Is carbon build up an issue?

evoaire

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https://www.motorreviewer.com/engine.php?engine_id=135

The power loss of GDI engines. That problem did not pass by the 2.3 EcoBoost engine. The owners may notice a drop in performance and slightly raised fuel consumption. That happens due to a carbon buildup on the backside of the intake valves and on the walls of the intake ports. The soot layer restricts intake airflow and prevents the intake valves from correct closing, which aggravates the situation more. The special carbon cleaning process may be applied to the engine to bring it back to its original specs (it is also recommended in preventive measures).

So for you guys who have your ranger manuals at the ready. Do you see anything in maintenance that discuses this cleaning procedure?
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Jmarler

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On my wife's mustang which has the 2.3 ecoboost, the service department recommended to clean the carbon out at around 40k miles. I only have 4900 miles on my Ranger so it's still running great.
 
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peterson1604

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Wonder if Seafoam or any other additives might help? I've only run 91 to 93 octane which should help, I hope.
 

ICE 27

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Wonder if Seafoam or any other additives might help? I've only run 91 to 93 octane which should help, I hope.
My ranger only has 400 miles so I cant speak from experience, but on my forester I use amsoil upper cylinder treatment lubricant. Two dollars every tank. Getting 36mpg combined and it runs great. The suburu dealer tries to sell me a bottle of suburu cleaner for 36 bucks every oil change.
 


Langwilliams

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Use top tier fuels. They have the best additive package to burn cleaner an leave fewer deposits. I heard to check into an intake cleaning around 75-100K miles if you use the top tier stuff.
 

ctechbob

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It’s my understanding that Gasoline additives don’t help with DI engines, is this not correct?
You are correct. Top Tier/Additives will not help valve carbon buildup.

There are cleaners that claim to help that need to be injected upstream of the throttle body to do their job. Or manual cleaning when necessary. Short oil changes, good oil. There's a handfull of things you can do to mitigate it. The best solution would be for Ford to go to a dual injection system with port injection to go along with direct injection.

Not helpful for us though.

Probably plan on a 100k walnut blast.
 
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Langwilliams

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You are correct. Top Tier/Additives will not help valve carbon buildup.
There are several articles on line saying it does help some. It doesn't stop it but it helps.

https://hollisbrothersauto.com/top-tier-gasoline-big-help-on-direct-fuel-injection/

Keeping up on oil changes with good quality full synthetic helps too.

You can run the cheapest gas you can find but I'll pay the extra 8-10 cents a gallon on quality fuel since I hope to keep my truck a long time. I hope by the time my mileage is high enough to worry about the build up there will be effective cleaning techniques for this the don't require removing the intake an cleaning the intake valves by hand. You don't want it to build up an break off because a chunk could exit through the turbo an damage it.
 

Dgc333

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FWIW, a buddy of mine has a 14 Focus ST which has the 2 liter Ecoboost. He treats it just like he did his Corolla, cheapest gas and cheapest oil every 10k miles. He has over 120k miles on it and it still runs strong.

On my two Ecoboost Mustangs I ran a can of CRC GDI valve cleaner through the engine every other oil change. Never did get around to poking my bore scope into the manifold to see how clean the back side of the valves were but the engines never lost any power or had rough idling. Also, had catch cans on both.

My son has the BG top end cleaning system at his shop and people that have come in with rough running GDI engines and he has cleaned report that it is much improved.
 

importfighter01

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FWIW, a buddy of mine has a 14 Focus ST which has the 2 liter Ecoboost. He treats it just like he did his Corolla, cheapest gas and cheapest oil every 10k miles. He has over 120k miles on it and it still runs strong.

On my two Ecoboost Mustangs I ran a can of CRC GDI valve cleaner through the engine every other oil change. Never did get around to poking my bore scope into the manifold to see how clean the back side of the valves were but the engines never lost any power or had rough idling. Also, had catch cans on both.

My son has the BG top end cleaning system at his shop and people that have come in with rough running GDI engines and he has cleaned report that it is much improved.
This is why catch cans are a must on GDI engines. With no fuel (a solvent) washing out the valve chambers from the nastiness the breather and PCV systems inhale, those nasty vapors combine with ultra fine dust over 100k miles to form a thick grease that coats the valve chambers and valve stem reducing the amount of fresh air inhaled on the intake stroke.

Witnessed this firsthand on wife’s 2012 QX56. I cleaned out all 8 intake chambers with a pic. Couldn’t believe how filled the chambers were with this gunk. Was at least 25-30% filled with the crap. Vehicle felt like it gained 30hp. As much restriction as was caused by the gunk I wasn’t suprised.

Opened my eyes on importance of keeping the intake charge air as clean as possible on GDI vehicles. Both frequent paper air filter changes and a catch can on both the breather system and PCV system. Based on my first hand experience, I feel running a K&N with no catch cans is an accelerator of this valve chamber gunk build up issue (fine dust + oil vapors)
 

Stevedbvik1

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This is why catch cans are a must on GDI engines. With no fuel (a solvent) washing out the valve chambers from the nastiness the breather and PCV systems inhale, those nasty vapors combine with ultra fine dust over 100k miles to form a thick grease that coats the valve chambers and valve stem reducing the amount of fresh air inhaled on the intake stroke.

Witnessed this firsthand on wife’s 2012 QX56. I cleaned out all 8 intake chambers with a pic. Couldn’t believe how filled the chambers were with this gunk. Was at least 25-30% filled with the crap. Vehicle felt like it gained 30hp. As much restriction as was caused by the gunk I wasn’t suprised.

Opened my eyes on importance of keeping the intake charge air as clean as possible on GDI vehicles. Both frequent paper air filter changes and a catch can on both the breather system and PCV system. Based on my first hand experience, I feel running a K&N with no catch cans is an accelerator of this valve chamber gunk build up issue (fine dust + oil vapors)
I think you’re exactly spot on regarding catch can and K&N style air filters. Even changing dry air filters more frequently will also help. Absolutely need to keep intake air as clean as possible with minimum restriction.
 

Porpoise Hork

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Ford began installing oil separators on the 2.3 Eco a while back and do appear to work very well. Most of what the catch cans collect is a watery fuel mix from the PCV blow-by with very little oil. I'm at 10K miles on mine and ran a bore scope up into the intake and looked at the valves and was surprised at how clean they were. There was virtually no deposits at all on the valves and running a cleaning agent like Seafoam or Techron cleaner would certainly keep them that way. Based on that installing a catch can is likely not to make much of an improvement.

On my '08 GTI however was a different story. I had to run a Seafoam treatment every 15K or the valves would get so bad it would start to develop a rough idle and random miss-fires.

On my wife's mustang which has the 2.3 ecoboost, the service department recommended to clean the carbon out at around 40k miles. I only have 4900 miles on my Ranger so it's still running great.
It's their job to sell additional services. Doesn't necessarily mean that the engine needs it to be done at 40K. The dealer I usually go to recommends it at 60K for the 2.3L so there's that...
 

Dgc333

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Ford began installing oil separators on the 2.3 Eco a while back and do appear to work very well.
The 2.3 Ecoboost engine has had an oil separator on the side of the block where the PCV is since day one. My 14 production date 15 Ecoboost Mustang had one. There was a TSB for excessive smoking on some 15s where they replaced separator plate with a revised PCV valve.
 

Langwilliams

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I would like to see a system where a fitting is placed on the air intake stream, like a nitrous nozzle that allowed a cleaning agent to be used occasionally to hit the valves with some sort of cleaning agent or fuel.
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