How-To Clean Your Valves

This thread was originally posted on MSF by @dooderek back in July of 2011

*warning* when conducting this how to be VERY careful to inspect your valves after each job. i found 2 lose copper wires that fell off the brush into my valves. i almost recommend doing this at night so you can shine a flash light in and easily see the reflections.

*tip* to get the valves lined up correctly all you need to do is put the car in 5th/6th gear (car off of course) and push it until the valves fully seat. i was able to get 3/4 valves completly close. aslong as you cant see into the engine through the valves then your shit is seated


here are pictures of me and my buddy cleaning our intake valves. he drives the red 335i that i so easily raped haha. anyway lil background both our engines are di and that being said both are engines intake valves are retardedily dirty. heres pictures of them before

335i valves before


my valves (speed 6)


and im running 100% meth. like rodrigo said meth helps a bit and for the most part only softens the carbon.

here are the supplies we used
ton of flash lights
high powered vacuum
4 bottles of b12
carb cleaner
rifle cleaning gear
non adherent pads
power drill
hand pump
bowl coat hangar

boss shit


step one, make your engine look like this
speed 6


335i


go ahead and pour b12 all the way up till it completly fills your valve stems
335i


speed 6


step 2 let it sit for a minute, b12 is probaly the best shit ever. destroys carbon, and stripped the coat hanger of paint

begin to hit it with the wire brush/rifle cleaning gear. make sure you hit the stem. your brush should look like this after some scrubbing


after enough carbon gunk on the brushes fill a bowl up with some b12 and kinda swirl the brush around til the b12 dissolves it. i personally did 2 cycles of b12, i.e b12 -> soak -> vacuum out -> b12 again -> scrub/wipe with pads -> vacuum. its up to you how many times you want to hit it.

cleaning the brush


useless hand pump unless you dont have a good vacuum


vacuuming


scrubbing


bits of hard carbon from the valves


power cleaning


next step is to grab a coat hanger and kinda pick around the rim of the valve as to were most of the excess carbon settled. luckily b12 really softens and gunks it up so it should come out easily


after all the scrubbing and vacuuming is done, youll know your valves are clean when you pour b12 in and it stays clear



finally your valves should look like this

335i (my valves are cleaner lol)
(btw that white object on the right valve is a moth that decided to die in there, no we did not take it out. yes it added 5 whp)


speed 6

 

doesn't even look like you need to media blast when using b-12 chemtool which is pretty awesome (unless I'm missing something here)

 

Yep, B12 Chemtool, gun cleaning brushes, and a shop vac.

 

Blasting is a much faster process and I'd recommend it if you have access to a compressor. I don't, and it took me a long time to let the Chemtool soak, vacuum, scrape, repeat until clean. It probably would have also gone faster if I had used better brushes, I had bought one of the Harbor Freight kits and I found a a little strand from the brush in the valve opening. After that I ditched the brushes and just used long picks, I didn't want to risk leaving a tiny piece of metal there to get sucked into the engine.

 

Combine all methods. Soak in B12 followed by media blast, and go at any remaining stubborn spots with picks/brushes.

 

This is what we use at work and it works well. It does take some time to soak but I have had excellent results using this. Customers run sub par fuel or go extended times on their oil changes which leads to excessive carbon build up on the rings and in turn the valves.

You can also use this to soak your pistons/combustion chambers however it will require an oil change afterwards.

Another member here used Oven Cleaner and he said it dissolved the carbon pretty much instantly. But it smelled like crap and produces hellish fumes.

 

Oven cleaner was done with the valves OUT of the engine and in beaker. That's probably important information for using oven cleaner.