I almost immediately after my check engine light came on. Any insight. Was this a bad idea? Has anyone else used a fuel system cleaner?

fyi: it was a Valvoline product

 

Is the check engine light still on? It's probably the oxygen sensor. It's in the exhaust stream. Perhaps the fuel additive caused the exhaust temps to skyrocket and burned the sensor.

 

wouldnt have caused the exhause system temp to go up that much maybe a degree or two

but if the sensor is old it could have finished it off

 

I think I am just gonna use up this tank of gas and then fill it up see what happens.
I had used the same product in my Bimmer and the same thing happened but after we put fresh gas in it- no problems. I guess we'll see.

 

Which cleaner did you use? I want to make sure I stay away from it!

 

I once used a fuelinjector cleaner on my old GXl, and it zapped my primary injectors. $1000.00 dollars later I was on the road again. I was a rookie at the time and new nothing about rx7s. BUT the bottle did say not to use on rotary, diesel, turbo charged engines!!!!!! It pays to read the directions. it was GUM-OUT product.

 

lesson learned i guess.. but that sucks

actually very surprised to see a product put "rotary" somewhere on it... I have never seen rotary on a product from kragen or autozone or anything

 

Hey man, after a couple of days that light should go off. I work at a shop and when we do fuel injection cleaning on a lot of cars the engine light comes on, but usually goes off after a couple days and the cleaner is gone. If not...I dunno.

 

I don't know...
But if you read the owner's manual, it's not suggested to use fuel system cleaner.

 

i use techron at every oil change and have yet to have problems. it may have done something to the o2 sensor because of the additives but im not possitive.

 

It was the Valvoline total fuel system cleaner.
Next time: Leave well enuff alone!

 

most injector cleaner is just concentrated gasoline with a few detergents...not enough to harm anything or clean really nasty gunk. 1 bottle of techron with every tune up is plenty for peace of mind

 

Heh, a useless comment but funny.

You fixed it until it broke

doh!

 

Check engine light still on
but car runs great still gets good mpg

I am on my first full tank of gas since the fuel additive.

I am gonna run this tank of fuel out b4 I take it to Rick at PR Motorsports. Anyone see any danger in my strategy. I just wanna give the car time to fix itself if it can.

 

did you pull the codes from the check engine light. i think fc3s.org has a write up on how to pull them. all you need is a wire.

 

If you guys want to use a fuel injector cleaner, use Redline SL-1. Don't mess with those cheap Wal-Mart crap. $1.99 injector cleaner....give me a break.

 

Explain what "zapped" injectors are...

Rotaries have entirely conventional EFI systems so their "no rotaries" warning had nothing to do with injectors. I can't see how a fuel injector cleaner could do $1000 worth of damage to fuel injectors.

 

I thought that fuel injector cleaner was primarly Jet fuel - take a wiff of both and you will see what I mean. highly refined kerosene which is a great cleaning agent

 

by the way it is fixed
the plugs were fouled a lil but the check engine light actually had more to do with some sensor not being connected but for the moral of this story is don't run fuel system cleaner just use good gas

 

That moral doesn't amke any sense at all considering you just said the problem was completely unrelated to the injector cleaner... just a coincidence.
Or maybe the genie that came out when you opened up the bottle to dump it in the tank unplugged a sensor...

lol

 

I've used STP and one other brank of injector cleaner. I have had 0 problems.

 

The "no rotaries" is a myth for current engines. The problem stems from the old 70's rotaries which ran 6mm carbon apex seals from the factory. When a product that was designed to dissolve combustion chamber carbon and injector gum and varnish was pushed into these old engine, it ate away at the apex seals and detsroyed them.

The no rotaries comment holds no validity to our engines now. I have used valvoline specifically with no problems. Please check the codes and find out what the problem is.

 

I figured that was the case. I've used several brands of fuel injector cleander many times over the years without any problems.

 

That is the moral for me because Rick (at PR Motorsports) said that even though that wasn't the cause of the check engine light that it was a really bad idea to use fuel system additives. He said that just using Chevron or any higher quality fuel is better because it already has all of the same additives anyway in it just not as highly concentrated. The highly concentrated additives can FOUL plugs and sure enough when I pulled mine they needed to be changed BAD. I changed them and the car started running great. The car had been running pretty bad since I put the fuel additive in but now it is runnin better than I can remember. thanks for all the help tho guys