Injector Cleaner

[101RRS]

Whether the engine be a diesel or petrol, injector cleaner is touted as being a solution to assist in the maintenance of fuel injectors. I am quite a bit skeptical about the claims, firstly because diesel and petrol are essentially solvents and are often in themselves used as cleaners. Also 500ml of injector cleaner in 100litres of fuel only once every 10,000km or 6 months does not seem to be enough to actually make any difference.

So does anyone have any actual evidence that it works? For sure many people use it and not have issues, but equally many people like me have never used it and never had issues even at high Kms.

So interested in thoughts based on evidence rather than anecdotes.

Garry

[BradC]

So does anyone have any actual evidence that it works? For sure many people use it and not have issues, but equally many people like me have never used it and never had issues even at high Kms.

So interested in thoughts based on evidence rather than anecdotes.

A few years ago I did some experiments with Redline SI-1 for petrol injectors. I grabbed a set of Bosch K-jetronic injectors that had about 400,000km on them and popped them in a beaker of Shellite. I put the beaker in an ultrasonic cleaner and gave it a good 15 minutes. SFA came off or out. As a bit of a "what the hell" test I dropped some un-diluted SI-1 into the beaker. Within 10 minutes I was watching "deposits" falling off the injectors and sinking to the bottom of the beaker.

Now, in the process of cleaning the injectors I destroyed them (damaged the pintles and scored the seats) but I was blown away by the effectiveness of the SI-1 in cleaning the exterior of the injectors with no agitation or physical interaction. Same stuff in Techron.

As for Diesel? Dunno.

[PerthDisco]

A previous analysis determined that kerosene was the most common element in typical fuel additive/ cleaner products.

[BradC]

A previous analysis determined that kerosene was the most common element in typical fuel additive/ cleaner products.

I've tried Kero, Shellite (basically really nicely refined petrol), Toluene, Xylene, Ethanol, Methanol, Isopropanol, Chloroform, Methylene Chloride (Di-chloromethane), chlorinated brake cleaner (a witches brew of Chlorinated cleaners) and Lacquer thinner (a witches brew of non-chlorinated cleaners). All of those I have sitting either on the shelf or in the fridge.

The only thing I found that surprised me was the SI-1 (which is a strong Polyetheramine similar to Chevron Techron).

I've been running both CEM CRD Enhancer & FTC Decarboniser in the D3. I certainly noticed a reduction in exhaust soot when "booting it" at night with a cars headlights behind me. Do I notice a difference in day to day running or fuel consumption? No. Will I buy another set of bottles when I come to the end of this lot? Yes. Why? I'm not entirely sure but I figure reduced soot output has to mean things are burning better. On a cost basis, I can entirely recover the cost using fuelwatch and buying the cheaper diesel. I figure if I'm putting in both an injector lubricant and decarboniser I can afford to buy the cheaper stuff and I'm still ahead.

Have I noticed any change in Injector balance, noise or anything else? Not really no.

So on a petrol donk I'd happily use any cleaner that contained a decent whack of Polyetheramine (and I have a few bottles of SI-1 left) because I've actually watched it move deposits nothing else did. On a diesel, I haven't really found anything that'd make a difference other than (I assume) the FTC Decarboniser. So not an injector cleaner, but it absolutely does something. Just don't really know how it reduces the soot clouds.