I am from Manila Philippines and I have finished my clean phase. I am currently in my 200 km of rinse phase. My car is Mitsubishi Lancer GLX 2000 - 4g15 SOHC Carb engine with manual transmission f5m41.
First off, my engine wasn't sludged nor was it heavily varnished. There was this golden color similar to fresh cooking on the walls of the cylinder head, rockers, and cam. I really envied those high mileage cylinder heads and still have their natural gray metal color w/o any sort of golden oil deposit - that is with their engine not being dismantled for any sort of maintenance. To cut things short, I wa just after removing the discoloration - that's it. To me (based from the looks alone) my engine is still still clean and not sludged nor varnished.
Since 2000 when the car was bought first hand, maintenance was dealer based and engine oil is the mitsubishi oem fully synthetic Turbo XP 20w50 (rated for both diesel and gas). The car was not fully used until year 2004 when I began working. From 2000 to 2004, the car was loyal to the recommended 5,000 km oci. 2004 until the ARX treatment, the car was undergoing 10,000 km oci, which was also dealer based. During the 5,000k oci, car was near perfect - oil change without much of oil darkening. During the 10,000 km oci, I experienced something different and not good. One thing very noticeable was that the oil darkens quite abruptly after the first 5,000 km. Others followed, erratic idling, high fuel consumption, sluggish acceleration at high rpm's. Car was only city driven to and from work and occasional provincial trips. No races nor tracking.
It was in 2007 when I began to dwell into self maintenance of the car due to high labor costs and my "kinda" pessimistic attitude towards having someone else do my car. That was when I realized that I do not like what I see in my cylinder head. Again, it wasn't sludged nor heavily varnished - it was like fresh cooking oil in the grocery. At that stage I was experiencing sputtering at high rpm's w/ and w/o a/c. I rebuilt my carb, changed my fuel filter (fuel pump was still perfect), changed plugs, dizzy cap, rotor (ignition coil resistance was still perfect), htw, auxiliary belts, timing belt, water pump, idler bearing, and clutch. All those done and no success - still sputtering around 4k rpm. Btw, my redline begins at 6,5k.
I was introduced to ARX from a local board. I researched and read and found that ARX won't do harm since it wasn't petroleum based. I got the product along with Shell Helix 10w40. Coming from a 50 weight oil, it was very noticeable that I can reach higher rpm's faster. Frankly, I wasn't convinced that this is an ARX effect because of the oil weight. After a few hundred km's there was still sputtering until a few hunder km's more before my clean phase when I noticed that I can now go beyond 4k w/o airconditioning and not sputter. There was still occasional sputtering w/ airconditioning on.
When I drained my oil for the rinse phase, I noticed nothing different from the oil that came out - black. What caught my attention was the oil filter. The oil inside was quite thick and darker than the one I was able to get from the oil pan. I can't remember any point before in my previous oil changes this kind of used oil consistency inside the filter. BTW, I was using vic oil filter C-415. It wasn't sludge, but was thicker than those which i usually get.
Now the clean phase, so far, I haven't felt any sputtering yet w/ and w/o airconditioning - that was until 4k rpm (before still w/o airconditioning at 4k and car was sputtering). As of this moment, I haven't opened my cylinder head yet - no tappet clearance adjustments (I did it prior to the clean phase). I only opened the oil filler cap. I'll be opening the valve cover after the rinse phase.
I still haven't reached my primary goal of having a zero discoloration head with all natural metal color. I think this is really far far away still or nearly impossible unless I really do manual cleaning, but I am still hoping for results from ARX to achieve this. NEVERTHELESS, I got something different and unexpected - I am loosing (still in the process) the sputtering problem little by little! Believe me, I am excited to get to 5,000k and take off my oil filter again.
Even at this point, I am sure I will be going for another cycle of clean and rinse. I never realized how dirty my engine was in the unseen areas.
Thank You for sharing a most complete report of your experiences and results from using Auto-Rx. We will be looking for your next installment. You have an excellent dealer in the Phillipines Frank Miller Inventor
-- Edited by Frank Miller on Friday 22nd of May 2009 07:26:36 AM
I would recommend that he stay with the 10w40 oil and a 4 fluid ounce maintenance dose to get rid of all of the coloring on the valve train. He is only a short distance into the rinse now.
Carbed motors run much richer than fuel injected motors. Ring cleansing from the initial cleaning dose should help prevent fuel dilution issues in the future. I think the 4 ounce maintenance dose with a couple of 5000 KM oil change intervals will take care of the rest of the slight varnish.
Thank You for sharing a most complete report of your experiences and results from using Auto-Rx. We will be looking for your next installment. You have an excellent dealer in the Phillipines Frank Miller Inventor
-- Edited by Frank Miller on Friday 22nd of May 2009 07:26:36 AM
yup, sammy has been a very good dealer and i learned a lot from him as well.
Frank Miller wrote:
I would recommend that he stay with the 10w40 oil and a 4 fluid ounce maintenance dose to get rid of all of the coloring on the valve train. He is only a short distance into the rinse now.
Carbed motors run much richer than fuel injected motors. Ring cleansing from the initial cleaning dose should help prevent fuel dilution issues in the future. I think the 4 ounce maintenance dose with a couple of 5000 KM oil change intervals will take care of the rest of the slight varnish.
Rich 1
will it be too much or will there be a bad effect if a full clean/rinse phase will be performed "henceforth" instead of a maintenance dose?
-- Edited by spyghost on Friday 22nd of May 2009 07:11:55 PM
-- Edited by spyghost on Friday 22nd of May 2009 07:12:51 PM
If you hang in long enough, you should get the results you seek ..at least for the most part.
Look along the left edge of this head. Note the clean areas.
Here's the same head disassembled and cleaned up with solvent. Notice what's spotless ..and what is not. The solvent did not remove what was not degraded by Auto-Rx. It could not remove it. Given more dwell time, Auto-Rx would have cleaned the rest of the head the same way.
-- Edited by geeaea on Friday 22nd of May 2009 07:54:31 PM
-- Edited by geeaea on Friday 22nd of May 2009 07:55:34 PM
i haven't taken a picture of my cylinder head yet. but from what you have posted, (modesty aside) mine is cleaner than that. however, its no way near your second post.
its like, show a more metal in your first post and remove the orange color. mine is like fresh cooking oil.
anyway, i'll take a pic of mine sometime at any point in my clean phase. btw, i am around 800km in my clean phase :P
That was a 92 Mitsubish 3.0 head @ 16 years of usage and somewhere around 175k miles. Actually it wasn't too bad considering. The main factor will be time at temperature. To get the level of cleaning you desire, it might take several treatments just to assure that the incidental areas that see infrequent or lower levels of flow (note the "streams") get the proper level of exposure to the product. At that point you're purely looking for cosmetic improvements
I think that you might be able to do it with the maintenance dose after a cleaning or two.
-- Edited by geeaea on Saturday 23rd of May 2009 11:25:54 PM
this is not my engine, but this is how i wanted mine to look like, but cleaner (since this has some discoloration). what i mean is "all metal color" everywhere
I'm not sure if this can be achieved in all engines. Much depends on how porous the metal is. I'm not a chemist, but I've seen stainless steel permanently stained (industrial operations) and nothing short of grinding would remove it. So, it's hard to say.
i am hoping that this can be achieved in mine because i have the same head in my car. its just that my rockers are manually adjust and intake is carb (no injectors). the one i posted above is hydraulic lash and efi (with injectors).
