ive been doing alot of reading and i was wondering what everyone thought....what would be best to free up carbon in the housing and seals...aft.....water (rob from pineapples' idea) or seafoam....who has done all of these treatments and has experience using all what were your conclusions?

 

just use clean fresh water.. its free if not cheap.
Your not going to see a difference between all of them imo.

 

dont do seafoam. My experience on using seafoam in a rotary is not good. Piston engines is fine. But when we used it on my buddies FC. It fucked the spark plugs.

 

i've never had any trouble with sea foam and would reccomend that. water can be used with the engine running and will essentially steam clean th eengine. either one. atf works very well but has a tendency to swell rubber seals...

 

it depends. i like bg 44k personally, but it is pretty pricey but worth it in my opinion. the water treatment works but doesn't get all the carbon out if you drive alot in the city. as for seafoam or atf i have never tried, jus make sure you have new spark plugs because anything other than fuel will foul spark plugs fast especially atf

 

I've always used seafoam, but only in piston cars. My engine is pretty new, so I haven't had to clean the carbon yet. If you do use seafoam make sure to pour it in very very little at a time if you don't want to fowl spark plugs. But personally I would go with seafoam and be very careful when using it

 

on the s5 na motor. where do you feed the water into to get both rotors?

I did it tonight but I think I only got the front rotor.

 

i have done water mixed with coolant (for lubrication purposes)to steam clean the engine if you have a "mechcanic's" mirror to see through the spark plugs holes you can tell the difference. and also i done seafoam but it was through my gas tank

 

There is no reason to EVER put ATF into a rotary motor!!! EVER!!!!

If the motor runs, use water. I've never done it (yet) but from what i've heard it works good.

 

how did the gas tank treatment work for you i was wondering if that actually works....does it make your motor run like **** through that whole tank of gas and make it smoke alot?

 

noob question, sorry. how do you run water through your engine to clean it? i've done seafoam on my truck, but water? do you just run it though the intake like seafoam or what?

 

your supposed to disconnect a vacuum hose on your intake mani....and take a bottle of water preferribly a very clean soda bottle with very clean water...and have a buddy keep the rpm's above 4 grand...dont suck the whole bottle up in one shot...take about 3-4 breaks in between and make sure your buddy doesnt over rev while you take the water away from the vacuum line....if you notice that your cat and exhaust are getting really hot and red back off for about 1 minute and then proceed as normal...this is all to my knowledge im not held responsible if you mess **** up...this works to steam clean the inside of your motor...if i forgot something someone please correct me or add on

 

it actaully didnt smoke i dont know if it actaully worked i poured the whole bottle in a full tank of gas, and it didnt made it run like **** either

i use it to clean my injectors basicly but didnt feel a difference

 

well there is our answer to the ATF...thank you no more ATF!!!!

 

ive also herd that you can take out the leading spark plugs and pour a small amount of seafoam into each rotor housing crank it by hand repeating until all rotor faces are coated and leave for 24 hours (buy new plugs b4 u do this) and after 24 hours get in crank it over and drive for about 20 minutes hitting redline 4-5 times and change plugs and oil

 

ah, alright. i just poured a little seafoam directly into my TB on my V6 and kept the idle up with the butterfly. thanks. just my opinion i'd stick with water, i duno what ATF is, and i wouldn't put seafoam in a rotary. i'd be afraid to mess up my sparks. but atleast with water you can take them out, crank till the water is out and put them back in and hopefully it should work.

but thats just my 2 cents

 

the "24 hour" remedy was for atf, actually, and upon using atf in your rotary, the day you start it up, prepare to get stares from the neighbors, if not cops/fire dept called to your street. it smokes like a geyser let loose for about 5-10 minutes, no joke! now, for whomever said atf is no-no in rotary, well, there's a catch to it. atf is best used when the motor goes thru carbon-lock, basically your carbon build up is so bad that the motor won't turn over or is very VERY sluggish. at which point, on the old skool carbed 12a's and 13b's, atf would be poured into the carb inlet (not the whole bottle, only 2 or 3 tablespoons) while attempting to crank over with your fuel shut off or ignition fuse removed, that way the motor won't fully kick on, from there it would sit for hours, if not a day, saturating and loosening/breaking up the carbon build up on the APEX SEALS, not the entire face of the rotor itself. as for EFI models, the upper spark plug would be removed and 2 or 3 squirts of atf from a little oil can would be shot into the plug hole, then same thing as the carbs, your fuel shut off and ignition disconnected, bump the motor over using your starter or turn by hand until you've squirted all 3 faces of each rotor. sit for 24 hours, and fire it up. after the smoke settles for a few minutes, take it for a red-line beat run, maxing rpm's about 4 or 5 times, more if you're very daring (or nuts) but usually 4 is enough. get back home, swap plugs, check for leaks, and you're done. Water, on the other hand, from what i've read/heard/understand, is like a steam cleaning process that will attack the carbon build up on the faces of the rotors, possibly the apex seals as well? not only that, alot of the other forum members who have done the water cleaning technique have said their spark plugs "came out steam cleaned and looking new". I personally have not done the water technique, only the atf, but my motor wasn't locked up. I WILL say though, that i noticed a difference in acceleration/performance only because P.O. never really took care of the car. I mean, when i picked it up, the oil was almost not even on the stick! besides that noise, i'm thinking that a quick douche of atf overnight followed by a steaming process could lead to good results? and if atf does in fact swell rubber, well, hope the oil control rings can hold on!

 

Automatic Transmission Fluid. if you go this route, use dexron-mercon 3 grade.

 

thanks, i really need to look over the list of shortened terms more.

 

Water works well, and I'm assuming you know how to go about using this to break the carbon loose.

I've used Seafoam in a few different piston engines, but never in a rotary.
I usually go about it by disconnecting a vaccuum and drawing the fluid in to the engine while it's running (at idle speed). Let it sit for about 20 minutes and start it back up.
...as well, in all the reading, and teaching that I've been part of; the best way to combat carbon build up in an engine is the occasional high RPM/red line pull.

If I was you, and the car is running fine (you only want to do this to say/know that you have), I would - at most, add some fuel treatment and continue to drive the car normally with the occasional high RPM pull.

 

Hehe, is it bad if I give a few redlines on the highway every night going to get coffee with the missus? P.s. she hates my car for throwing fireballs, afraid it'll catch one day while we're cruising lol. That's why she bought me an extinguisher for christmas lmao

 

In my professional opinion, there's no danger in revving an engine to it's red line for a brief time. We're not talking 100% throttle for five minutes, but working through the gears to get to tripple digits os absolutely fine... as long as your car is up for the task. You'll have to use some discrecion (sp?) here. For instance, if you know your car is running lean, or you hear detonation, this would be bad for the engine.

I drive my car(s) hard (with the exception of the daily - that needs the best MPG), but I also go great lengths to properly maintain them... and worst case scenario, if it breaks I have the tools to fix it and I'm prepared to do so.

...I have to refference to the 'Italian Tune-Up' here.

 

marvel mystery oil possibly

 

so nobody has a good picture of which vac nipples to hook the lines to feed water on an S5 NA?

I did it last night but I only got the front rotor I believe. I used the nipple right by the vacuum rack.

 

This thread is a trainwreck. So much misinformation I don't know where to start.

As for ATF: http://www.aaroncake.net/rx-7/atftrick.htm

Carbon buildup is a natural byproduct of burning a hydrocarbon fuel. It's going to happen. If you start putting chemicals down the engine to loosen it up, you risk causing chunks of hard carbon to come out of their resting places and get gouged between the rotors/apex seals and housings. Carbon is a very hard material. When in conflict with an apex seal, carbon can easily win.

Thus, I don't every recommend any of these "tricks" on a well running engine. If you have something with stuck seals, then by all means pour whatever you want into it. ATF, MMO, diesel, fermented cat ****, whatever.

However if you want to unstick seals properly, then pull the exhaust manifold and use a spray carburetor cleaner directly on the seals. Because guess what? Carb cleaner is designed to dissolve carbon. And since you can see the seals, you can then clean out all the gunk before rotating the engine and going to the next seal.