Not too long ago my friend and I took off his lower intake manifold and *kind of* cleaned some of the carbon build up out of it. I say kind of because he got impatient before I could finish cleaning and we just slapped it back together. When we put the intake manifold on, I noticed that I could move the external linkages for the 6 port actuators by hand. They didn’t move very easily, but they did move.

Later, when we were looking at my car to see where some vac lines went to I tried to move my 6 port actuators. I tried pushing as hard as I could, but I couldn’t get them to budge. I am pretty sure that they are working (especially after driving my friends car, his 6 port actuator tube fell off his cat), but now I’m sure that they could be working better.

How easy should it be to push the linkages on the 6 port actuators? What do you recommend for cleaning it? I used a small steel brush and some spray can intake cleaner on my friends car, but it was a pain in the ***.

 

You should be able to move it by hand. WD40?

 

You should be able to easily pump those actuators with your thumbs no prob. Most likely they are so carboned in and probably stuck which was my case. POWERFOAM, but your probably not going to really get at the source of the carbon. Your sleeves might be stuck/sticking too.

 

well I plan on taking off the intake to clean it, so I will be able to clean the sleaves too. Can I just use a wire brush to clean out where the sleves sit in the engine or is it going to kill my engine having some of that crap fall into the combustion chamber?