GS300/IS250 Intake Valve Carbon Cleaning. 

Good job. Next time I’m gonna try BG’s carbon cleaning that supposedly can remove carbon on piston rings. My vacuum was pretty powerful to remove the liquid with 3/8” clear hose as you can the liquid getting sucked out and rest were burned off by driving (hence the white smoke coming out for few minutes). Using a zip tie with drill is interesting idea, though you have to be careful not to let that somehow break and fall into piston chamber which could be tricky to retrieve. I do have air compressor but when you stick an air hose through the hole, not sure how much liquid could actually come out but that could be interesting method to further loosen the carbon after soaking. Thanks for the feedback

OMG I did the same with the zip ties + drill, it worked incredibly better than the rifle barrel brushes (yeah, those are gun brushes but they works just as well lol), and you do have to drill that soup down for maybe 10mins each hole? But I did start to worry about using those metal brushes, they could bend the pistons if they get jammed. I used the expensive stuff to soak the pistons but I found that the Brake Cleaner does better at removing the carbon buildup than the expensive stuff, just have to let it sit for 24hrs. Also, I didn't have to do the whole stick measuring contest he does in the vid, I could see the valves open/close just fine by shining an LED light down the valve holes :) I do wonder if those common kitchen oven spray cleaners would do a better job at dissolving the carbon... You might find it useful to get yourself an electric Computer duster, the DataVac Dust Blower is badass www.amazon.com/Computer-Powerful-Electronic-Environmentally-Friendly/dp/B01FWSYOME 2008 IS250 RWD - 206K mi.

Thanks!

Great to hear. Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, I bought this because it was a good price (105K miles for $5K nearly 4 years ago). Had I known about this being the GDI, I would've looked for 2007 or above, which have dual injections that cleans intake valves. Other than this, I love the car.

Thanks for the feedback

Thanks for the kind words. :-)

Wow never heard of Mark X, I need to look that up. Such car doesn’t exist in USA. 😀

@@DIYLifeSkills The Toyota Mark X was only sold in Japan....toyota gave the Japanese market a option between the Lexus and Camry....it is the successor to the Toyota Mark 2, has some luxry features but not as much as the Lexus IS 250/350...sadly toyota stop manufacutred them in 2020 siting low sales and a more focus on the lexus brand....but on youtube in many countries aroudn the world you will find Mark X Clubs, i have a first Gen 2008 Modle :)

I watched few mark x videos on RU-vid, and I can see some resemblance of GS300. Pretty interesting to learn these things. :-)

@@DIYLifeSkills i am planning to do this soon to my Toyota Mark X, it has on 140 000 KM plus right now, i got it from Japan with 70,000 KM plus... i have never clean the valves but it runs an works great, i have had that car since 2015

Good quality air filter can certainly help reduce bad particle intake but the biggest issue for GDI cars is the fuel is not sprayed to the intake valves which results in carbon build up.

Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the feedback. :-)

Great. Let me look into that and let me know how that goes. I got 3 more cars to do in coming weeks.

Howd it go?

This is good to do when you have to change spark plugs as some work overlaps. And it’ll be good time to clean the MAF and intake plenum.

@@DIYLifeSkills Mine has 85 k Miles so they'd be the original ones I plan on changing them soon too

@@awesomusmaximus3766 you can wait until 100k miles and do spark plug at the same time

@@DIYLifeSkills I only do 3k miles a year my last oil change interval was only 800 miles it was still clean ha ha I change it every 6 mths

@@awesomusmaximus3766 with hybrid work I also only go to work twice a week, which means I also do 3-5K miles a year on this car, so barely one oil change a year. LOL

Thanks bro.

@@DIYLifeSkills anytime bro!!

Once thick carbon builds and the intake valves can’t open or close fully, engine can misfire, lose power, cause knocking, and give poor mileage and acceleration.

Did attempt it yet? If so, let me know how bad was the carbon build up.

The machine ranges from under 100 to 400. I thought about it but new cars are moving away from GDI style engine so I probably won’t have much use for it. Modern cars now have both direct and port fuel injections, so they don’t build carbon in intake valves like this older engine.

Also you probably only have to do this once or twice in the life of car’s life

You should be ok the 350 line up has port injection. Which washes the valves with fuel to prevent this. If it's idling with slight misfires or shaking. Look into all vacuum lines are tight. If you can rotate vacuum lines by hand. It's mostly getting unmetered air. Also spark plug change should be around every 60k miles. Look in your manual for interval change.

Since 2011 is dual GDI & Port injection, there shouldn't be big carbon build up like me. However, I bet your piston heads are pretty carboned up. Here is how I cleaned the carbon on piston top. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SS8vFbBLIG0.html&ab_channel=DIY%26LifeSkills

I think it’s fine if you don’t live in cold area that can freeze in winter because oil catch can will be mixture of oil and water vapors. If you do it, get the one that’s easy to empty. I live in a Houston so I’m considering it but quite haven’t figured out where I can mount it that’s convenient to access. If I figure it out, I’ll definitely do a video.

@@DIYLifeSkills Thanks for the quick reply! In my country it goes below freezing often and i haven't though about this before. I just got an IS250 and will have to do the a carbon cleaning (Thanks to your vids it wont be hard

Yeah it’s a headache to have oil catch can if if you long winter. I recently bought 2008 IS250 for my son, so eventually that’ll need carbon cleaning as well. I’m just too busy these days but I’ll get to it probably in the fall when I take a vacation. But you have my GS300 video instructions and the things attached to engine are mostly same, but some external parts,wiring harness and hose routing could vary slightly in IS250.

This cleaning is probably needed every 100K miles as it wasn’t as bad as some of the German cars that foul up really bad only after 30K miles. So due to the infrequency, I would probably just do it manually. To invest ~$500 for blaster machine and walnut powders, I would have to have more regular use to justify the spending.

Also, newer cars are moving away from GDI engine to dual (port and direct) injections so such carbon build up problem doesn’t happen. This is for older GDI engines only.

I did mine at about 110K miles. So I think you can do it every 100K miles assuming you change oil on schedule and use good tier one one gas.

Let me see if I kept the receipt that has that.

Main reason for the oil burning is likely worn piston rings. But heavy carbon build up can prematurely wear out the piston rings and intake valves and can accelerate wearing out the piston rings. Also be sure ti change the PCV valve as clogged PCV will not relieve high pressure build up in the crankcase from combustion, and it’ll eventually lead to oil and air leak in internal or external gaskets. Also it can cause more oil to burn.

I would do a compress test on pistons to check the health of combustion chamber and piston health.

How much oil are you losing?

I switched PSV to no avail

Currently, I use 20 W50 engine oil, which is a little less drained

Engine is running great but now it looks like one rear wheel hub bearing is going out so that my next project when whether improves.

I think it was about 110K miles. I still only have 122k miles since I’ve not driven much during pandemic.

@@DIYLifeSkills thank u appreciate it. Going to try the stp valve cleaner 1st take some b4 and after pics of the valves and see if if works if not ill do this.

@@mcp08gt Cleaning as in just spraying through air intake? Or doing the scrubbing like I did? Those carbon was hard baked on and it took poking and scraping to get them to come off the valves and stems. So spraying method may remove some soft deposits but hardened ones will likely requires scraping

@@DIYLifeSkills i havent looked at the valves yet. Waiting on my camera to come in today. To see how bad it is. Hopefully its not too bad and i can just use the spray to clean them up

@@mcp08gt What year and how many miles do you have?

LexusForum says 13 ft/lbs for both upper and lower intake, so that’s what I used.

@@DIYLifeSkills for 2007 lexus is250 ?

My 2006 GS300 and your 2007 IS250 both should be the same 3GR-FSE engine so torque spec should be same.

@@DIYLifeSkills ok Do you know the torque spec for the spark plugs?

This OEM spark plug manual says 15-22 ft/lbs, so I used 19.

Seafoam is great for maintenance if you use it regularly. But heavy baked carbon can only be removed by walnut blasting or manually scraping them off.

Seafoam works on the upper, depending on how bad multiple cans can get rid of it. Too carbon much on the pistons that's a different story.

Yup carbon on oil control piston ring is a whole different story. I’m gonna try some engine flush…though I have no way to verify if it’ll clean some carbon build up on piston rings. LOL

Good point, but Berryman is not flammable

Consider cleaning piston head carbon build up as well. I hav e a separate video on it.

@@DIYLifeSkills will do. And you should be able to use the intake valves as they're coming up from the bottom because thats either compression or exhaust stroke which the intake valve will always be closed right?

@@ballzzinyourmouth8 Yes use a small stick inside the intake hole to see if the stick is stop coming up when you turn the crankcase and that’ll be that will be TDC, meaning intake valves are closed.

@@DIYLifeSkills but aren't they closed before TDC too

@@ballzzinyourmouth8 Yes, there is a slight overlapping time when intake valves are closed as crankcase is rotating, so it's best to get it to TDC. But if you are going to clean piston carbons too like me than it's OK to have some drip to piston head. Just remember that if you get a lot of liquid on piston head, it can cause hyrdolock and seriously damage the engine.

Pretty much all GDI engines have this issue. It’s even worse in German cars.

Yes true! I have gs300,drives ok,but should have bought gs430 or 350 instead.

@@Re1nTs I have same regret. 350 is dual injection so it doesn’t have this carbon build up issue.

Yup it is a lot of work or cost about $1000 to get it done on this car.