Fuel Injection Cleaner

and distributer-less ignition, and anti-knock sensors, and closed-loop engine management. Much higher specific output in modern engines, with much higher efficiency and much lower emissions. And in spite of all that complexity: reliability is ever so much better!

But that reliability, I think, comes with extremely long federally mandated warranties for emissions controls and all those things that are necessary to achieve it.

 

What manual says "don't use additives"?

 

Go to a shop and get a professional fuel/induction service. Look for shops that use BG products. Its a 3 part system. Injector cleaner which is put in using an air charged canister that effectively takes place of the trucks fuel pump. Then an induction cleaner which is atomized using the same canister and a different attachment that fits right in front of the T-body to clean the throttle plate and back of the intake valves and intake ports. Finally something called 44k which goes in the fuel tank. That cleans the combustion chamber of deposits and the exhaust system.

I have done it on my STi and I will tell you first hand the different in power is amazing. Runs MUCH better after the service. And I dont use shitty gas so thats not why it got dirty. I think it costs between $100-150 depending on where its done.

 

I run a can every 5k miles in the tank.


Yuma Taco,

 

On my 08 i had the dealer do the total system cleaning that TACO11 describes at 30k miles. i really didn't notice a difference. the mechanic told me he uses it on his taco every 15k miles and that it improves hos mileage. i will probably do it at around 60k miles on my new taco.
my wifes 02 celica has 165k miles on it. it was runnin like crap so i did the seafoam and cleaned the throttle body. it really helped a lot.
i don't think that you need these cleaners that often. but i do think they should be used at higher mileage intervals like every 60-75k miles

 

This helps greatly. Throttle body cleaning. Here is my write up for this.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/94203-how-throttle-body-cleaning-2005-v6.html

 

You can clean the throttle body yourself for just a few bucks. It is super easy.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/94203-how-throttle-body-cleaning-2005-v6.html

 

Lucas was a waist of money. I bought a big bottle & used it in every tank for several fill ups. It did nothing.

 

On sale @ Advanced Auto parts $6.99 till the end of the month I believe

 

Wow 15K?? Thats just pissing into the wind.. I would say every 30K. Although the fact that you didnt notice it doesnt mean it didnt do any good. What brand of products were used? Was it all 3 BG cans?

 

i swear by

$25 bg44k BG 44K fuel system cleaner power enhancer 11oz.

bg44k, i put it in right before a 300 mile roadtrip, got an average of 23mpg (this was before my aero exhaust install)

 

15k is someone that has too much time on their hands. I did mine the first time @ 80k & it was in need. I did it again @110k & it wasn't that bad.

 

Had a Buick that started to miss at about 100,000. Dealer mechanic told me to get techron. Run through 2 tanks - fixed it. He said eventually the injectors stop up if you never run injector cleaner in it. He was right and that's what happened. He also told me chevron makes the GM injector cleaner which sells for $20. Moral of the story. It does work and you can wait till you have a problem.

 

Hope it's not too badly frowned on to cut & paste a lengthy article, I would post a link, but my search skills can't find it.

Cut & pasted from the autopia car forum (SciGuyJim) in response to cleaning up the fuel system. I kept the article since I have a science background, but little practical chemistry knowledge - this seemed, from a scientific outsider perspective, to be a pretty good real-world analysis.

quote:
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These tests were done by me to help determine the best products:
Background about tests:
As a worst case sample of material which might be found in gasoline I used ordinary tar. The brown deposits we find coating carburetors, and which collects in fuel injectors and on intake valves, are the highest boiling components in gasoline. They are tar-like materials which distilled along with the lighter gasoline. The best solvent I've ever seen for these was methylene chloride, but it's expensive and I'm sure it's being phased out to protect our ozone layer. In any case, if you used it on a modern car the chlorine freed during combustion would corrode the oxygen sensor. Amoco advertises a cleaner gasoline and I'm sure it's because they've reduced these tar-like compounds. All gas these days contains at least a little detergent of some sort to help keep these deposits from building up too much.
Dimethylformamide is listed in the literature as being a good engine cleaner and is "especially good at dissolving carbonaceous deposits". I haven't used this myself because it is a bit too toxic. Instead I used N-methyl pyrrolidone, which is also good.
For my tests, I tried to use a wide variety of products, well known and unknown, expensive and cheap, and also some pure solvents in order to represent a good cross section of products on the market. Note, carbon itself (such as soot and other thermally decomposed material) is not soluble in ANY solvent but solvents like dimethylformamide and N-methyl pyrrolidone do a good job of breaking up clumps and dispersing the fine particles to release the heavy tarry materials trapped within them. However, some of these solvents are too harsh to use freely in the fuel system. Most cleaners (the safer & slightly less effective ones) usually have common solvents in them like toluene, alcohol, acetone or methyl ethyl ketone, and naphtha. If you want to use these to clean your system, you can get more for your money by buying the pure solvents at a hardware store and mixing them yourself. I have never had a problem adding toluene, acetone, alcohol, or naphtha to my gas tank in quantities up to one quart per 16 gallons.
Most of the straight solvents I used are at least as flammable as gasoline so be careful if you use them. The alcohol used was pure, 100% isopropyl alcohol. This has no water in it, it is not the same as "rubbing alcohol".
These test results are as fairly and accurately done as I could manage with the equipment I had available, and the other data presented is also accurate to my knowledge. Your car may have different plastics in it than mine does so if you choose to make your own cleaner, do it at your own risk.

TEST RESULTS
Relative efficiencies at which various cleaners will dissolve high boiling residues from gasoline and carbonaceous deposits found in used motor oil
10=Best:
10 Gunk Gas Treatment
10 Toluene (a common ingredient)
9 Castrol Syntec Power System
8 Duralube Fuel System Cleaner
7 Gunk Fuel Injector Cleaner
6 Redline SI-1
5 Gunk Air Intake Cleaner
4 Naphtha (a common ingredient)
4 STP Fuel System Cleaner
4 Seafoam Motor Tuneup
4 Trak Fuel Injector Cleaner
4 STP Intake Valve Cleaner
4 CD-2 Emission Cure
4 Prolong Fuel System Treatment
3 CD-2 Fuel Injector Cleaner
3 Techron Concentrate
.5 Butyl Cellosolve (a commonly used auto industry detergent for oil and grease)

The following cleaners do not hurt nylon (list is random order). The letters in parentheses indicate how well they dissolved the material from used oil, A=best:

Toluene (A)
2-Phenoxyethanol (A)
Duralube Fuel System Treatment (B)
B-12 Chemtool (B)
Trak Fuel Injector Cleaner (C)
Techron Concentrate (D)
STP Intake Valve Cleaner (E)
Seafoam Motor Tuneup
CD-2 Emission Cure
Prolong Fuel System Treatment
Aromatic distillates
Naphtha
Butyl cellosolve
Acetone

The following cleaners will decompose the nylon sock covering the fuel pickup in the fuel tank. Listed in order of increasing severity:
STP Fuel System Treatment
CD-2 Fuel Injector Cleaner
Gunk Fuel Injector Cleaner
Castrol Syntec Power System
Redline SI-1
Gunk Gas Treatment
Monoethanolamine
The monoethanolamine is the worst here. It turns nylon black on contact. It is significant to note here that the "best" "detergents" in use today are similar, strongly alkaline organic solvents. Another use for the current bunch of organic amine "detergents" is cleaning deposits out of cylinders, so I hear.