Engine carbon Cleaning review

[cavaian]

Hope this is in the right place, not sure where else to put it!

 

So the other day I had tried an Engine carbon Clean from a mobile rep from this company: https://www.facebook.com/F5ECC/timeline

on my Mk2 07 Octavia Vrs PD.

 

Its covered 120k+ miles and as all the early BMN engine, DPF cars did, suffers from various carbon build up problems, mainly EGR valve, Anti shudder valve, intake manifold flaps etc.

 

I'd seen reviews for this on the internet and decided to give it a try.

 

It was simple to get started as the guy just puts a pipe into the intake pipe, just after the airflow meter and starts to put the hydrogen mix through. I'm not sure how it gets rid of the carbon, whether it's a reaction or it burns it through, but after not too long all the crap from the engine was coming out of the exhaust.

 

About 40 mins later it was finished. On tickover alone I could hear the difference between before and after and after a quick blast to "fully clear it out" I came back most impressed.

 

Immediately after I had a 170 mile journey to make and got a little time to run it through its paces.

 

Tickover is quieter and smoother. less blips etc.

Takeoff Is easier as is the way it revs and pulls through the gears.

There is definitely more power than it had before - not an increase like a remap, but after 120k miles I know it'd lost some

DPF is regening less often. not sure if this is down to the DPF itself being cleaner or the engine EGR etc letting less rubbish through.

Engine noise when driving seems quieter, especially the turbo whine. I know the turbo vanes on these engine can seize up so maybe it's free'd these off too??

Mpg is better. I've done 350 miles so far and my average is showing 5mpg better. My daily commute is 4mpg up with a massive headwind today.

 

Anyway, the net result is it feels great. It reminds me why we bought it in the first place.

 

Well worth the money IMHO

 

If only I'd done this 2 months ago, i might not have ordered the mk3!! lol

 

Edited 9 November, 2015 by cavaian

[XLBaconDoubleCheese]

Interesting, I keep seeing these adverts popping up on facebook, good to hear a real review. 

[Breezy_Pete]

It appears that this treatment can potentially halve the CO₂ emissions of your car (red bars in the middle graph). That is literally incredible.

If they really wanted to show that this worked, wouldn't it be awesome to use a borescope to take some video going down through the intake system before and after a treatment? Is this shown anywhere in their marketing material?

[Aspman]

Can't find anything independent about hydrogen treatment.

 

Screams 'snake-oil' to me tbh.

 

Hydrogen (H2) doesn't react with elemental carbon (chunks of soot etc) except at very high temperatures or in the presence of a catalyst.

 

Sticking hydrogen in an engine + 02 the Hydrogen will burn with Oxygen but that won't actually do anything for the Carbon other than maybe shock it off or maybe react at the edges. Won't do your engine any good if it's not tuned for it. Hydrogen burns at 3200C with O2 which is enough to react with Carbon but also enough to melt your engine alloys.

[Kenny R]

 

Screams 'snake-oil' to me tbh.

Me too

[cavaian]

I don't know how it works or understand the science, nor do i care to be honest. 

I just know that on Saturday morning my car drove one way, £80 later (as it was part of a multi car deal) it drove another.

 

I shared it because 1, it worked and 2, it was cheaper than any alternatives - I was eying up one of these before trying this instead.

 

I had a look through the facebook side and there is some pictures of before and after components and loads of happy results and though its worth a shot.

 

5 cars were done on the day (most of them where Audi A5's from the A5OC forum), All of the guys were happy with the result.

 

just seen this posted yesterday with before and after dyno results on the A5OC:

 

Ok so today I met up with Cuppa and Den at Surrey Rolling Roads to test out the clean on my S5 (56.3k miles) so that I could prove to myself that it was worth the money!

In short.. we did just that.

Throughout the entire process the car did not move today. It was strapped down to the dyno for the before run, then cleaned on the dyno and then had the after run. This meant no variance due to changing the strap tension or anything like that. Room was temperature controlled also.

First run:

Apparently these cars never hit the figures they say they can! Excuse the picture but my phone didn't like capturing the screen as per usual.

After the run we did the clean:

As can be seen in the image, the car did not move off the dyno 

and here we are with the final figures:


+21bhp
+20ft-lb across the range
Engine is significantly quieter as other mentioned but still sounds epic under load
The pull is alot smoother across the whole range whereas before it pulled noticeably harder after 3k revs

I am very happy with the overall results, my aim was to prove it worked so that I could turn it into a yearly maintenance cost rather than £700 or so to have the head stripped off every 40k miles.

Hopefully this will entice the others on here also that were unsure beforehand as the dyno proves without a doubt that the cleaning makes a big difference!

Edited 10 November, 2015 by cavaian

[Breezy_Pete]

I don't know how it works or understand the science, nor do i care to be honest.  ...

Perfect customer for this sort of thing then.

[kidology]

Thats a good share, and facts about this cleaning system. Hard evidence that it does work and cost effective also. Must be worth it for the fuel saved and performance gained.

[cavaian]

Perfect customer for this sort of thing then.

Not sure if this is a dig or not Wino?

 

What I meant was, they are hardly likely to tell all that happens as other companies could just do the same.

 

I don't know how many things are made, produced, setup, distributed etc but I'm happy to use them, I sure we're all the same.

And it's the same with this. I wouldn't have been the first guinea pig to try it, but now I can see lots of others who have tried it and had good results, without anything going wrong, then why not?

[Breezy_Pete]

A dig at the snake oil really, not you.

[Aspman]

Not saying it's not true, just pointing out a lack of evidence.

 

I'm a cynic by nature and know enough about chemistry question the sales pitch.

 

Would be happy to read independent verification of the technology, I just don't see any.

All I can see are people selling the service, selling franchises or selling the machines that generate the H2. That's usually a pretty solid sign of snake oil.

Edited 10 November, 2015 by Aspman

[Ootohere]

Lots of Big Ups from happy customers. But have a little search at some of the disasters that have happened with Franchised Operators. They is a beaut show the standard of one Dealers workshop, it being a disaster area should have had customers run a mile. They were having to walk the day after anyway.

Edited 10 November, 2015 by goneoffSKion1

[theezenutz]

Isn't this stuff similar to terraclean that was featured on wheeler dealers a while ago?

http://www.terraclean.co.uk/

[cavaian]

Isn't this stuff similar to terraclean that was featured on wheeler dealers a while ago?

http://www.terraclean.co.uk/

Similar. from what I checked out beforehand, Terraclean is a fuel additive system and this one goes into the air intake.

 

I chose this one as it was cheaper, I'd seen loads of good feed back (I can't find the disaster stories goneoffSkion1) and I really wanted the intake manifold/EGR and anti shudder valve cleaned through and I wasn't sure how something introduced through the fuel, further down the line could do it.

[langers2k]

It won't have helped with the intake manifold, from: http://www.hho.rs/products/usluga-ciscenje-motora-carbon-cleaning
 

[it will] clean the carbon deposits inside the engine. Revolutionary system which in 45 min. remove the deposits on the valves, cylinder wall, piston forehead, spark plugs, injectors, rings, sensors and partly EGR valve, catalytic converter, DPF filter.

When hydrogen (H2) enters the compression chamber via intake manifold, without pressure, in petrol or diesel engine, temperature in engine causes that hydrogen molecules (H2) "tear up" the hydrogen protons (2H +). Active H + reacts with the carbon, deposits and the oxide precipitate substances in the engine. Carbon and sludge is chemically transforming into hydrocarbon (HC) in the gaseous state and throws it out of the engine through the exhaust system. After treatment, there is no need to change engine oil and filter.

 

A couple of my chemist friends suggest that the hydrogen is much more likely to react with the oxygen than the carbon which make the above method of action unlikely.

 

If it does do anything, it might be due to the shock wave or from the steam produced from the hydrogen burning.

[Aspman]

I actually found a few papers.

 

I'm guessing this is a ******isation of a process that was developed for cleaning the walls of chemical reaction vessels.

 

Hydrogen seems to actually cause the problem there and O2 has been trialed for removing the deposits.

 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022311513005023

 

But is seems to be the oxygen that does the work here and there are lot of of other bits of science going on too (radio induction of Oxygen ions). Not just pump in H2 and O2 then set fire to them.

[theezenutz]

I think terra clean also cleans the egr valve ect. I wouldn't have thought it made to much difference whether it was introduced into the airbox or fuel system, as both parts will need to combine at some point to complete the combustion process. Not that I'm advocating one over the other its just when I saw your thread it instantly reminded me of terra clean.

As wino said the only way to truly tell would to use a borescope or to have the engine stripped down but to be honest if you think that your car is running better the that's all the matters, it's your money after all.

[cavaian]

Its getting a bit technical for me above lol, but your right ezenutz, it 100% is running better and I'm happy with it.

 

Need to get the A5 done next...

[seboni121]

I use the bg244 system , open can pour into fuel tank just before filling and drive away takes a few minutes and £20

[Chorlton]

Adding hydrogen to gasoline and diesel fuels has been looked at for years to reduce emissions and/or improve efficiency.  Usually some sort of onboard production of hydrogen by electrolysis is used and about 1% hydrogen (by volume of intake air) is added.

 

Hydrogen gives a faster flamefront, which means a cleaner and more thermally efficient burn (more complete combustion).  This can mean less hydrocarbon emissions but can cause a rise in NOx emissions due to the higher combustions temperatures.  There's some increase in engine power, but this is usually taken by the increased load on the alternator to drive the electrolysis.

 

What F5 Engine Clean seem to be doing is attaching such a system to your car for a very small amount of time.  I don't know what % hydrogen they are adding and for how long but I suppose the increased temperatures or more violent combustion might burn off or dislodge carbon deposits from certain parts of the engine.  

 

 

http://omicron.ch.tuiasi.ro/EEMJ/pdfs/vol14/no3/full/22_736_Karagoz_13.pdf

[Jono]

Engine Carbon Cleaning deleted my comments and banned me from their facebook pages when I asked for actual evidence of their treatment's efficacy.

They spammed testimonials and anecdotes but couldn't provide any actual rigorous research to demonstrate their claims to be true,

 

They state that they introduce extra oxygen, but refuse to say how much or what % they aim for.

 

Silencing an inquiring skeptic makes it stink of quackery to me!

Edited 7 August, 2016 by Jono

[Jono]

Incidentally, if you believe their claims to be misleading, it takes 5 minutes to complain to the ASA.

 

Facebook adverts and claims on their website break the rules.

 

https://www.asa.org.uk/Consumers/How-to-complain.aspx

[Paulbrown]

Why all the haters?!?

If your happy and you think it's worked then fair play mate!

Loads of people will spend money on products and services that others will call a waste of time and money.

If it's helped and your happy it's your money spend it how ever you want.

Really pleased it's worked and your happy

I also like the fact you have taken the time to write a review of your experience

[Breezy_Pete]

Unless it really is their care for customers' cars and the environment that is of paramount importance to them, they don't seem to be excelling as a business.  Check the bottom of the page which the first result from google yields.

[punyXpress]

Back in the day, used to decoke my ( 2-stroke ) scooter exhaust with an acetylene cutting torch.

Remove silencer.

Insert lit torch.

When carbon glows, feed more oxygen

Watch fireworks and when the smoke dies out, switch off.

Leave a long time to cool and then reassemble.

Worked for me!