MCCC - Mopar Combustion Chamber CleanerMCCC - Mopar Combustion Chamber CleanerThis is a gathering of the various posts on the Talon Digest on how to use MCCC (part # 4318001 or 04318001, available at Dodge/Chrysler dealers) to clean the carbon out of the intake and combustion chambers.
Here are some sites that have FAQs on MCCC use:
Key Note: make sure to change the oil and sparkplugs after doing the MCCC treatment if you spray it into the cylinders to soak. If you have a lot of carbon in the combustion chambers, it will foul the plugs when it breaks loose. Some of the MCCC will leak past the rings and into the oil, so you must change the oil after the soaking treatment!
From Kevin Shimp
After using the Mopar Combustion Chamber Cleaner (MCCC) on my '90 Laser RS Turbo with 95K miles I wanted to send a message on some things to watch out for for those planning on doing this in the future.
First, I used one can of the MCCC thru the PCV hose. With the motor running and the PCV hose disconnected, simply spray the MCCC into the hose. When you first start the car with this hose disconnected, it will want to stall from the huge vacuum leak (you will hear air being sucked into the PCV hose). My brother struggled with the throttle to keep the car running at 1000-1500rpm's, but after a few minutes the car seemed to adjust on its own and idled around 1400 with no throttle. Since the MCCC sprays out in a nice stream it is easy to spray directly into the PCV hose. I was cautious at first and would spray, pause, spray, pause, but eventually just started to spray and emptied the last 3/4 of the can without pausing. Reconnected the PCV hose and was done there.
Next I pulled the wires and plugs and sprayed 1/4 can of the MCCC into each cylinder. I stuffed some paper towels in the sprak plug holes to help keep critters out while I let the car sit a full 24 hours. I could see the crud on top of the pistons before soaking, and after spraying in the MCCC I could see a pool of fluid laying on top of each cylinder. Now came the tricky part. I borrowed my brother's wet-vac and prepared to remove the MCCC.
Getting the crud filled fluid out of the motor was tougher than I expected. I first tried the trick of cranking the motor...this worked slightly, but when I looked into the cylinders I could still see fluid laying in the chamber. No way I was going to put plugs in and try turning it over with fluid laying on the pistons. Eventually I found a small rubber tube with an outside diameter less than 1/2" that would fit all the way down into the cylinder, and used this tube with the shop vac to remove the fluid. I was able to tell when I got all the fluid out because I could see the crusty top of the piston. I did get tons of the carbon granuals that most talked about...was the consistancy of sand.
I put the plugs back in, and expected to take 5 to 10 minutes to get the car to start since that was what everyone had told me. To my surprise, the car started on the first attempt, and then started to smoke like mad. My only reasoning for my car starting right away is that I REALLY took my time to make sure I got almost all of the fluid out of the motor before trying to start it (didn't want to hydrolock the motor). I guess the rest of the carbon I saw in the chambers was burning off. I was getting tons of smoke from the tailpipe and from the engine bay (ahhh, those nice unknown exhaust leaks). It smoked for a good 20 minutes before I got in the car and decided to take it for a little spin to help speed up the process. Drove about 1 mile under mild throttle to help clear everything out, let it idle some more, then parked it for the night.
The next day I used some Engine Flush, changed the oil and filter, and put in new plugs. Car runs great, but it ran good before. Still getting a slight hesitation at part throttle, so my quest continues. Hope this post helps someone in the future.
From Grant Fritts
With all of the recent talk about using the MCCC to clean the throttle body through the PCV hose, I'd like to make a few comments.
My 90' AWD Talon became in need of a new ISC recently, but on the early 90 models the ISC is on the front of the TB and the lower screw is almost impossible to get to so instead I removed my one-piece UIC pipe (no TB elbow used), disconnected e vacuum lines, electrical connectors and coolant hoses from the TB and pulled it loose fairly quickly.
The throttle body was pretty dirty and I used the MCCC, some rags and some q-tips to clean out all of the crevices including the ISC housing and EGR(?) passages. I let it soak for a bit and noticed that it took a little bit of rubbing to remove some of the carbon build-up, especially around the butterfly mechanism.
My concern is that simply spraying the cleaner into the TB is not going to do nearly as good a job of cleaning the TB as physically removing it and bench cleaning it by hand. I'm not saying that it won't do anything, but it's really not that difficult to remove the TB from the intake manifold and then hand-clean it. My other concern with spraying the stuff into the TB while the car is running is the possiblity of sucking a bunch of crud\carbon into the engine, not necessarily from the TB, but as all of the cleaner spray runs down the walls of the intake manifold runners. Believe me, the inside of the intake manifold makes a dirty TB look immaculate! Personally, I'd prefer that only air travel through my TB and intake manifold.
Just my 2 cents!
[One thing I think people are forgetting. If you are letting this stuff sit for any amount of time in the cylinders, it will be draining past the oil rings and diluting your oil. I would think an oil and filter change would be good to do afterwards when no more smoke is being generated. -talon mgr]
From Kyle Zingg
>I used the MCCC(one can) a couple of weeks ago. Just disconnected the hose from the PCV
>and jetted it into the hose. It sucked it right in. I didn't see any performance gains, or
>lifter tick reduction. I also didn't see any smoke come from my tail pipe at all. Is this
>normal? Or is my technique wrong?
Did the same trick just before the ShootOut. Pulled the plugs and was not surprised by what I saw. The stuff works, but through the PCV is not the way to do it. Cyl #4 saw most of the cleaner, with less in 3 & 2 and none made it into #1. The car didn't run better but the motor is an oilaholic, so I didn't expect any improvement.
Try it through a throttle body hose or just pull the plugs, spray in, and let sit overnight. That way you'll be sure to hit all the cylinders. I'll be cleaning mine from the inside. ;-0
From Scott Willard
>Just tried that Mopar Combustion Chamber Cleaner on my 91 Tsi.
>Great stuff! You always see on those TV commericals how adding our
>additive will make your car run like new or how our product completely
>changes your car. Well, here's something that's not a complete lie.
Dan, I used the same treatment on my car and I could feel a power increase afterwards. And believe me, I am the LAST guy that will admit that something that I have done to my car will actually make it FEEL faster. The only things that I have added to my car that I will admit actually made it FEEL faster was the MBC and the test pipe [that I use for open track days and autoxes]. This includes SMIC, Water Injection, IC sprayer, UIC pipe, full exhaust, ESP legal port work, fuel pump etc etc etc... My car has been burning a little oil (soon to be fixed) and I think that something was clogged up from the residue. I think that it was most likely the intake valves.
I performed two different cleanings as described by a guy that had low power problems on his GVR4. I have the printout of his directions in front of me now but his name is not on it. The person that wrote this procedure [NOT ME] deserves credit for this. All I have on him is an old email address (res122@psu.edu). This info is on a DSM website somewhere if you want the complete procedure.
The first cleaning was just to spray an entire can into the intake manifold VIA the PCV hose while idling.
The second cleaning was to spray 1/4 of a can into each cylinder thru the spark plug holes and let it soak for about 6 hours. Then I drained the excess fluid from the cylinders and cranked the engine without the plugs in the holes to eject any other fluid that might be lurking in there. Small chunks of carbon were thrown up out of the plug holes. It was amazing how the MCCC had broken up the carbon. There was so much of it that I had to clean up the spark plug wells and the spark plug threads (using paper towels and WD-40). What a mess. Be sure to drain off the excess fluid before starting your car. You really don't want to hydrolock your engine.
Anyway, the car was difficult to start (yes I replaced the plugs :-)) and it ran horribly for a minute or so until I was able to clear the cylinders a bit. It smoked badly too. But after the cleaning things were much improved. Better throttle response and yes...more power...CLEARLY.
After running the car for a few minutes I changed the oil too. The MCCC does get into your oil when you do the second procedure.