You should not be sanding (or gapping) your spark plugs, they use platinum or iridium tips and you don't want to mess them up or loosen up those little pieces. They're not like your old copper plugs and they've come down in price, so if they're glazed or carbon'd up, just replace them.

 

Indeed... someone needs a new set of plugs.

 

I just hit them enough to get the carbon off, no further. The plugs only have 3k on them so I wasn't about to replace them just yet. They are required to be gapped, however as per several of my friends who are BMW techs including one master tech. When I was running the brisk plugs, a few thousandths made all the difference between a smooth idle, good performance, or somewhere in between. They always sucked, no matter what. If it ran well at high rpm, it stalled at idle. If it idles smooth, it was sluggish as hell. The iridums call for. 032 or. 035, I can't remember which off the top of my head, but it is important to note that for high performance driving, general rule of thumb is to gap a Tad less. I measured the gap out of the box at. 047 -.051 so not gapping would be poor practice IMO

 

plugs dont cost that much anyway. I pay around $6-$8 a piece.

 

Since I own an '09 MC and an '11 MCS I am following this Thread closely

I don't know if our local Dealerships have the walnut shell cleaner but I will find out!

 

My car had 40k miles in the first cleaning (OP) and now it is at 57k miles. For the last couple months my car has been stumbling and running rough, especially in the morning. It was running very much like when the HPFP was going out, so I thought maybe it is going out again. I tried changing the plugs but that didn’t make any improvement. So I figured maybe it needed another scrubbing by hand with SeaFoam. Well I was right…..the pictures tell the whole story. But the results are fantastic, it now runs like it is brand new. Because it slowly gets worse every day you just don’t notice the performance reduction day to day. Your boost gauge may be reading full boost but it is not flowing past the valves with all that gunk on them. The performance improvement is huge….I got all the wheel spin back that had slowly faded away.

Hoopty

 

More Pics......

 

Couple More Pics.......

 

Hey guys... not sure what is going on with my Mini. I decided to Seafoam it today, as I do every few thousand miles, and I noticed there really wasn't that much smoke coming out of the exhaust. Then when I moved the car I noticed a big puddle of seafoam was on the floor, telling me that it leaked out when I put it through the pvc hose... Seems like bad news, although the car seems to be running pretty normally

 

It probably leaked out before getting into the motor. Although sometimes you do not get a lot of smoke.
If you use this feeder bottle you will not have that problem. It lasts forever and is very easy to use and then you do not have the risk of hydrolocking your engine by pouring too much in at once. http://trimaxx2000.com/feederbottle.aspx

 

For those of you not familiar of how an internal combustion engine operates, just have a think how fast your engine idles, 800rpm and so how much time do you think your cleaning additive agent (Seafoam) in this case, actually spends in contact with your carbon deposit, on the back of your inlet valves ?

Seafoam or any cleaning additive does absolutely NOTHING, at removing the burn't on carbon deposit, on your inlet valves, whilst being drip fed into your engines intake, whilst it is running!

 

I used a tube to feed the Seafoam in, seems like it would work similarly to what you suggestion.

If it did leak out that seems like a big problem to me. This is the third time i've done this and it never leaked out. I'm really thinking there is a vacuum leak or a leak in the intake manifold. Does anybody have any suggestions how I can go about diagnosing this? The car seems pretty normal to drive, nothing out of the ordinary even when I floor it, and I'm usually very sensitive to any small noises, etc with the car. I have a Scanguage, if there are any measurements I should look at.

 

You probably do not have a vacuum leak. You should try and do it again and watch carefully how you hook it all up. Unlike pouring liquid, The Trimaxx feeder bottle atomizes and aerates the cleaner into a mist that more readily penetrates and coats the intake manifold and valves. You may want to try spraying the aerosol Seafoam or another brand fuel injection cleaner instead of pouring.

 

Okay! Thanks for the suggestion.

I did it again recently and no more leaking... Has me pretty confused, but I think I might have not had the vacuum hose on all the way, or something to that effect.

 

subscribed

 

For any that want to do walnut shell blast yourself:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ss-3-27-13.pdf

 

Thanks for the nice write up!

 

Just an update, the cold climate version intakes used further in this thread went NLA from MINI a while back. But we were able to get it made in the aftermarket version. So this will make it easier for conversion/port cleaning and for people in colder climates with ice on the throttle body valve.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-bremmen-...614584240~brp/

 

ECSTuning,
You have a typo in the description:Cold Climate version for ice build in throttle body issues due to very cold temperatures. The GENEUINE MINI Part is no longer available 11614584240. This is the only solution!

 

I can't say have used Seafoam to be a true yea or nay-sayer.
I do tend to agree with this statement and am more inclined to worry about messing things up with combustion deficient liquids.

Probably best way to do a real carbon cleanup for those savvy enough to open things up!

 

TECHRON....has PEA....its safe and effective

 

I've used Techron in the past. Hard to say how effective it actually is. It is quite safe in the sense that it has a negligible impact on combustion and is running with the fuel. How much does it make a difference. No clue. One would have to do some long term testing...

 

I can install this version and then run cleaner every so often, i just carbon cleaned my valves.

Also those people up in Canada, Norway, and Sweden complained of the sticking throttle body. We even had some people/ MINI dealers in Minnesota/ Michigan that kept calling us about these after it went NLA from MINI.