I just finished doing my plugs on a 02 SE. I just bought this car 6 months ago and have only put up 10k miles on it since. It currently has 78K miles on it and it only had one previous owner. When I took the plugs out, this is what I sawthrough the spark plug tube...







Is this sludge that I see on top of the cylinder? I just did a BG44k a little over a month ago and a Seafoam treatment (through the brake booster) last week. Is there anything I can do to help this? Any help will be appreciated. Thank you guys.

 

Looks like normal carbon build-up to me.

 

Top of cylinder?? Would this be the top of the piston?

 

Looks fairly normal to me as well.

 

you know what would clean that up? seafoam

 

i cant wait to do my seafoam treatment.

 

ummm i think he said that already.

 

Try some Seafoam, that stuff works pretty well.

 

is anyone reading his post?

 

what post?


SEAFOAM!!!!!!!

 

jesus, it's like a bunch of noobs in here


try autoRx. It's time consuming and not cheap but it'll help. your engine has 78k miles on it, so you should expect regular build up such as taht.

 

HAHAHAHA!! +1

or if your **** about the build up, you can have a professional port an polish your heads/pistons/watever else.

 

Yeah I did the plugs @ 85k, and mine looked exactly like that...I have a high speed stutter/skip in the engine but its been doing that ever since I got the car, thinking MAF or coils, its not a big deal. The car ran better after the plugs, and I've done seafoam and auto-RX.

Someone else who knows more about engines can clairify but i'm pretty sure thats a normal byproduct of combustion.

 

Oh one thing I HAVE heard (again not sure) was try using Sunoco Ultra 93/94 if you have a reddish-copper dust on your plugs, I believe that is from MMT and sunoco fuels dont use any

 

I have only used Shell 93 ever since I have bought the car. And I also changed to German Castrol since receiving the car assuming the previous owner (only owner of the car) used regular oil. As of right now, I will try a treatment of BG44K again. However, I'm not too sure about doing Seafoam because I JUST did it and don't want to foul the new plugs with carbon.

When I inspected the old plugs, they had a dark oily residue on the threads. I converted to DIY Home Depot Oil Catch Can about 4 months ago and I forgot to empty the can for the past month and a half and it was full so I'm guessing the oil was sucked up into the intake manifold. Would this be the case for extra build-up on top of the piston? Is Auto-RX my only option? I thought that only cleans the TOP (cylinder head) block. How would it clean the pistons (as in my case)?

 

Is Auto-RX only for cleaning the valve train?

 

Just think about what happens in everyone of your cylinders every minute...

what did you expect?

 

well if you drive at 4,000 RPM like i do there is combustion in each cylinder 12 times per second.

is my math correct?
RPM (4,000) divided by 60 (seconds) = RPS (67)
RPS divided by number of cylinder = combustion in each cylinder each second

1 RPM is a revolution of the crack shaft. in that turn, there is 1 combustion per cylnder.

 

True but I still want to clean as much gunk as possible (if possible). It just hurts looking at the pics. The engine is kind of on the louder side and it lacks power so I thought this could be a culprit.

 

The only way to really take care of it is to tear down and rebuild.

 

try seafoam

 

There is one combustion event per TWO crankshaft revolutions, so your not correct.

 

o yeah...intake, cumbustion, exhaust
well damn it

 

You got me all hyped up, I was totally expecting something to be jammed in there, like a tiny dinosaur or something

 

Through the brake booster line? I already did that.

 

try running some xylene or toulene

1 gall of that+4 gal of 93 oct. = 99oct. burn that **** right out lol

you have to run the **** out of it though...

 

WHere do I get that?

 

you can get it at paint supply shops and homedepot and lowes, etc...

its usually with the paint thinners and stuff....

more or less it has a oct. rating or 115...cut 1 gal. with 4 gal. of 93 and its home made race fuel.

i used to run it all the time in my gtp when i wanted to go to a smaller pulley.

there are a few write ups online about using the xyleene/toulene home made race fuel.

on a side note, if you plan on running alot of this...put some marvels mystery oil in the race fuel as the xylene/toulene has no lubrication added to it like gasoline does...it can hurt your rubber lines if you use it all the time.

 

I just want to clean as much gunk out of the combustion chamber as possible. Not trying to race or anything of sort.

 

The water/ alcohol injection system on my talon provided a steam cleaning of the entire intake manifold and cylinders. You could attempt to set up some kind of temporary thing that would allow a mist of water to be injected to the intake stream while driving at higher RPM's. This technology is mostly utilized in forced induction setups but there has been some use of it in N/A also. The inside of my intake and tops of cylinders were always sparkling aluminum. This is the only way to have a lasting cleaning effect on pistons that I know of.

 

Xylene mixed with an oil stabalizer = 114octane
Toulene mixed with an oil stabalizer = 117octane

 

If you haven't already I would definitely invest in some seafoam. It rocks!

 

I've already performed (two weeks ago, before replacing the plugs) the procedure of half a pint of Seafoam through the brake booster line. It smoked like hell but I'm skeptical of doing it again (don't want to flood anything or foul the plugs or sensors). I did dump the other half of the can in the tank and I'm letting it run to empty right now. Other than those two procedures, I don't know how else I can utilize Seafoam.

 

Smoke is normal & jacking up your plugs is typical after using seafoam. If you're doing a full "seafoam treatment" you should expect to replace the plugs & definitely change your oil once you're done. All that gunk & carbon gets released into your system and you'll want to get it drained out ASAP.

Another method for using seafoam that I've read alot about is called a "piston soak". My other car is a Saturn so I've spent a lot of time on the Saturn forums. The guys over there actually soak their pistons in a seafoam bath overnight. I honestly don't know if this is a good idea on the Maxima or not. Maybe someone else can shed some light on that.

 

i would trade in a life time of seafoam to be driving on that kind of octane forever

 

You'd likely make less power with an octane level that high since it slows down the speed of flame travel across the top of the piston.

 

um, higher octain = less detonation = more timming...not sure if there is a max amount of timming advance the max's comp gives...but you should make "more" power due to less detonation and more timming (to a degree that is)

 

I was saying that high octane fuel ON ITS OWN does nothing and can actually reduce power. Higher octane fuels slow flame propagation but i have a feeling i'm wasting my time on this one. I know nothing....

 

You mean using premium gas wont shave a couple seconds off my quarter mile time?!

 

hmmm, adding toluene and or xylene to gas and get super octane gas... it's like a cheap octane booster and clean the piston at the same time....hmmmm Is it safe to do once in a while? I've heard of acetone too. But then, some of those cleaners you add to gas has those things in it too. Organic hydrocarbons...

Anyways, I used Deep Creep which is concentrated or rather Seafoam in a spray can. I sprayed it in to the sparkplug holes after the engine has been warmed and put the plug back in. Later, I started the engine and it smoked like crazy too. But I didn't check to see if it did anything. I do know I did the seafoam cleaning a couple of times and I got a check engine like saying my bank 2 precat is not efficient... (paraphrase). Reset it a couple of time and hasn't come back. Maybe all that gunk cloged my single precat a bit and it finally all burned off? maybe... I was like, man, new o2 sensor is expensive, new even aftermarket front precat is expensive...