Some of you might have followed my other post on timing chain replacement, while waiting on tools from China, I decided to start tackling the intake valves. And while the Jaguar emission system does a good job, lack of port injection takes a toll on the intake no matter what. I took a simple approach and while the hard set carbon will only come off with walnut blasting I feel for those that want to do a simpler cleanse it will still be very beneficial.

The pics will speak as to what you will need. Enjoy.

Is that SC stamped on the heads





Grab some carb cleaner.




Assure the valves are closed. Make a small puddle to see if it will hold the fluid. Once comfortable the valves are closed fill up the intake port up to just below the guides.



Go to town with the brush. J bend to get behind the stem and work the back. Sludge will dissolve eventually.

Next comes the messy part.

Grab a towel or rag and a blow nozzle attached to the compressed air.





Hold the rag to protect the explosion of liquid as the compressed air blows the liquid out of the cavity.

You will need to repeat about three times, the liquid appear less dark toward the end of the cleaning. Keep at it till you feel you got it as clean as you can. Blow it dry and clean and inspect. Don’t leave any puddles as it will gum back up after the chemical evaporates.

The results....




Not bad IMO. Better than the blob of gummed up oil that we started with.

Little time consuming but worth the effort. And a minimum must do if you ever take the intake or supercharger off.

If you want a better cleanse, walnut blasting is for you.

Tomorrow I’ll do the remaining 5 ports.

 

That looks like it makes a big difference - great before & after pics!
Could a vacuum be used instead of pressure? Might be a little safer. and cleaner.
As clean as you got it, it'd be tempting to do a little porting to smooth-out the flow.

And it looks like your valve cover bolts are backed-out. Have you removed one yet? If so, did the injectors end-up needing to come out first?

 

No way the covers will pull up without damaging the injectors, waiting for the tool it will take 3 weeks to get . Amazon version.

Blowing was the best way, suction would be good for walnut blasting. With chemicals you need to blow it clean or at the seats the residue will gum back up. The chemical dissolves but if left to evaporate it will leave behind the gum. The air blast will carry as much gum with the chemical. I was using paper towels and that was taking forever as leaving residue at the seats. So I switched to air blasting and gave me better results.

 

I forget but how many miles on the car?

 

Your before and after pictures are pretty much identical to mine. I used brake cleaner, tooth brush, and paper towels. Time consuming but glad to do it. Well done!

 

94k miles.

 

I tried the paper but was taking too long and leaving paper behind. Also the valve seats were still dirty from pooling what I could not pick up. Air is quicker and cleaner..

 

Thanks very much for going to the trouble of the helpful pics, Ricardo.
But if the head bolts can't be accessed without pulling the cam shafts from the head, it's not worth it to check head bolts being tight - may as well go ahead & pull the heads anyway if the cams have to come out.

 

These engines are notorious for the intake valves being covered in carbon. Fuel injection cleaner helps. About the only 2 that I have personally seen work are Chevron Techron and the factory VW cleaner. @ricardoa1, those valves do look pretty clean. Nice job. And to answer you s/c question, no, the dowel pins just love to get seized in the holes. Corrosion from the dissimilar metals.

 

how exactly did you break them? I can't really tell on these pictures what broke?

 

You need to remove the injectors to lift the valve covers. You need a special tool. Lifting the valve covers with the injectors on place will damage the covers.

 

Jagman92 with a DI engine none of those cleaners will work unless your spraying them in the intake tract while the engine is running. If putting it in the fuel tank that completely bypasses the intake tract.
We also are lucky because these engine don't carbon up anywhere near as bad as other brands. The absolute worst is Audi with cleaning needed every 20K-50K miles and with a HP loss of 50-100HP! The odd thing is the Land Rovers suffer more from carbon build up compared to Jaguar? Maybe just a lot more Range Rovers out there.

Nice job on the cleaning. Everything looks great. With the car back together does it drive any differently?
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For me it’s been trouble free. I only did it cause the SC and components came to do the tensioners and SC coupler. I also did the injectors and cleaned the carbon build up. It’s gotta be worth a few ponies to clean these valves.

 

I need to clean mine, too. If I could find a mobile media blaster in Atlanta, I'd prefer to pay someone, as I know it's long and tedious work (and I'm pretty tired of all of it, at this point). Here're mine at 52K miles. I'm really surprised at their condition, as I sprayed CRC pretty frequently prior to oil changes. If it actually worked, which is now extremely doubtful, I'd hate to see them if I never used it.

 

That's about how mine looked at around 118k miles.

 

Were those oil changes at the Jaguar dealership? Or another shop, or yourself?
And if not the dealership, what oil and how often?

I've used the Seafoam intake cleaner on my wife's XJ, but haven't had the intake manifold off yet.
I did pull the manifold on my 2012 Range Rover (same engine - 5.0L NA) a couple years ago and it didn't look too bad, although I did clean the valves off a bit while there.

 

Thanks for the pictures! Glad to see some real world data on these intake cleaner products. You just can't tell if they work without pictures of the valves. I have not run anything yet but would if we find a brand that does any cleaning?
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