jorg said:
hey all,
just wondering if any of you have noticed something similar:
i seem to be getting better gas mileage ( i was getting 10 l / 100km and now
i'm getting around 7.5-8.0 l / 100km, both on highway ) after adding
injector cleaning fluid ...
i'm wondering if that's what made the difference... hmm i'm not a mechanic
really so... the car is a civic 99... just broke 50000km on it..
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Jorg,
That's not too surprising. The injector has to spray an exact amount of
fuel for a few miliseconds, in a certain pattern, like your shower
nozzle in the bath. If it won't open and close smoothly, or if it drips
rather than delivering a perfectly metered blast of fuel, the effeciency
of that cylinder drops off, sometimes worse at the higher revs. Yopu may
have been driving a three-cylinder engine and not known it.
I'm sure there are some GREAT web sites that explain injectors with
graphics.
Gummed up injectors can cause other problems that have been covered in
this group, like finding your engine 'flooded' in the morning, and
needing to hold the gas pedal down to get the engine to fire. The
symptoms would seem to point to a bad main relay, but they aren't at all
temperature related. The actual cause is an injector sticking open when
the engine is shut off, and so the remaining pressure pumps a bunch of
fuel into one cylinder until it's used up. Next morning, if you take the
time to listen to the fuel pump, you'll hear it run for three or four
seconds because it has to pressurize itself much longer than it should
have too.
Other side effects of a sticky injector are oil dilution and excessive
cylinder wear because the rings are getting a bath in gasoline every
night, and the fuel is dripping into the oil sump.
If you're in the right part of Canada, may I suggest using a tank of
ethanol-blend fuel every now and then? I use Mohawk Plus once in a
while, especially if I've been parking in parkades, to help keep
injectors clean, and to prevent gas line icing in winter.
'Curly'
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