SpeedRacer

Ok, let me start by first stating, I've never been one to have much faith in fuel injector/fuel system cleaners. Anyways, so a few weeks ago my car started getting a little buck to it only while under load. Didn't matter what gear, or what RPM's. It got worse and worse and was bugging the crap outta me. It wasn't a violent bucking or anything like that. I ruled out the TPS, and it wasn't 3800rpm hesitation, besides I added grounds over a year ago. Anyways, I was at the gas station last night, and I remembered I had a bottle of Castrol Fuel System cleaner in the bins. So I figured I might as well add it before I filled up, but I didn't think much of it, I was just wanting to get rid of it mainly. Anyways, got my gas and drove away. Decided to take Skyline, some other backroads above the Portland area. I noticed within 10 minutes my car was bucking less. I thought it must have been either my imagination or coincidence. Anyways, I drove around for about and hour and by the end of the hour the bucking was almost gone. I drove my car later that night, and the bucking was gone completely. I drove my car to work this morning and it was perfect. I am very stoked. And not only is the bucking gone, but my car starts quicker. It was cranking over for 3-4 seconds before starting,when before it would crank 1-2 seconds before starting. So I must have had something clogging my fuel system. Anyways, so if I ever need to use a Fuel system cleaner again, I will use Castrol's. I just thought I'd share that with you all. Any of you have any good or bad stories with using fuel system cleaners?

skibum9199

Hey nice fix I don't really hold a whole lotta faith in the fuel cleaner stuff either, but I figure a bottle wont hurt every so often. Have you ever replaced you fuel filter? Unless your inj. were getting pretty clogged, maybe the inj. cleaner broke down some gook in your filter, prefilter, or maybe just a clog in the line like you said. I havent really had any good exp. or bad with the stuff, just noticed that my car runs a little rougher while im burning fuel with cleaner in it. Good to hear of problems being solved by something so simple..


~Jesse

jizzajuice

Actually Chevron's Techron gas is has the same 'type' of cleaner. If you regularly use Chevron's gas, or Texaco's for that matter, their fuel additive will do wonders for the injectors. ^_^

Peace,
AJ ^_^

FEDREX

Imagine if you send your injectors to RC Engineering...

Hey Speed' - I noticed you wrote Skyline Blvd. That's a good road but sort of short. If you want a good longer one that's more remote try this one -

Take 205S to the exit for Estacada, I think it's 212 or 224. It's an offramp that loops around to the right, just S of Clack. Town Center - you drive over 205 headed East (it crosses 82nd Drive). Continue East about 3-4 miles, just past the sign for Sah-Ha-Lee golf course and you'll come to a light where you can veer right to a little town (I think it's "Carver") Anyway, after you've made that right you'll drive maybe 1 1/2 miles and you'll come to a fork (there's a biker hangout tavern there). Take the left fork and enjoy for miles - twisties range 25-45mph signs. It's a rush - that was my favorite road for tuning my suspension.

Don't go in the afternoon or you'll just be tailing traffic - I used to go at night sometimes 1-3am. Although there is a gravel lot to pull off where you can let everybody get well ahead so you can do the run.

Mykl

Fuel system treatment is great, I use STP Complete Fuel System Cleaner in my car every once in a while once I realized what a huge difference it made in how my car runs.

When I had initially bought my car it ran pretty good. Then it developed this wierd problem where it wouldn't accelerate beyond 7500 RPM's, and would sputter all the way there at full throttle. On about a 3/8 tank of gas I dumped an entire bottle in, found some backroads, and made a lot of full throttle runs to make sure the secondary injectors got their fair share of cleaner run through them.

The problem went away very quickly. I find that using one bottle every 5000 miles, or two oil changes is perfect for my car. It may not be so bad in everybody's car, but I run premix so this probably gums things up a little more quickly. I also find a huge, very noticeable difference in performance when I change my spark plugs, fuel filter, oil and filter, and clean the air filter at 10000 miles.

Blake

I'm a firm believer in Techtron. About once a month, I dump a full bottle in a fresh tank and run it down to 1/3rd (to soften up the deposits), then add another full bottle of Techtron with no additional fuel and go flog the car on a challenging drive. For this adventure, I keep the car over 4K and shift at 8K, making sure to constantly keep the thing under load. This keeps the secondaries open. Not only does this help keep the fuel delivery system clean, but also helps keep the carbon buildup in the engine in check. When I refill with a fresh tank, I give her a little MMO and she drives great for another month. This is a fairly agressive schedule, but I mainly drive stoplight to stoplight on very short trips (under one mile), aound downtown Portland.

Skyline is great (too short???). I also like taking Terwilliger all the way out to Lake Oswego, then McVey to Mountain Road, and off into the twisties. Also, Broadway Drive to Scholls Ferry Road (sp?), way, way out there (it's pretty boring until you get into a super twisty road through the hills, past the new development. Speed Racer, who are you? Are you in the RPNW club? You know Rob Golden, Bill Burnham, or any of the other local notables? If you want to meet up, let me know....

Brian_TII

The best stuff that I've found it BG 44k. It really works wonders. Only problem is this stuff is hard to find... usually you can only find it at dealerships or at a independant mechanics and runs ~$15 a bottle.

SpeedRacer

Skyline isn't short if you take it ALL the way off the Sylvan exit on 26, to Burnside, back on it, past Germantown, past Rocky Point, past Cornerlious Pass, it just keeps going. Plus your options are open for taking TONS of sideroads. Germantown at 9pm in the summer is where I go to tune my suspension...TONS of TIGHT corners, lots of elevation changes, bumps, smooth parts, all sorts of variables. Plus in the off chance you run into a cop ,there is NO way in hell you could get caught. There are so many differnet ways of getting off that Mountain that a road block would be impossible, and a cop car sure as hell can't keep up with my lil'ol NA on those roads.

FEDREX - You live around the Portland area? The RX-7 in your sig sounds pretty sweet.

Blake - No, I'm not a member, but I've met several members. I'm planning on going to the tech session at Pineapple. I'll sign up there. I don't know Rob, but I've heard lots of people around here talk about him. A guy I know from Auto-x has a blue RX-2 that was bridgeported by Rob. I met Bill White the other day at the Pioneer Motorsports Track day at PIR, but it was cancelled do the fact that not enough people showed on account of the rain. I got my RX-7 from Scott Fleener, he works at Auto World in NE. I don't know if you've heard about the 3-rotor sandrail they made there. Pretty sweet. I also met a guy named Dave few weeks back. He said designed the ignition system on the Sandrail. I guess he works part-time on some RX-7 race team porting engines and such. Is the tech session on the 10th? And what time does it start? I'd love to meet up, I need to start meeting other people who are Rotary freaks like myself.

FEDREX

Not any more - I moved to sunny Florida 1 year ago. Rented a Penske truck, put the car on a trailer and drove cross-country.
I lived in Portland for about 15 years though, graduated from Columbia River in Vanc.

A couple things that are nice here - NO emissions and property is really cheap. A $110,000 house here would sell for about twice that in Portland and I'm talking 3 bedroom with a pool. The roads here are really smooth too - don't have those damn ruts on the freeways like I-84 and I-205. I've taken a hydrofoil to the Bahamas and am planning on getting into scuba (you can catch lobster here) and flying. I here it's pretty easy to get flying lessons in this state. Ha No state income tax.

Thanks for the car compliment - it is in real nice shape, I get compliments and looks all the time. You sound like a driver, have fun!