steam cleaning engine, UK test

[turbotoaster]

After reading alot about this in america, recommended by a few tuners, people like pineapple racing etc i thought id give this a go.

got the engine up to temperature.

took the 2 nipples off the UIM so that both rotors can recieve water.

Got a t piece and connected the 2 nipples together, then ran a pipe from that to a bucket with 8 litres of water in it.

Got my friend to crimp the end of the pipe, started the car, brought the revs up to 3500rpm and he released the end and the engine begain to suck water in.

engine revs dip and sounds like you have a massive misfire, i hold it at 3000-3500rpm until all the water is gone, this takes around 7-10mins.

I was expecting to see loads of steam out of the exhaust but nothing.

As soon as we replace the nipples it starts coming out, and i dont mean a little, im talking clouds of the stuff.

it doesnt want to idle on its own so i keep the revs up for a while.

Eventually it calms down and i take it for a run up the street and back, noticing that now only smokes when i let of the throttle fully.

Pull back in front of the house and compare results.


Before steam clean@1000rpm 15in of vac or 310 on the power fc
Now@1000rpm 18in of vac or 390 on the power fc

Seems it works, since its still smoking a bit i decide to take it for another run to clear everything out.

Taking it for a spin reveals after driving it for 3mins that the vac has gone back to where it was before it was cleaned which is strange.


So results of this were.

Makes a difference after the first 5 mins but then goes back to what it origionally was.

Im guessing this may help you get better comp results if you did this test right after cleaning say for example if you were selling the car, but since my vac went back to normal after i can only assume it doesnt do much.

It maybe that because i used a t piece that i wasnt allowing it to suck as much water into both rotors as it wanted so maybe running dual lines might help, or it doesnt actually do much anyway.

Whats everyones thoughts on this, does this discredit or bring up ideas about it.

[DR SCHNITZEL]

I tried this a few years ago. while i did it the exhaust didnt smoke but rather water splattered out of the exhaust after a few minutes which i found strange. i did one rotor at a time with just 1 litre in each

[turbotoaster]

i was expecting it to smoke while we were pulling the water through, not after.

2 gallons is alot of water so i can only imagine that it was all sat in my exhaust when we were doing it and as soon as the vac pipes went back on there was enough pressure to blow it out of the exhaust.

Also the bit i found strange was im sure the water was actually cooling the motor.

Its about 28c out there, we have the bonnet up holding 3500rpm for nearly 10mins and the water temps went from 85c to 86c, normally that would go up to 100c and the fans would come on.

Infact as soon as we took the water off the temps started to rise like normal

[L18M]

interesting. would using hot water make a diff as it wouldnt cool the engine as much so might actually steam clean rather then just boiling the water a bit and passing it out the exhaust?
or get the engine temp hotter than normal?

[BenLewisMav]

Coke build up on this engine would have been minimal, even if this worked a miracle and stripped off all traces of carbon, it wouldnt make that much difference to the vac readings!
Still, interesting about the cooling effect of the water increasing comp.

Also Liam, making the water hot wouldn\'t make a different, if anything might even help reduce temperatures quicker, as its the energy transfer that occurs when the water turns into steam that draws heat away from the metal components -so increasing the temperature might bring the water closer to boiling point, reducing the energy/time required to turn it into steam.

[turbotoaster]

yeh, mentioned on fduk that i took the car for a run last night as its been the first cool night in a while, noticed when the water temps were below 83c it held 18in of vac but when above that the vac dropped to 15-16in, so i think it was the water cooling the engine components that causes the increase in vac.

If any of you run your cars without all the cold start stuff like mine is, look at your vac readings when your engine is below say 80c and compare it to what you get when the engine is red hot(ie fans about to come on) see if theres any difference and let us know

[BenLewisMav]

edit. Just thinking about it, my physics were a little off there. Cold water would require more of the heat energy to reach boiling point, which would pull more of it away from the metal parts and therefore cool them more. Having said that the difference between hot (not boiling) and cold water would be unlikely to make any real difference to the steam cleaning.

However, I think the real point here is... a cooler chamber increases compression? Goes against the piston-seals-better-when-warm thinking. Also explains why you can get pretty much most rotaries to start when fduked from cold.
Another reason to use water injection methinks?
Not sure why this is the case?
Maybe larger tolerances provided when the engine is cooler (and yet to fully expand) allow the seals to move in and out of their grooves more easily? If thats the case then why not increase the size of the seal grooves pre-assembly? Perhaps the oil is slightly thicker, creating a better seal between the housing and apex surfaces.