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Intake condition at 38k miles


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My wife and I have had this EcoBoost MKT for about the last 5k miles so I'm not really sure what kind of service, if any, the engine and fuel system has had. I'm guessing not much. Since the A/C in the garage has it pretty comfortable, and I just got done cleaning under the hood of my wife's MKT, I decided to pull a couple of spark plugs and see how they look since there's 38k miles on the car now. The two I pulled (cyl 4 and 6) look great, so then I decided to run the borescope down the plug hole to see how the top of the piston looks. To me, it looks pretty good with only minimal carbon.

MKT-cyl4.jpg

 

I then removed what I think is a MAP sensor on the top of the intake to scope the intake and valves. I've read about the catch can concerns for the GTDI engine so I wanted to see if there's much merit to the concern. I'm no expert here, but I'm not seeing a need, at least not by 38k miles.

Intake-1.jpg

 

Intake-3.jpg

 

Intake-4.jpg

 

-Rod

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Since my dealer also does B&G services, I think I am going to have them do the Fuel System Treatment when the car gets it's 22,500 mile service. Had them do it on our Sable and it seemed to do a great job of cleaning the intake and system, and that was on a car with 150K miles.

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I'd say save the money on the BG or 3M treatment. I suspect you'll get just as good of results with a half can of SeaFoam. I did the SeaFoam treatment on the MKT this afternoon and there was definitely more carbon in there than I realized. Afterwards I scoped a few intake valves and the piston top again and there's a noticeable improvement. While some carbon still shows up in the intake manifold it's so soft that a good drive will likely burn it out. The carbon goo was coating the borescope camera after scoping the intake.

 

Here's how the exhaust filled my garage after the SeaFoam application:

SeaFoam-small.jpg

 

And here's one of the intake valves, shiny clean:

SF-valve.jpg

 

Now the top of piston #6, notice the carbon build up around the edge is gone today:

SF_piston.jpg

 

And finally a close up of the center top of the piston. The machining marks are even visible:

SF-piston_top.jpg

 

-Rod

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry for the LONG delay in responding. I didn't notice until tonight that a question was asked. I actually don't recall specifically how I introduced the Sea Foam. I've done this to so many different vehicles it's tough to keep them straight. But I suspect there was a vacuum port near the throttle body on the upper intake that I connected my rubber hose with nylon valve to, then inserted the other end of the hose in to the can of Sea Foam. With the valve closed, I start the engine and get it up to operating temperature (2 minutes at 2000 rpms is a general rule of thumb). Then, with the engine idling, I go back under the hood and slowly open the valve, metering in as much Sea Foam as I can without stalling the engine. Once it's sucked up approximately half a can (I know the can instructions say 1/3 can), I close the valve again and shut off the engine. Leave the engine off for 5 minutes, make sure all the windows are closed on the vehicle, then restart and rev the engine for a few minutes. You may want to tell your neighbors first so they don't call the fire department.

 

-Rod

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I believe he said went thru the hole under map sensor. The map sensor sit on very top of intake manifold held on by 2 torq screws I believe T20.

 

That's the hole I went through to insert the borescope camera, but not where I sucked in the SeaFoam. I'll take a look at my SHO in a bit and see if I can figure out where I connected to put the SeaFoam in.

 

-Rod

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I removed the rubber hose from a vacuum port after the throttle body as seen in the pics below.

 

Overview of engine showing the area of interest:

Area_zps48783d1c.jpg

 

Close-up of the vacuum port and my little hose contraption for sucking in the SeaFoam:

CloseUp_zps12c88931.jpg

 

And here's a shot of the hose set up that I use for the SeaFoam.

HoseJPG_zpsdb2c62f9.jpg

 

I connect the rubber hose to the vacuum port (friction fit) and make sure the valve is closed. Then start the warm engine and open the can of SeaFoam. Insert the other end of the valve contraption in to the can of SeaFoam and slowly open the valve and meter in SeaFoam, being careful not to insert the SeaFoam so fast that it stalls the engine. The engine vacuum will suck up the SeaFoam in a hurry so pay attention to the can. Or, better yet, use a can that is only half full to start with.

 

Enjoy!

 

-Rod

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  • 2 weeks later...

That is super helpful! Thanks My attempt with the spray did not go well i think it went down the tube instead of in the intake mostly...I think I will do it this way instead though I may just stick the spray into that hole since its a spray it shouldn't choke it and I have half a can left.

 

What size is your valve? 1/8 in?

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I think you'll still have trouble with the spray through the hole since it will create a large vacuum leak as soon as you remove the hose or open the valve. You'd almost need two people, one to spray the can and one to carefully meter the valve open or closed.

 

I'm actually not sure what the valve was intended for. My dad put that contraption together for when he did the SeaFoam on his truck, then gave it to me since I tend to do more SeaFoam treatments, plus he knew where he could find it if he ever needed it. It's something he assembled from items on the shelf at the local True Value so if you walked through the 2 or 3 aisles of plumbing stuff at your local small hardware store you'll probably spot them, or show one of the employees the picture above. The fuel line piece was something I added to fit the port on our engines.

 

-Rod

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  • 1 month later...

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