Super impressed with your testing by the way, interesting and very appreciated!
Thank you for the feedback
I think we are supposed to introduce water in form of fine mist.
I’ve used seafoam also in my fuel to clean varnish. I would also.dribble it into the intake and flood the engine with the last one third of the can and wait fifteen minutes for it to work on varnish and grime. On really dirty engines with gunk in the valve covers, I would put several cans in the motor oil and idle for 15 minutes before dumping the oil. This was back in the 70’s when I was a mechanic.
I used distilled water back in the 70's when lead was removed and octane levels were lowered. My car had 12.5 compression ratio and the knocking was killing me. JEGS then sold a water injection system that helped with the knocking and restoring my HP. The lack of lead was another issue. Fixed that by installing hardened valve seats. Adding lead to the gas was a pain. My valve stems and combustion areas were nice and clean when I removed the heads for the seat upgrade. Water injection was pretty amazing. You knew you needed water when the pinging came back.
@@BullettGuy Great story. Thanks for sharing!
@@BullettGuy 1000% agree.
Project Farm: I can destroy *any* engine!
Briggs & Stratton: Hold my beer...
lol. Great point!
This maybe true with Briggs old flathead engines, but with their new OHV engines, a large amount of the components are plastic 🤮
New Briggs seem to be junk. :(
Ain't that the truth, lol. B&S flatheads are BULLETPROOF! The entire mower will rot out underneath it before the engine stops running.
Mine just wont f*uckin die
"Water's practically free and it's available everywhere in the world" - Don't let Nestlé hear that... 😂
Things that can survive a nuclear bomb: cockroaches, ants, lawnmower...... 😆
You forgot Twinkies
And faxes.
I highly recommend redoing the test with atomizing the air to some degree
Great test overall!
Great suggestion!
@@ProjectFarm Thank you! Also by air I totally meant water but I think you understood that :)
Used diesel trucks in my work, had a fuel strike for a month. So I added 1/3 diesel to my 1800cc petrol engine, having a adjustable SU carburetor, ran it. 1800 rpm idle.
Rebuilt engine later, the head was bright, clean, no build ups. Diesel cleaned it.
Thanks for commenting on this!
Pleasure mate. From down under.
My cousin used to just dump a can of brake fluid in the petrol. Cleaned everything.
Redex does the same thing
Which is the main reason a lot of folks choose diesel! Pay more at the pump for hundreds more miles on the odometer.
where I'm from diesel is much much cheaper than gasoline so it pays double.
I miss these old videos. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy your newer videos, but these older mower test related videos were my favorite
Thanks for the feedback.
Really love the content. Small thing I'd suggest is that when you tighten the head back on the engine, tighten the bolts diametrically, just to keep even tension across the head.
Thanks! Thanks for the suggestion.
this was a great video. I really appreciated the work you put into this. I truly believe the water must be very well atomized, but still be introduced into the engine at a rate fast enough to clean the engine, but not so much water so fast that you can hear the engine run differently as you could hear in this video. I would suggest using a few ultrasonic mist makers to very effectively atomize the water. I would think you still need plenty of water entering the engine at a sufficient rate for steam cleaning to take effect, so, If it were me, I would start out at like 3 or 4 ultrasonic mist makers and rout the mist to the carburetor inlet. Also I would still run a full gallon through. Is there any way you could try this for another video?
I grew up watching my family use kerosene for many years. I' ve seen alot of proof that it works. Have you considered this as an option?
I believe seafoam has kerosene in it as one of its ingredients
Three things:
If the cylinder head is getting that cool, there is a chance that the sweater isn’t getting hot enough to have the effect that it might if everything were hotter.
SeaFoam might have contaminated the engine oil the way the water did, but didn’t get noticed due to miscibility and color similarity.
Auto engines have PCV (stress on “positive”) systems that let in fresh air on one end of the engine and evacuate that air plus blowby into the intake downstream of the throttle blade. IOW a car engine isn’t at as much risk for oil contamination as a small equipment engine because any vapors (again, if the engine is hot enough) get carried out of the crankcase and out of the oil.
Love the show, good rhythm and explanations of each potentially non-obvious point.
Thanks!
You might wanna give 2+2 a try. I’ve used it direct in the tank (about 1/2 can to up to 2 gallons of gas, and direct spray it into the intake and it works well cleaning up carbon. I’d be interested to see how it shakes out compared to seafoam.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I would too. Been using SeaFoam for 13 years or better now and it works wonders.
When I was a kid, we called the water thing a Kentucky valve job.
Thanks for sharing.
I got a Kentucky valve job once, but it wasn’t free and it wasn’t anything like this...
funny but TRUE
@@f5tornadeau heheh
A sick lawnmower with an Ivy!
LOL! Yes.
I used to work at a tune-up shop and we routinely used water to de-carbon engines just before performing the final idle adjustments. We would usually only use about a 1/2 cup of water on anything from a 1600cc 4-banger to a 472 ci V-8. It was ALWAYS used while the engine was at wide open throttle going 60 mph on the dynamometer. The dyno would adjust the load so that you couldn't exceed 60mph -- even with 450 hp -- and such cars needed extra caution b/c if you kick it down into passing gear you could have the rear wheels jump over the dyno roller (69 barracuda 340 would do this very easily). On a car that had no carbon -- it would just sputter slightly as you added water and the exhaust remained clear. Those that had mild to moderate carbon would start to emit a bluish/white smoke from the exhaust after about 5 seconds of water intake. The smoke would often continue for 30-60 seconds after the water intake stopped. The smoke had a peculiar irritating odor that was unique to burning carbon deposits -- it smelled a bit like fuel varnish deposits burning and seemed to stick to your airways -- it was a smell that I hated. Cars that had severe carbon would ping during the process and sometimes spit actual chunks out of the tailpipe. Such bad cases would sometimes require running a gallon or so through it in the course of 5 minutes -- backing off whenever carbon breaking loose would cause it to ping. I never damaged the hundreds of cars I put this through -- and most of them were cleanable on the dyno with water. A couple of them were so bad that 5-10 minutes on the dyno with water intake didn't eliminate the smoke and they sounded so bad during the process that I was afraid of making things worse. A motor this small (lawnmower) would only have gotten about 6 oz. of water -- max. The large volume of water used is why some of it ended up in the crankcase.
Thanks for sharing.
Where do you get all of your lawn mowers for testing?
Craigslist. Thank you
@@ProjectFarm You're welcome.
Sincerely,
Craigslist
I've heard that some old motorcycles came with water injection, to lower cylinder head temperatures and reduce deposits. I think it works better if the water is in the form of vapor. if you had a fog machine, or a fine mister, that would be ideal. it probably works better as a constant ,preventative feature, rather than a one time treatment.
Correct, OEM solutions are always water injection, not an IV drip lolol. Water injection is an old racing trick that has made its way to the public roads a few times in various bikes and cars
Joshua, I agree...a water mister would have been a better approach. Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
Water injection was also used in some turbojet engines to improve performance. Misfuelling with jet fuel instead of water in the tanks led to this : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paninternational_Flight_112
That's basically why meth injection is, sprayed in a fine mist to keep temps down and increase power
Came here to see how long it would take for the oil to get contaminated Wasnt disappointed.
Thank you very much for the positive comment!
Ever hear of the Crower 6 cycle engine? Water injection and the flash to steam creates a second power stroke. ( yes it's real) however in testing attempts to move this design toward usage water contaminating the oil and the overall problems with cylinder/ring wear and sealing have thus far not able to be overcame. The designer is Bruce Crower of Crower Cams (hi performance cams)
@@johns5591 Had not heard of that, will look it up. I ran water injection years ago for an overworked motor that got hot when pulling trailers (67 Dodge), it was a home made system water (jug, hose, small needle valve to throttle flow) run into vacuum line at the bottom of the carburetor. I read all the stuff about how it didn't work and would ruin a motor but my dad (engine builder, machinist, metallurgist ) and an old mechanic I knew talked me into trying it. Since I had already done everything else (radiator ,flush, water pump etc.) I figured why not. The results were that the motor temperature dropped about 20 deg., I seemed to have more torque and got a little better mileage pulling trailers (about +1.5 mpg). Every thing I read said this could not be, however it worked. The diesel effect was all we could attribute it to. That motor was the original motor and had been a daily driver from day one, supposedly had never been rebuilt, I was the second owner in the mid 80s, no idea how many times the odometer rolled over. The first guy used it to feed cows and general ranch work. I used it to drive to work and general farm and ranch work. The third owner rebuilt the motor in the 90s. Last I heard that pickup was still on the road in mid 2000s.
@@rosseryn8216 We used a water vapor system in the seventies on my dads Chevy truck. Bought it from J.C. Whitney. Seemed to help. Compression and gas quality were changing in them years, had to try something. Like I said , it helped but in Minnesota we can't run it year around. Probably should have filled it up with wiper fluid....
TH-cam popped me back to this video. I always enjoy watching older videos from youtubers to see whats changed. I warched this video not long after you posted it. Your presentation has gotten better over the years and whats cool is, even when this video was posted i thought your presentation was great. Its the same with all of us as we go through life. How we better ourselves and what we do is a never ending process. Still a great video as always! One thing i was thinking though, maybe a mist of water would have faired better to keep from passing the rings?
Thanks for the feedback.
I think since the head was off, just clean it by hand.
93sundance, Makes sense. I chose to leave it, since I'm using the same engine for an upcoming test with ATF to see if in can do what water couldn't. Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
I'm not sure the results of this test are valid as a result for water. If you look closely you can see that new deposits were formed on the piston top although everywhere else looks pretty clean. I suspect these deposits are due to oil or unburnt gas depositing on the piston, and not being water-soluble. Since the oil level was raised it may have gotten behind the piston, in which case it would have been coming back through the rings just like the water was being blown the other way.
oh so youre a joke maker
The point isn’t to clean his engines-IT’S TO TEST AND SEE WHAT WORKS (without having to disassemble).
Which is exactly what the engine manufacturers recommend, a manual decarbonization of the combustion chamber after so many hours. IIRC 500 hours on the old Kohler single cylinder K series engines. Cool test though, supplied water for too long though.
Darn I didn't see how well the Sea Foam cleaned the Carbon out.
You can see how good it did in part one lol.... smh
Helping the public do the stuff we wish to see thenks project farm
You are welcome!
Thanks for putting in the work to make this video. It proves one thing. Time is money. I can't believe people will waste 2 hours of their lives to save 10 dollars.
Thanks for the feedback.
The water should have been misted in instead of being allowed to trickle in. I think it would have made a difference overall.
Thank you
No not at All ...
The hot enigen waporizes the droplets
@@kennethschultz6465 That's the point. The steam actually does the cleaning. At the point where the engine cooled down to less than 212 degrees, I knew it would be a problem.
Agreed, you should aim to keep the engine above 180*f at minimum. Water injection can help clean as well as help provide more oxygen as well as keeping cylinder Temps down for better combustion.
Generally its used in forced induction engines to help compensate for the heat produced while compressing the air. But you dont want to run the injection the whole time as you'll get what we have here.
Short bursts of maybe 30s when the engine gets up to temp (which looked to be around 220*f on the head) spray it until it cools down to 180*f and let it get back up to temp
water injection as a form of decarbonization tool works best when the water isn't atomized and is more raw in form, if you want to use it as a form of knock suppression then it works best as in atomized form.