Manually closing intake valves (carbon cleaning)

[Brandon.august]

Walnut blasting my 2015 S3 intake valves this weekend. Curious what method you guys have used to open and close the valves.

Seems like my options are manually turning the crank or using a remote starter switch. I’d like to go option two, but wondering how to best access the starter for this method. Is it at the back of the engine, under the turbo? Lastly, does the battery need to be unplugged when doing this? Last time I took off the manifold, I had the battery unplugged throughout the process.

[S3_Miles]

Walnut blasting my 2015 S3 intake valves this weekend. Curious what method you guys have used to open and close the valves.

Seems like my options are manually turning the crank or using a remote starter switch. I’d like to go option two, but wondering how to best access the starter for this method. Is it at the back of the engine, under the turbo? Lastly, does the battery need to be unplugged when doing this? Last time I took off the manifold, I had the battery unplugged throughout the process.

Curious - How many miles are on yours? My 2015 S3 has 40k. Wondering if I should proactively do this? Car seems to be running fine..and I always use the best gas I can find but still

[Brandon.august]

Curious - How many miles are on yours? My 2015 S3 has 40k. Wondering if I should proactively do this? Car seems to be running fine..and I always use the best gas I can find but still

75k. When I was in there last weekend, it was a mess. I would suggest doing it proactively, and apparently using the best gas/fuel additives won’t prevent the problem.

[bakedcorn]

...

[Spinnetti]

Type of gas is irrelevant as the gas never even passes through the intake. Its oil blow-by the accumulates on the valves. I probably need to do this too as I'm at 81K and doubt its ever been done. Personally, I'll just turn the crank to close the valves. Do you use a regular sand blaster and a vacuum cleaner to keep the stuff from getting all over or?

[aaronc7]

Yep, no way around it since its from oily crankcase gasses and combustion byproducts during valve overlap during certain operating conditions.

I've seen this done with walnut blasting or with bronze brushes by hand or hooked up to a drill etc.

I've seen B-12 chem tool work well to softening the carbon... seafoam also works pretty well. Might be some better products now.

Walnut blasting seems to depend on how good of a setup you can rig up. I've seen some neat 3d printed adapters made on some other platforms to make it easy.

I've always just turned the crank by hand. Easy to do with the plugs out and gives you a lot of control to make sure valves are sealed up on the cylinder you're working on.

[theweebabyseamus]

Yep, no way around it since its from oily crankcase gasses and combustion byproducts during valve overlap during certain operating conditions.

I've seen this done with walnut blasting or with bronze brushes by hand or hooked up to a drill etc.

I've seen B-12 chem tool work well to softening the carbon... seafoam also works pretty well. Might be some better products now.

Walnut blasting seems to depend on how good of a setup you can rig up. I've seen some neat 3d printed adapters made on some other platforms to make it easy.

I've always just turned the crank by hand. Easy to do with the plugs out and gives you a lot of control to make sure valves are sealed up on the cylinder you're working on.

Well, port injection

[soulflyer]

Had it done by my Audi Dealer in 2016 after 50k miles on my 2015 S3.
Before


after



Unfortunately I don't know how they operated the crank...

[Brandon.august]

Yep, no way around it since its from oily crankcase gasses and combustion byproducts during valve overlap during certain operating conditions.

I've seen this done with walnut blasting or with bronze brushes by hand or hooked up to a drill etc.

I've seen B-12 chem tool work well to softening the carbon... seafoam also works pretty well. Might be some better products now.

Walnut blasting seems to depend on how good of a setup you can rig up. I've seen some neat 3d printed adapters made on some other platforms to make it easy.

I've always just turned the crank by hand. Easy to do with the plugs out and gives you a lot of control to make sure valves are sealed up on the cylinder you're working on.

Do you need to remove the tire to get access to the crank, or can you do it from the top? Any specific tool? I read somewhere that someone just pulled the alternator belt to turn it but I'm not sure how possible that is.

[aaronc7]

I haven't done it on this car so I can't say for certain, you may need to pull the passenger tire off and maybe pull back the liner a bit.

On my other car you can actually turn over the engine just fine using the alternator bolt (with the spark plugs removed of course)..Worth a shot and go for whatever is easiest for you.

[gman1275]

Hello Brandon. Did you do the cleaning yet? BTW, were you able to view the valves before any cleaning? I have a one of those endoscopic mini cameras and was wondering if it's possible to snake it and view the valves. I just don't know where to start.

[slick99]

Hello Brandon. Did you do the cleaning yet? BTW, were you able to view the valves before any cleaning? I have a one of those endoscopic mini cameras and was wondering if it's possible to snake it and view the valves. I just don't know where to start.

i think to view the valves is from removing spark plugs and see thru the holes by those endospic camera.

[S3NICK]

Mine was also in need of cleaning @ 68k. Not pretty! No real solution aside from adding port injection, right? I was told catch cans don't work on this platform. Is that true?

Open to solutions that would slow down the buildup. On B7 RS4's, one loses ~25whp.

Dirty:



Clean: