Before N18

After N18

 

Did you do it yourself?

 

Nope, got it done at helix in Philadelphia. Really good service. They helped with a radiator hose bracket that broke off too.

 

The bigger question was did it notably improve car performance?

 

No not really. At low rpm I would be very surprised if it would improve performance. I think that maybe there would be minor difference at high rpm but I cant feal it. I had it done because im pretty sure the previous owner of the car never did and I worry about extra wear on the valves over time. When I think about it its kind of like a slightly more restrictive intake when it is dirty so would expect to only see a different at high rpm. If the engine tuning is stupid enough then I suppose it could effect starting, kind of like having a choke on too tight but I dont notice any start up difference. Then again it was 85-90 here today so I probably wouldent. I plan to hold onto the car for a while so im hopeing that this prevents valve wear. Time will tell.

EDIT: then again this is a turbo so the turbo probably will still build boost the same way and overcome any resistance by just dumping a little bit later. It would certainly explain not feeling much of a difference. Im still happy I had it done and also happy I had the car looked over by people who actually know what they are doing.

 

That was not nearly as gunked up as I've seen on the n14 engines. Is probably why you didn't see a large improvement..

 

Yeah your probably right. At first I thought it looked terrible but even the guy at helix where I had it done said it was not the worst he had seen. Maybe its just less important on an N18 than an N14. Still I would rather not have the junk in there. The car has really really grown on me to the point I may get it repainted. I think I will keep it for a while.

 

I also had this done at Helix in Philly. I had about 70k on when it was done and no real improvement in performance. Probably more placebo than anything else but it was good to have done regardless. I plan to tune so I imagine that it cant not help. Regardless it should be part of regular maintenance for these vehicles and will improve overall performance and reliability.

 

Non turbo doesn't have this issues. All turbo charged mini n14 and n18 have this issues due to direct injection. I would say you did it too early. See picute of my valves at 113k. Some cars just stalling at idle cause valves doesnt seal well enough because of build up. Mine was running ok tith this much build up.
PS thx for posting!

Before
After

 

I agree that yours aren't that dirty compared to mine and to the TimBaleia's. They even look dry, which is the most important point

Mine looked similar as in picture above :D

 

I wonder if its really an issue of build up from excess EGR valve re circulation and the direct injectors due to inside the cylinder location cant spritz the fuel on it to clean it off.

 

That's exactly the reason. Cars with direct injection and aftermarket meth injection aren't prone to this issue.

 

Thats a fairly bad design flaw to direct injection. It would also seem stopping egr would be a solution or maybe just filtering it somehow? But I would imagine that would mess with the engine computer if stopped completely. They should have one extra fuel injector like the port or manifold injectors on the older engines, all they would need is one extra to occasionally spritz and it would solve this. I suppose aftermarket meth like you said works but perhaps a bigger turbo and extra external injectors to fuel it would also work. Anyway im sure by now someone has though of this at a car maker level and is fixing it. Maybe the new engines comming out wont have this issue.

 

Absolutely agree. They assume our cars are maintained well, and ... this is another "service" point, which is the biggest part of car manufacturer revenues.

I have e92 with big turbo setup (Garrett GTW3684), and meth kit saves my intake valves. Even when I am not racing, I let DME spritz a bit of meth just to maintain stuff clean.

There's no fix to this obviously, unless DI is changed back to ported design.

 

So the whole topic was so interesting I did some searching this AM. It turns out ford and VW both have engines that are both port and direct injection although apparently the VW ones are kept to europe and are more of an emissions thing. Ford seems to be gradually fazing it into all there new engines (next V8 coyote, 3.5 and 2.7):
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...report-claims/

see second gen ecoboost section:
https://media.ford.com/content/fordm...ter-boost.html

http://fordauthority.com/2016/12/sources-say-ford-f-150s-4-8l-v8-to-feature-dual-injection-replace-5-0l-coyote/

Im hoping BMW will decide to do the same at some point. Im sure GM will do the same thing to compete with ford, not that this helps mini owners.

 

Sounds nice, but it's a huge failure point. You need a very precise sync of air, fuel and another fuel :D :D Probably will require dedicated pre-cat CO2 and knock sensor per cylinder to make this manageable.

With my tune, the *scary* thing is to have AFR go super lean if meth stops for any reason during WOT above 25 PSI... Melted pistons will be the least damage

I suppose modern engineering is able to solve the issue, but it makes our engines even more complicated. Electric wheels seems to be the only solution ))

 

Looks like toyota has both port and direct in one engine too now:
http://blog.caranddriver.com/explain...ect-injection/