That's a poor retort. You should be able to do better than that.

Anyway...

I have no input whatsoever for this thread as I willingly admit I don't know a thing about injector cleaners. However, there's a gentleman on youtube under the username "ChrisFix" who has done a lot of personal testing of many different products, and uses a bore camera to look inside the engine before and after -- no guesswork or "seemed to help" -- actual video evidence. Look him up. (tl;dr version: his best results comes with Seafoam.)

 

"no input whatsoever" yet you suggest a video channel lol.

 

Yes, 'prove that something doesn't exist' is one of that poster's favourite strategies. Pretty lame.

I've seen the videos you've referenced. While they can be interpreted in the most naive and optimistic light as having fixed something, there's three other factors

1) the amount of deposits was not sufficient to cause any reduction in performance.

2) the deposits will return in very short order.

3) plain tap water will work just as well. That's a trick that predates all of us old f*rts. There's nothing in Seafoam other than light oil, naptha and rubbing alcohol. None of these compounds in isolation or combination will dissolve carbon deposits.

 

Anyone who does not believe water will clean a cylinder should look at a cylinder from an engine with a blown head gasket. Water, the magic engine elixir! Seafoam might work just as well.

 

For me, I've rarely seen a dirty gasoline injector, and it's been exclusively in vehicles that have sat a good long while. Generally, I change the gas, change the fuel filter, put fresh gas in and get it running. I am a believer in Stabil for storage and I like Chevron Techron in a fuel injected engine brought back from a long rest. It does seem to help sluggish fuel level sending units.

I've never had a car that suddenly got clogged injectors. It was from sitting related causes (nasty old gas, rusty tank, etc), or a tank of watery gas(resolved with a syphon and a bad taste in my mouth). I'm not saying it can't happen, but running good gasoline and doing routine maintenance, I've yet to find anything. Usually anything related to fueltrims, it was related to electronic engine management items like MAF, IAC, O2, or old fashioned vacuum leaks.

I've seen gummy nasty carburetors many times, and usually elbow grease, a bucket of carb cleaner, some jets and gaskets and I've been back in business. But they've been gummy from storage, never had issues in regularly run and properly stored carbureted engines.

 

Same here

 

My experience also, but let's not let some hard facts dispel a good myth and spoil a multi-million dollar snake oil business.

If I wasn't so lazy, I'd start up my petrified voodoo chicken bone business again.

$10. gets you a bag of bones that you shake in front of the car before starting it in bad weather, while chanting 'ohwatta fu-lye-am'. If it starts, that proves that the bones were needed and they worked. If the car didn't start, you either didn't shake hard enough or need more bones at $10. a bag. Shipping and handling extra of course.

 

Awh, that won't work. You have to put the bones in the tank or the crankcase.

 

The Techron Concentrate Plus Fuel System Cleaner I used straight from the bottle to manually clean our XJ40 injectors is mostly hydrotreated light petroleum distillates (deodorized kerosene, 40-70% by weight), Stoddard solvent ("mineral spirits" or "white spirits," 15-40%), a little naptha (5-10%), and benzene (1-5%). You could easily make your own, if you observed the appropriate safety precautions.

There's no question that at full concentration Techron cleaned our injectors beautifully, resulting in an improvement in fuel economy of nearly 2 mpg. However, I must question the effectiveness of Techron or similar products when diluted in a full tank of gasoline/petrol.

I would also add that one of the neglected issues with fuel injectors is the filter baskets, which plug up over time with small particulate debris that is unlikely to dissolve in any typical solvent. So in a high mileage car it makes sense to replace the filters as shown in my photo albums.

Cheers,

Don

 

+1 First order of business is to replace the fuel filter.

Maybe some cars have a bigger issue with clogged injectors than others: BMW used to recommend some cleaning process that had the injectors "shot" with ground up walnut shells or use Techron! The techs at BMW of Fairfax used to run BG 44 through as part of their routine service and provided a preprinted handout that told customers to use Chevron high test gas. Much of this **** behavior may have been due to fragile injectors in the old injected 74 2002s which would gum up regularly. Both my 325is and my 323ic ran better after being serviced; made no difference on my Z3 or Z4 (leads me to believe that improved ECUs and sensors helped).

My first BMW, a 69 1600, always had a carbon problem (slow traffic in Honolulu): Ross' water trick always cleaned it; just a spray bottle to throw a spritz into the Solex . . . the shuddering vacuum gauge would steady out in about a minute.

 

I beg to differ. Every one of my customers reported 100% success by using the suggested method.

In a few cases where the engine wouldn't start- usually in -20 or colder weather, the owner eventually understand why they were actually accountable for the problem by either not having enough bones on hand or by not shaking and chanting vigorously. As additional proof, the car's battery was always found to be heavily discharged after the event. The bones were therefore not at fault. No car will start with a dead battery. Jeeze Louise.

In order to maintain good customer relations, I would sometimes ship them extra bones at half price ($5.00) plus $20.00 S/H.

There once was a production halt for several months. Our local KFC was closed for renovations and the closet Popeye's was good hour's drive away. Finding quality petrified voodoo bones is not as easy as some might think.

 

I could definitely see the filter baskets over extremely high mileages getting some crud in the filter baskets; but with proper fuel system maintenance that should be mitigated; that means changing fuel filters on a regular basis, keeping the tank topped up enough that it doesn't rust, when replacing fuel pumps changing the socks, etc. The not letting crap get up to the injectors efforts should make injector basket issues take much longer to develop.

If I have the rail off on any of my cars, whether I need to or not, you bet the injectors get cleaned by me, new orings on them and the rails, etc. It's just good while you're there maintenance. I also have the devil's luck when it comes to reusing gaskets, orings and seals.

When I rebuild the superchargers on my Rs, I'm doing the octopus hoses, injector orings, etc; basically anything I can touch with the SCs removed. Going overboard preventatively can really bring the reliability up over time on any car!

 

Wow I really started a debate. Didn't know about the BG44; I feel like Lucas does help, maybe not clean the injectors 100% but still makes a slight difference. I simply put it in because the Jag has never had any fuel additive and I thought at 113k miles it might need a little cleaning.

I guess I would call it regular upkeep. Like KingCharles said; to each his own.

 

My BG44 will be here today I may run it in my warhorse Infiniti, it has been sitting for 4 months w/ very little gas.

 

Please let us know your impressions of BG44. This thread also enticed me to pick up a couple cans of BG44 (Amazon Prime is the 'debil' ).

 

The key is that all reputable brands of pump gasoline already have more than sufficient fuel additives in them to keep your engine sparkling clean. So your Jag has indeed been receiving 'regular upkeep'.

The aftermarket suppliers simply take the same additives and put it in overpriced little bottles trying to convince unsuspecting consumers that even more is required to keep bad things from happening. Classic snake oil marketing.

A mentioned above, aside from cars that have been neglected, contaminated injectors and engines essentially don't exist.

But if it makes you feel better...........

 

I'm sure our XJ40 with 180K+ miles would be considered an extreme case, but running gasoline alone did not keep the injectors from gumming up or the filter baskets from plugging up. The injectors were no longer properly atomizing the fuel. And truth be told, beginning around 120K miles I would occasionally add a bottle of Lucas or Techron snake oil to the tank, and they obviously did not prevent injector gumming or filter basket plugging.

It's difficult to estimate at what point in an engine's life the injectors could benefit from a servicing, but personally, if I had a reason to pull the fuel rail at over 80-100K miles I would service the injectors. Here are a couple of key excerpts from my photo albums:


Here’s a comparison of the old filters with the new. By holding an old filter up to a light it was easy to see that contaminants had significantly obstructed the filter mesh.





Late XJ40s have dual-orifice plate type injectors that spray directly onto the back of each intake valve. Note the two spots in the foam. As I clicked the button, I could literally watch the flow of the streams increase and equalize, visually confirming that the cleaning was really working.





Welcome to Jag-lovers - Members Photo Viewing Page

Welcome to Jag-lovers - Members Photo Viewing Page


Cheers,

Don

 

Interesting stuff Don. Thanks.

The key is that despite your adding bottled injectors cleaners and using presumably the best quality fuel, gradual 'contamination' occurred over the period of 180K miles. No real surprise and this proves my point about additives being a waste.

The next question is what actual difference did the contamination have on the performance of the car in terms of starting, idling power, mileage etc. In my former life with an aircraft engine OEM, we would regularly receive fuel nozzles (injector assemblies) that looked horrid and sprayed fuel in every direction other than where it should. Effect on engine performance? Virtually zero.

My S-type is a mere youngster with just under 100K miles on it. There is no difference in performance or fuel economy today compared to when the car was new.

 

Somewhere I have the exact "scientifically tested and calculated" improvement in fuel mileage that resulted from cleaning the injectors and I'll have to look it up, but my recollection was that it was nearly 2 mpg, which is not insignificant. There was little if any difference in perceived performance, but I'll take an additional 2 mpg any day.

By "scientifically tested" I mean that I made multiple trips over a measured 60.0 mile test loop with only a handful of stop signs and stop lights to minimize stopping and starting. I used a GPS to measure the mileage and drove using cruise control over nearly half the route and at as similar speeds as possible over the rest of the route, driving normally and not trying to milk the mileage for all it was worth. Before each run I filled up the tank as full as possible (10 additional clicks after the first click) at the same pump at the same Shell station, then refilled the tank at the same pump in the same way and divided the 60.0 miles by the number of gallons used. Not perfect, given the XJ40's tank design which leaves about 10% of space for fuel vapors and fuel expansion, but as close as I could manage. I averaged at least three runs for each calculation, and I did calculations 1. before any changes to the car, 2. after installing Andy Stoddard's CPS bracket, 3. after installing various different new injectors (including some X300 injectors), and 4. after reinstalling the original injectors after cleaning. Andy's bracket made a nice difference, and so did cleaning the original injectors. I think I recall the total gain was between 3 and 4 mpg.

BTW, the Jaguar's onboard mileage computer was always off by at least 2 mpg compared to the actual calculated mileage, sometimes far more, so those who rely on the computer for comparing before-and-after fuel consumption are getting essentially useless data.

Cheers,

Don

 

Again, good stuff. Thanks.

Agreed on all points- particularly those that deal with how precise and exact testing procedures must be in order to substantiate any perceived change in consumption or power levels.

'Butt dynos' and standard instrumentation just don't cut it.

I see bigger variation in tank to tank mileage in routine driving without any change in my habits than most people claim to have seen by adding their favourite miracle juice.